cat sits at my feet, regarding the chaos with vigilant disapproval.
As I wait for the vendors to pass, I cast my eyes back toward the buildings crowding the narrow, winding streets that cling to the perimeter of the temple, above the flood line of the river. More than one roof flutters with pennants, those of red and gold gleaming even in the twilight. But as the morning grows lighter, I see the outline of the other banners, and my blood chills.
These flags are gray, as if camouflaged against the dim sky, and there are many of them. Many more than I knew were there.
From my rooms back in the temple, my audience chamber, the terrace where I address my people, only two of these gray flags are visible to me. The rest are hidden by draped textiles and trailing vines, by the architecture of the temple itself. So many are hidden from my usual view that I can’t believe it’s a coincidence. Was it someone among my priests, the high priest himself, perhaps, who ordered the placement of those decorations, wishing to shield me from the increasing threat against me?
Or was it the Graycloaks, deciding in their leaderless, faceless way to conceal from me as long as possible the momentum their movement has gained?
Either way, the decision was made, and no one consulted me.
“Out of the way!” a voice snaps just behind me, making me whirl around, my heart in my throat.
An older man stands there, a scowl creasing his leathery brown face where there ought to be shocked recognition at the sight of my crown and crimson robe. He wears the tattered, undyed wool of a villager from the western mountains, although a necklace of beads and bird’s bones claims him for one of the riverstrider clans.
The bindle cat, back arched and body rigid against my calf, hisses a warning at the man. I raise my staff between us, stepping back. I open my mouth, but I’ve never had to identify myself to anyone, and the words Do you know who I am? stick in my throat.
Then the man’s eyebrows rise, his eyes lighting. “You!” But where I would expect sudden shame and a scramble to repair his gruff manner, instead the man begins to croon, “Little fish, little fish, where have you gone … ?”
A shiver trembles through my shoulders, understanding dawning as I peer harder at the man’s quivering features, into eyes wreathed by puffy skin. They don’t focus, those eyes, not the way a normal person’s do—their clouded depths look past me. Through me.
Mist-touched.
He must be harmless, or he wouldn’t be permitted to roam the market, but a flicker of fear follows that shiver down my spine. He might not intend harm, but if he were to stumble forward, or leap for me …
The ravages of the mist-storms are unpredictable at best, decimating crops, transforming solid stone, ripping away by the roots trees old enough to have known a time when I was not the only god to walk upon the ground. But far worse is what a mist-storm does to an unprotected mind.
The man is still chuckling to himself, gazing through me and continuing to sing in his cracked voice. “Tell me truly, little fish, are you the only one?”
“Let me help you, Grandfather.” The endearment, even from a stranger, seems to soften him, ground him a little. I swallow my fear, one hand already dipping into a few different pouches, gathering up spell reagents. “Let me bless you and see you back to your clan.”
The riverstriders are known for taking in the mist-touched, even those exiled from their own villages for being too hard to care for. Life on the water, they claim, is a balm for the wounds left by the mist.
“The lastest and loneliest littlest fish left …” He blinks, breaking off mid-song to look at me. But when I lift my hand and open my mouth to begin the spell I hope will help soothe his inflamed mind, he interrupts with a loud guffaw.
“And so used to swimming with the hungry river-snakes, she doesn’t even know she’s alone.” He wipes at his eyes, chortling, and then fixes me with a grave look. “It is an honor to meet the last of anything, Lady.”
A tingle of warning makes the fear at his proximity flare. The mist is not malicious—it is a force of nature, the magic left behind by the world’s creation. It only becomes dangerous when it gathers into storms, and