everyone treated the arrival of night as a reason to stop working. Here, there were nearly as many people about in the streets as when she’d first ridden through.
And almost nobody paid attention to her.
For once, she didn’t feel conspicuous. Even in Kharbranth, people had glanced at her—noticed her, considered her. Some had thought of robbing her, others of how to use her. A young lighteyes without proper escort was distinctive, and possibly an opportunity. However, while wearing straight dark hair and dark brown eyes, she might as well have been invisible. It was wonderful.
Shallan smiled, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her coat—she still felt embarrassed by that gloved safehand, though nobody even looked at it.
She reached an intersection. In one direction, the warcamp glittered with torches and oil lanterns. A market, busy enough that nobody trusted spheres in their lamps. Shallan walked toward it; she’d be safer on the more traveled streets. Her fingers crinkled on the paper in her pocket, and she drew it out as she stopped to wait for a group of chattering people to move from in front of her.
The map looked easy enough to parse. She just needed to get her bearings. She waited, then finally realized that the group in front of her wasn’t going to move. She was expecting them to defer to her as they would a lighteyes. Shaking her head at her foolishness, she went around them.
It continued like that; she was forced to squeeze through tight places between bodies, and was jostled as she walked. This market flowed like two rivers passing one another, with shops on either side and vendors peddling food in the center. It was even covered in some places by awnings that stretched across to the buildings on the other side.
Perhaps only ten paces across, it was a claustrophobic, bustling, jabbering mess. And Shallan loved it. She found herself wanting to stop and sketch half the people she passed. They all seemed so full of life, whether haggling or simply walking with a friend and chewing on a snack. Why hadn’t she gone out more in Kharbranth?
She stopped, grinning at a man performing a show with puppets and a box. Farther down the way, a Herdazian used a sparkflicker and some kind of oil to make bursts of flame in the air. If she could just stop off a little time and do a sketch of him . . .
No. She had business to be about. Part of her didn’t want to go forward with it, obviously, and her mind was trying to distract her. She was becoming increasingly aware of this defense of hers. She used it, she needed it, but she couldn’t let it control her life.
She did stop at the cart of a woman selling glazed fruit, however. They looked juicy and red, and had been stabbed through with a little stick before being dipped in a glassy melted sugar. Shallan pulled a sphere from her pocket and held it out.
The woman froze, staring at the sphere. Others stopped nearby. What was the problem? It was just an emerald mark. It wasn’t like she’d gotten out the broam.
She looked at the glyphs listing prices. A stick of candied fruit was a single clearchip. Denominations of spheres wasn’t something she’d often had to think about, but if she remembered . . .
Her mark was worth two hundred and fifty times the cost of the treat. Even in her family’s strained state, this wouldn’t have been considered much money to them. But that was on the level of houses and estates, not the level of street vendors and working darkeyes.
“Uh, I don’t think I can change that,” the woman said. “Er . . . citizen.” A title given to a wealthy darkeyes of the first or second nahn.
Shallan blushed. How many times was she going to prove just how naive she was? “It’s for one of the treats, and for some help. I’m new to the area. I could use some directions.”
“Expensive way to get directions, miss,” the woman said, but pocketed the sphere with deft fingers nonetheless.
“I need to find Nar Street.”
“Ah. You’re going the wrong storming way, miss. Back up the market flow, turn right. You’ll need to go, uh, six blocks, I think? It’s easy to find; the highprince made everyone lay out their buildings in squares, like in a proper city. Look for the taverns, and you’ll be there. But miss, I don’t think that’s the sort of