Black Pawn by Ingrid Seymour

Author:Ingrid Seymour [Seymour, Ingrid]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PenDreams
Published: 2019-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

There were coins in my pocket. More than I’d ever had at one time. I thought of the sweets Timotei craved. Apples dipped in honey and rolled over crushed nuts, tiny cakes stuffed with jam, hard candy that lasted for hours in your mouth. My first impulse was to use the money to buy a bag full of them, but reality quickly skewered that idea.

“Why the gloomy face?” Marin asked, thumping my back as he stood outside the palace, looking down on Acedrex, dressed in our black uniforms with swords at our waists and cloaks at our backs.

He was the Second Pawn, a man of cheery disposition. Tall and thin as a young pine tree, he was probably close to his fortieth year.

“You’d rather stay and muck out some more horse shit?” he asked with a laugh.

I laughed, too, acting like the Nyro Stonehelm I used to be three weeks ago. Maybe I’d been jaded and bitter when I thought too hard about my lot, but I’d still had reason to be happy. Now, that had been taken away, leaving only ill-humor and darkness.

“No more horse shit for me,” I said. “I’ve got other things in mind.” I smiled crookedly.

“Attaboy!” Marin thumped my back again and laughed louder. He leaned closer and raised a hand over his mouth. “I highly recommend Madam Zussette’s. The ladies are particularly beautiful there.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, feeling dirty just by the insinuation that I would visit such a place. I couldn’t disrespect a lady that way. Father had taught me better.

Still, it gave me the perfect excuse to get away from the group. I wasn’t required to stay with them, but they had talked about drinking a tankard together at The Bad Bishop. I would join them later, but I had an important errand to run before that.

We made our way down from the palace, walking leisurely toward the city by way of a shortcut—not by the main, paved road that carriages took. It was a thirty-minute walk, first down the hill, then through a lightly wooded area. I had never observed Acedrex from this vantage point. I’d always been afraid of approaching either palace or any of the other nobles’ manors. And on my first day here, I’d been too distressed to pay attention to my surroundings. Today, however, I drank in the full view.

The city was imposing under the early afternoon sun. Everything was clean and orderly, streets running north to south. Across from us on, the other side of the city, sat the White Palace, elevated at the same level as the Black Palace. The structure was a resplendent white that shone like a diamond, making the manors scattered to its right and left appear dull in comparison.

Visiting merchants thought the place beautiful. Did they not notice the wall that imprisoned us? Or the monsters that decided our fate?

The mountains beyond the wall called to me. Their rocky outcrops didn’t appear hospitable, but whatever dangers awaited there couldn’t possibly be worse than the terrible nightmare Timotei and I lived in.

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