the largest remains. Not content to allow the creature to flee into the sky, Lord Calorian wrests a torch from the gate and stabs the flaming brand into the creature’s heart!
“Yet even as the deimos burns at his feet, Lord Calorian knows he is mortally wounded and his only chance of salvation rests in the hands of the crone—a healer so ancient that even in these desperate times Hegeria’s temple”—the boy gestured to one of the towers in the distance—“closed their doors in her face.”
“You can’t be serious,” Lydia muttered to herself. Mistaking the source of her ire, several of the women near her nodded in agreement.
“Old or not, she should have let him die!” one of the women in the fancy dresses called out. “It would’ve been no less than he deserved. This plight we all suffer—it is his doing.”
The boy ignored the comments. “Woe to those who risk the shadows of our war-torn night,” he said, voice trembling loud and dramatic. “But greater woe to those who dare cross paths with the Dark Horse of House Calorian.”
“Woe indeed,” Lydia grumbled, uncertain why she cared that the boy had gotten the story horridly wrong.
Circling the crowd, she approached the two women who walked as though they were alone in the square, everyone else tripping over themselves to get out of their way. Lydia stepped directly in their path, and they nearly collided with her before stopping.
“A moment of your time, my ladies.” Lydia dropped into the awkward dip of the knees she’d seen other women doing.
Their eyes focused on her, and one of them—a girl about Lydia’s age with brown hair and the same dusky olive skin as Killian—said, “I’ve no time for street urchins.”
She motioned for Lydia to move, but Lydia held her ground, one eye on the guards with them. Thankfully the ancient men looked too bored to intervene.
“Not even for the opportunity to own a jewel from across the Endless Seas?” Lydia held up her ring, balanced on the palm of her hand. The black diamond caught the sun, sending bits of light dancing across her skin.
“What nonsense is this? And why would someone like you have something of any value in your possession?”
“It was a gift from my father,” Lydia replied, trying to imitate Teriana’s voice when she was telling a tale. “Given to him by a Maarin sea captain who found his way to lands unknown and only barely managed to find his way back. Having lost his wealth on the voyage, this was the only thing he had left, and even then, he was loath to part with it.”
Which was all a lie. The stone was from mines in Celendor, and her father had bought it from a renowned jeweler in Celendrial who’d been more than happy to sell it to a senator.
Eyes narrowing, the girl plucked up the ring, holding the diamond to the sun to examine the quality.
“It’s probably just tin and glass, Helene,” the other girl said. “She’s swindling you.”
“It’s not glass,” the girl—Helene—said. “You know I have an eye for these things.”
“As you can see,” Lydia said, allowing her accent to grow thick, “I’ve fallen on hard times, and this is all I have to remember my father by.” That part was true. So painfully true. “But it would ease my parting with it to know it graced a finger as lovely as yours.”
The girl gave a soft snort of amusement. “I’m sure the coins I’d pay you would ease it more.”
“Only the pain in my stomach.”
Helene’s eyes flicked from the diamond to Lydia. “All right. If nothing else, it’s a story to amuse Her Highness.”
Lifting a jingling purse that matched her gown, the girl took out a handful of coins, eyeing them thoughtfully before plucking out the gold and offering Lydia the silver. “There’s only so much I’m willing to pay for a story. Take it or leave it.”
It was a fraction of what the ring was worth, but what choice did she have? Lydia nodded, and the girl dropped the coins onto her palm before sliding the ring on one of her fingers. Without even a parting word, both girls walked away. Lydia’s heart twisted at the loss.
“You must be either very brave or very stupid to have approached that harpy.”
Lydia lifted her head to see the storytelling boy.
“She swindled you,” he said. “I swear she’s a minion of the Seventh, but it looks like the other Six were watching out for you, because she’s been known