The Spirit War(24)
“So,” he said, pushing through the crowd until he was walking beside Josef. “You’re from here, right?”
“Yes,” Josef said without looking at him.
“Not what I expected,” Eli said, smiling as they passed through another of the vine-shadowed merchant squares, this one with a large, ornate, bronze fountain done in a fanciful representation of a whale gushing water from its enormous mouth. “I’d always heard Osera was an island of barely reformed pirates, terrible weather, and fish smokehouses. This place rivals Zarin.”
Josef stopped to let a cart go past. “Being burned to the ground leaves a lot of room for improvement.”
“But all this?” Eli said. “In twenty-six years?”
Josef shrugged, picking up the pace again. “Osera bore the brunt of the war so the inner kingdoms didn’t have to. In return, the Council waived most of our sea-trade tariffs. That’s the kind of thing that can make a small country rich enough to build just about anything.”
Eli grinned. “So I see. My only question now is what to steal first.”
“Nothing,” Josef said.
Eli’s smile faded. “Why not?”
“Because we’re not going to be here long enough for you to steal anything,” Josef snapped. “We’re going to the palace, hearing what the queen has to say, and then we’re leaving.”
“What?” Eli cried. “Wait, wait, wait. That’s it? That’s why you dragged us all the way out here? Powers, Josef, if we’re just going to tell this queen to shove off, why did we even come?”
“Because even I feel guilty sometimes,” he said. “Now come on. And shut up. The last thing we need is more attention.”
Eli stopped, affronted. The street was packed with people on their own business. No one so much as glanced their way. Still, when Josef was this prickly it never did any good to push him further. So with great difficulty, Eli kept further opinions to himself as he stomped up the hill after Josef and Nico.
The sun was high and hot overhead when Josef finally stopped them. Eli fell against a building, panting. “Please tell me we’re there,” he said, fanning himself. “We’ve been walking for years.”
Josef rested his hands on the swords at his sides, infuriatingly untouched by the heat or the long climb. “Almost,” he said, nodding across the street. “There’s the palace.”
Eli looked up. The road ahead opened into a large square. It was the most open space he’d seen since arriving in Osera, and the flattest. They were on the mountain’s shoulder, a long stretch of relatively flat land before the final assent to the peak. The buildings surrounding the square were as rich as any Eli had seen in any country, but the square itself looked old and almost shabby. There were no shady vines, fountains, or merchant carts, just open stone baking in the noon sun. The crowds were thinner here as well, mostly men in formal dress carrying leather cases and looking very important.
They were very high now. To the west, Eli could see the whole of the city stretching down the mountain like a mushroom forest made of red-and-yellow-tiled roofs, but looking east, the view was entirely different. At the edge of the square, the mountain’s sharp peak rose dramatically, and wrapped around it was a building unlike any Eli had seen in Osera. The palace of Osera was a hulking mass of rough-cut, weatherworn stone wrapped around the mountain like an ugly scarf. What windows it had were narrow as arrow slits, and its roof was tiled with stone shingles worn white by time and rain. There was no proper gate or guardhouse. Instead, the palace’s face fronted directly onto the square, its tiny windows glaring down on the lovely modern buildings below like the squinty eyes of a disapproving old man.
Staring up at the old, ugly, ungainly mess, Eli felt crushingly disappointed. If the brightly colored city below had been modern and inviting, the building in front of them was gloomy and aggressive, more like a lonely fortress on an embattled front than the royal palace of a prosperous, modern nation. Just the sight of it was enough to kill any joy left lingering from the beautiful climb up, not to mention Eli’s fledgling dreams of a glorious heist.
“Lovely,” he said at last, fiddling with his wig.
Nico shot him a nasty look, but Josef didn’t even seem to hear. The swordsman wiped a spare bandage across his face to clean off some of the day’s grime, and then, tying the bandage tight around his wrist, started across the square like a man beginning his death march. Eli and Nico exchanged a final, worried glance before falling in behind him.
The front entrance to the palace was protected from the main square by a guard box, a wooden structure slightly larger than a shed, attached to the castle wall beside the narrow main gate. There were two guards on duty that Eli could see, and they came out to stand at attention only when Josef had cleared the center of the square and was obviously headed their way. The guards wore minimal equipment, just a simple chain jerkin under their uniform jackets and a short sword like the ones at Josef’s hips, but they carried their swords like they knew how to use them, which was more than Eli usually expected of gate guards. The men kept their faces blank as Josef approached, but their hands were on their sword hilts when he stopped in front of them.