The guard still didn’t move. “On whose orders?”
Come on, Dorian.
A growl reverberated through Dorian’s chest. “On my own.”
“And you are?”
Dorian flicked the lapel of his cloak down. I couldn’t see what the guard’s eyes fell on, but his eyebrows rose. “My apologies, Regiment Commander.” He turned and circled one hand in the air. “Open the gate!”
I almost didn’t hide my smile. If nothing else, Dorian was a clever bastard.
Soon, the clinking of the chains rotating over their axes echoed through the street. Back in the direction of the barracks, no horses had appeared.
The second the jagged teeth of the double gates appeared and rose high enough, Dorian ducked his head and rode us through.
We trotted into the southern district. Back into my home.
The scent hit me at once, foul and pungent. Even thecobblestones sounded different under the horse’s hooves, like the creature trotted on a riverbed instead of a street.
Faces lifted, eyes searching. I pressed my face close to Dorian’s back as the gate lowered behind us.
When you’ve lived twenty years in a place—grown up fighting and sometimes fucking with the people in it—they know your bearing like their own palms. Even hairless. Even with a cloak on and the hood up. Know a person long enough, and you understand them subconsciously, instinctively.
Dorian broke the horse into a canter. One wide road would take us from the middle gate to the outer gate, a straight shot to the wall. My whole life hurried by.
Dorian had told me I could stay here. Could live as I liked for as long as I liked. But who would choose that? Not with these smells, these wretched sounds. Puking, husking, clanking, the green puddles lining the street.
I’d loved the people in this place, but never the place itself. People made a home, and I had no home here anymore. Better to die in the Killing Fields than whistle every night atop that wall, waiting for the threat to return while my toes froze in my boots.
As we rode up to the outer gate, two guard stepped up. I recognized them at once: boys I’d grown up with in the Dip. Finn and Rowe. They’d become day guard.
I lowered my face, gripped Dorian’s sides more tightly.
He brought the horse to a head-rearing stop. “Open the gate.”
“Two scouts on one horse?” Finn always had been questioning and skeptical. “And one of them a child. Or a woman.”
“Where’s the rest of your expedition?” Rowe asked.
“A regiment commander’s given you an order.” Dorian danced the horse in place. “Bad form for two privates not to heed it.”
Dorian may be a fighter, but he didn’t have our military cadence or words down.
“He’s got the pin,” Rowe murmured to Finn.
“Why do you have a woman on the back?” Finn sensed the bluff.
“None of your business,” Dorian growled.
“Hold there,” Finn said. “I’ll go get my regiment commander.”
No, no, no.
Deep in the district, the chains for the middle gate began their clinking. The gate was rising. The scouts were coming. We needed to get through this gate now, or not at all.
Punishment for stealing guard uniforms was one thing. Taking a horse was another. But thefting a regiment commander’s pin?
Death. Swift, merciless death.