SSCS 04: Installment 9 of 34
The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress
This is Installment 9 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here!
(And the character list is here.)
Previously…
“Could the silver thread have come from the Heart itself?” San whispered to El, remembering that conversation as the five climbed the rusty stairs back up to the street. “The Queen said those ‘bound’ to her would be affected by it.”
But El just shook her head. “No. She said ‘bound to her’, not ‘bound to the Heart.’ The Heart is probably bound to her also, and if that was done with thread then there would only be that one.” Their leader was silent a moment as they reached the street and paused at the base of the bridge, seeming to stare out at the glow of street lamps starting to light up throughout the surrounding sprawl of the city. “But you’re right, though. It might have been the Gull Queen’s purpose those Trawerlers were bound to, and so then her purpose that was cut.”
…The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress
Installment 9: 22.0213
***
The City of Bridges, just after twilight, was a place of soft shadows, and misty, slippery alleyways—and surprisingly few folk out on the streets. The streetlamps glimmered all along the lengths of the avenues, catching the shimmer off damp paving stones and the silver gilt curling around the edges of shop fronts. But many of the shops already were shuttered, and of those still held open, half had an eerie, green light flickering in the front window. The foot traffic was thinned out to barely more than a handful per block, and growing thinner.
“We seem to be in danger of breaking some sort of curfew,” El observed, her small, dark hand clasped in Lot’s pale-blue one, as they started down the nearest street leading inward from the outer rim of the city they’d just come from. “Is it a curfew everywhere?” She looked side-long up at Du as she said this, her words less a question than a command.
Du didn’t return her look, didn’t need to to hear her message. Instead, still strolling onward, the half-djinn closed his eyes, and lifted his face to the opaque night sky, listening. Subtly, San moved to walk at his shoulder, ensuring that his path wouldn’t wander while his attention roamed elsewhere.
“Not…entirely,” Du answered at last, fire-touched eyes still slitted. “Though there may be some level of partisanship at play. There are no voids of silence close by – nor any forming – but there are two large gatherings coalescing, and nearly at opposite ends of the city from one another.”
To this news, El merely sighed. “Well, that is simple at least. Lead us toward the one that is nearer.”
And so, as they walked, the streets that had seemed nearly empty began, slowly, to fill up once again. And it continued so until the road they were on lead them toward a small hill rising up sharply out of the river, a rising shadow only scantily lit. The streetlights were more shrouded here, though the avenues remained broad and straight. Instead, for light, more shops here showed green lights in their windows, though a few, rarely, held blue.
As they approached the dark, looming base of the hill, the foot-traffic began to flow nearly all the one way, and Ki’s pale eyes narrowed as they assessed the crowd, looking for the tell-tale hints of purpose and intention. “Lot,” they said, while the base of the hill was yet two blocks away. “Un-bind your hair. I’ll need you to anchor the lead.” As they spoke, their hands were busy re-arranging their own attire, shifting their shawl into a loose scarf that hid the pendant of their priest-hood, while revealing the fine detailing and lining on the coat beneath as they turned down their cuffs to match. By the time the group reached the base of the hill—an ornate, silver-wrought gate through which the rest of the crowd was being funneled, queued, and slowly passing—Lot had turned herself out to match them, the tentacles of her hair let loose and flared out for most dramatic, and distracting, effect. The low collar on her coat-dress likewise. The two couldn’t be called resplendent, but now they were clearly something to be reckoned with. The other three had fallen in behind them, easily taking up well-used roles of apparent subservience.
Reaching the gate at last, in their turn, the five Lazarine faced now one more obstacle before going through. It was the gate-guard, standing just to one side, who lowered her spear to block their path. But it was the leanly elegant man standing next to her, half-invisible in a silver-belted robe of deep-green velvet, who spoke: “To enter the Moth Queen’s garden, you must pay the fee.”