A Shadow in the Ember (Flesh and Fire 1)

Ezra looked down as she pulled the rolled letter from the sleeve of her coat, unfurling it. “His name is…Nate.” Her gaze met mine. “Far less confusing than Nor.”

“Agreed.” I lifted the hood of the cape. While it was unlikely there would be much involved in this event, the paleness of my hair was noticeable, and I would rather not take the chance of someone recognizing me in case things, well, ended poorly. “Stay here.”

“Of course.” She paused. “Be careful.”

“Always,” I murmured, cracking the door open wide enough for the noise of the street to seep in and for me to slip through. Refusing to think about whatever liquid I stepped in since it couldn’t be what fell from the sky, I walked to the front of the carriage. “Marisol?” I whispered. The hooded head turned in my direction. The Lady knew exactly who I was, but like Ezra, her treatment of me whenever I saw her was the same as it had been before the curse. We weren’t close by any means, but she wasn’t cruel, and she didn’t behave as if she were afraid of me. “Make sure she stays in this carriage.”

She glanced up at the already-full streets. “I will drive around to prevent her from doing something idiotic.”

“Perfect.” I turned, stepping onto the cracked stone sidewalk and into the throng of people.

Knowing better than to breathe too deeply or to linger in any one spot, I waited only until the carriage pulled away from the curb before heading right, giving the pigeons having a party in the filth a wide berth. I moved among men and women returning from work or heading to it. Some wore capes like mine to shield their faces from the sun or to keep from being recognized. They were the ones I kept an eye on. Others stumbled out of pubs, their blouses and tunics stained with beer and who knew what else. Vendors shouted from nearly every building, selling questionable oysters, flat muffins, and cherries on sticks. I kept my arms to my sides, ignoring the lingering stares and the lewd, drunken comments from males leaning against the front of buildings.

Croft’s Cross was one of the only places in all of Carsodonia where neither the Sun Temple—sometimes referred to as the Temple of Life—nor the Shadow Temple was visible. It was almost as if the district were outside their reach of authority, where life and death couldn’t be managed by any Primal.

“The Crown doesn’t care that we’re losing our jobs, homes, families, and futures!” A woman’s voice rose above the noise of the crowd. “They go to sleep with full bellies while we starve! We’re dying, and they’re doing nothing about the Rot!”

I searched out the source of the words. Up ahead, where Ezra’s carriage had disappeared into the sea of similar transports and wagons, the road split into a vee. In the center was one of the smaller places of worship in Carsodonia. The Temple of Keella, the Goddess of Rebirth, was a squat, round structure of white limestone and granite. Children raced barefoot around the colonnade, darting in and out of columns. I moved closer, able to see that the woman was dressed in white, standing in the middle of the wide Temple steps as she shouted to the small cluster of people gathered before her.

“The age of the Golden King has passed, and the end of rebirth is near,” she yelled. Nods and shouts of agreement answered her. “We know that. The Crown knows that!” She scanned the crowd and lifted her head, looking past them—looking beyond the street to me. I stopped, my breath hitching in my throat. “No Mierel sits upon that throne,” she said. Chills broke out over my skin as I stared at the dark-haired woman. “Not now. Not ever again.”

Someone bumped into my shoulder, startling me. I tore my gaze from the woman as the person muttered under their breath. Blinking, I forced myself to start walking. I looked over at the Temple. The woman was focused on the group in front of her, speaking now about the gods and how they would not continue to ignore the people’s struggle. There was no way she could’ve even seen me on the sidewalk or knew who I was—not even without the hood.

Still, unease tiptoed through me, and it was a struggle to push thoughts of the woman aside as I passed an alley where several women hung clothing on lines strung between two buildings. A block down from the Temple of Keella, I spotted a tall building that’d once been a shade of ivory but was now stained to a dusty gray color. Red shutters covered the windows. Then, I was able to set aside the woman on the Temple steps.

I picked up my pace, edging around an elderly man whose lopsided gait wasn’t improved by the wooden cane he heavily leaned upon. And my steps slowed. A man stood under the arched stoop of the apartments. Instinctually, I knew it was Nor. It could’ve been the way he leaned against the stained stone, one side of his mouth curled in a smirk as he eyed those on the sidewalk. It might’ve been the tankard he held in a large hand, his knuckles split open and an angry shade of crimson. Perhaps it was the untucked, vivid blue shirt that he’d left open at the neck to form a deep vee that revealed the hair on his chest.