Page 73 of A Sky of Emerald Stars

I kicked for Lanky’s knee but only landed on his shin, and he yanked my head back farther until my chin was pointed toward the sky. He had the audacity to laugh as his other hand wrapped around me and yanked me against him.

Good.

I forced all my weight into him, my momentum making him lose his footing, and we both stumbled backward into the glass window. I heard the shattering sound before I felt my stomach dip, and we tumbled through the window into the tavern. Luckily, Lanky made an excellent shield and I didn’t feel a single cut as I landed back on top of him. I rolled off him toward a patch of bare floor that wasn’t covered in scattered glass shards.

Lanky got to his feet first, but instead of turning back to where he could’ve easily pummeled me into the ground, he bolted out the door, whining, “Sallin’s going to kill us when he sees what we did to his window!” He shouted to his comrades across the alley. “Come on, Bones—let’s get out of here.”

Grateful Lanky’s broad boots had swept clear a path for my bare soles, I scrambled to my feet just in time to see Navin storming back through the crowd, gaping at me. The rest of the tavern carried on their drunken debauchery as if two people hadn’t just crashed through their window.

“What did I say?” Navin gritted out, glancing over his shoulder before grabbing me by the arm and yanking me back out into the alleyway. “I told you not to cause any mischief.”

I offered him a sheepish grin. “Would you call this mischief?”

“I know where Galen den’ Mora is,” he said, grabbing the horse’s reins with one hand and holding my upper arm for show with the other. People cheered and toasted to Navin in the streets as if he caught himself a large deer and not an actual person.They didn’t even know I was a Wolf, which made their cheers all the more disturbing.

“And Maez?” I scanned the streets as if I might find her.

“They threw her out of here about an hour ago.”

My body sagged in relief. “She’s alive? She’s safe?”

“She drank half the tavern dry.”

“That sounds about right.” Still, I bounced on the balls of my feet, adding gleefully, “I told you she’d be here.”

“I don’t know if I should be impressed or disturbed,” he replied.

“Impressed, definitely,” I teased. “But I should’ve known that she’d be nearly passed out before breakfast.”

“The barman said she went back to the wagon to sleep it off, but he expected her back by dinnertime. Said she’s practically lived in there the past two weeks.”

Two weeks. Gods, it felt like a lifetime since that sandstorm, not simply a couple of weeks. Everything I knew about the person standing next to me had completely upended in that time.

“Well, I hate to break up her mourning,” I said with a chuckle. “Let’s go tell her we rose from the dead.”

Navin nudged me with his shoulder. “Cruel.”

I arched my brow. “You’re just now realizing that?”

Sadie

We found Galen den’ Mora parked at the edge of the city where a few tussocks poked up from the sand and the oxen grazed. How they knew not to wander too close to the edge, I had no idea. The jagged cliffside seemed to appear out of nowhere, the sand on the mountain blurring into the sand far below. My legs felt shaky as we neared the edge, as if the entire mountain might plummet at any moment.

Despite being at the outskirts of the criminal part of town, Galen den’ Mora looked as untouched as ever, not a single looter or ruffian nearby. I scrutinized the wagon with new eyes. The songs transcribed around the edges were branded into the wood like wards, no longer just merry tunes but actual protection from harm. All the paintings and symbols suddenly carried more weight. What I’d thought once to be fanciful decorations, now I could clearly see was the magic of this place.

A dozen new questions flooded into my mind. I wanted to know how it all worked. Was there more to Galen den’ Mora’s magic? What were the limits of it?

I heard the snoring before we even got to the door. I yanked my hands free of their binding and raced up the steps of the wagon, Navin at my back. When I peeled the curtain aside, I let out a giant sigh of relief.

Maez slept across one of the low couches, a bottle still dangling from her fingers and drool trailing down her cheek.

“Thank the Moon!” I exclaimed, rushing over to her and pulling her limp body into a hug.

“Wh—” Her hands shot out, holding me at arm’s reach for a second and blinking the sleep from her eyes until she got a good look at my face. “Ostekke fucking gut me! I thought you were dead.” She pulled me back into a crushing embrace. “What the fuck happened to you? You look like you went three rounds with a juvleck.”

“Missed you, too,” I murmured into her shoulder.

“And you,” Maez barked as she looked at Navin. “How didyousurvive that fall?”

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