Page 21 of Throne of Ice and Blood

“I swear she ran in here,” someone says.

“Then where is she?” another male voice growls back. This one I recognize. It’s the first shifter who was chasing me. “There’s no one here.”

“If you’re looking for a woman in a black cloak, she pretended to run in here but then she doubled back and took the other road,” a new voice says.

“Which one?”

“The one just to the left there.”

Angry cursing echoes through the air but then grows fainter along with the stomping of boots.

I heave a deep sigh of relief as the soldiers who were hunting me leave to search the other street that some kind soul lied to them about. Pushing to my feet, I turn towards the other kind soul who saved me.

A human man with thin brown hair and a scraggly beard walks down the steps to the stone floor of the cellar. His blue eyes look me up and down in an assessing, but not hostile, way.

“I saw what you did for ol’ Jerry back there,” he says. “Was watching from the roof, ya see.”

“Thank you for hiding me,” I reply as I dust myself off and straighten my clothes.

“Mm-hmm.” He scratches at his beard as he comes to a halt in front of me. “Got very strange eyes, you have. Don’t look like no dragon shifter I’ve ever seen. So who are ya?”

Hesitation blows through me for a second. Revealing who I am might be risky. But at the same time, I need to find the human resistance as fast as possible. And if this guy was willing to hide me from the Silver Clan soldiers, he must at least share some of the same sentiments as the resistance. He might even be one of them. Or at least know how to contact them.

“I, uhm…” Worry flickers through me, but I ignore it and instead reach up to push my hood back. “I’m not a dragon shifter.”

He sucks in a sharp breath between crooked teeth. Stumbling a step back, he stares at me with wide eyes. Or not me. Rather, he stares at my pointed ears.

“Y-you, you’re one of them fae, ain’t ya?” he manages to press out at last.

I nod. “Yes.”

“Father Almighty.”

I have no idea who Father Almighty is, but he says it the same way that I curse using our Goddess Mabona’s name, so I’m assuming that it must be the human god.

“Well, ain’t this something to shock my socks off,” he says while shaking his head at me in disbelief. “How did you even manage to get into the city? Ain’t all of yous supposed to be in some forest leagues from here?”

“Yeah, I, uhm…”

Goddess above, how am I supposed to summarize everything that has happened to me these last few weeks? How much does he even know?

“Do you know anything about the Atonement Trials?” I ask instead.

“Them competitions where they pick their life slaves?” He smacks his lips and nods. “Yep. Heard the rumors, I have.”

“Okay…” I trail off, trying to figure out how to phrase this. In the end, I decide to just say it. “I’m one of them.”

Blood drains from his face and he takes a step back. “You…? You’re one of their life slaves?”

“I was. I escaped.”

“Father Almighty.” Running a hand through his beard, he tugs at the tangled hairs on his chin. “Whose?”

“Draven Ryat’s.”

His hand falls away from his beard as he stares at me. “The Shadow of Death? You’re his?”

“Iwas,” I repeat. “I escaped.”

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