Page 63 of Bound

Home was everything. Home was where Da came back.

“Course,” she’d mumbled, still feeling abashed that she’d asked at all.

And she must have looked wretched enough, because then she was picked up and settled on her hip, which wasn’t very good at all because Mama had said she had to be big today and walk even though it was far, but her pack was heavy with goods and they needed coins if she wanted any treats.

Braum could have travelled.

The thought came unbidden, slipping in as she tried to picture him on one of the great ships. She’d stopped going to the sea—it only made a long walk even longer. The city itself was built into a cliff face. A tangle of towers and streets that must have taken decades to carve into the white stones.

Or not. She knew nothing of masonry. Maybe with good tools and strong arms, it would take little time at all. She wondered at the purpose of some of the bolts and bits of metal that protruded from the walls. Rusted and forgotten, as no one had taken the time to see to their full removal.

She joined the long line of merchants. It was slow if she kept to the side with the carts, but to keep leftmost often meant being jostled by those impatient to be at their stalls and making early sales.

Then there were those flying overhead. Some out beyond the city itself to attend to their respective professions. Crops and quarries. Whatever was too difficult or too expensive to ship from beyond the sea.

She followed the throng as patiently as she could. Kept from glancing too often overhead to see if Braum would know to look for her here.

She was growing frustrated. By herself more than the people. She did not like feeling unsettled, did not like that her thoughts turned so often to him. She would consider Firen her friend, if by the sheer stubbornness of the younger woman than any particular choice on Wren’s part. But she did not fill Wren’s mind each day.

She sighed.

Huffed.

Abandoned the carts and joined in the other pedestrians.

If she was bolder, she might have pushed out her wings as far as they would go. Would have taken up as much space as she could so that others would feel less inclined to intrude upon her person.

But she didn’t.

And instead she kept her pack close, kept her other hand over the buttoned pocket with her coins, just in case.

Thieves were punished harshly within the city—everyone knew that. But that made the ones that dared all the more cunning in their attempts.

For all the prestige that came from being toward the centre of the city stalls, she had always secretly been glad for her little stall on the outskirts. While the rest of the throng carried onward, she could step aside, watching with a lump in her throat and an uneasy tug at her belly that her stall remained little more than debris.

The damage was worse than she remembered. While the logs had long since been taken away, the stalls that had once been so familiar were now anything but. The streets had been swept, tidy and orderly as usual, but little had been done to fix anything else.

How would anyone find her? Assuming they allowed her use of anything else?

Wren moved closer to the broken stall. The smashed baskets had been removed, the cobbles free of splinters. She did not dare go beneath the covering; the supports looked all too ready to collapse at the slightest breeze.

“Would you be... Wren?”

She turned, her heart already beating a little faster as she braced herself to make the long trek back home.

Not the Proctor. One of his underlings, with a list in hand and a weary look on his face. He wore the long robes, but he had only a single tassel about his waist, so he must have been fairly new to the position.

“Yes?” she confirmed, moving a step toward him because she would not be rude. Would not give even one of his standing even the slightest trouble.

He glanced over her person, and there was something at the corner of his mouth that suggested he found her lacking. “Your arrival is rather late. You’re the last on my list.”

She closed her eyes, but only briefly. And if her hand reached to the end of her braid for comfort, then... that simply couldn’t be helped.

“I’ve rather far to go,” she answered as apologetically as she was able.

He hummed. Picked a speck of debris from his robe. “You’ve been reassigned.”

She swallowed. “For how long? If... if you don’t mind me asking.”