“It should be over that hill!” Ameena called out from behind Ellis, loud enough for him to hear. He did not know why she pointed out the small hill, he had seen the smoke stacks miles ago despite the thick forest surrounding him.

  He wanted to ask her if she had been there, but instead kept putting one foot in front of the other. They had made good time, outpacing Ameena’s projected timeline of reaching the city by night and instead reaching it by midday. Despite the hours and the speed of their feet, his mind was focused on one thing, and one thing only. How to keep traveling with those two monsters.

  They would abandon him in the city, after they passed through the gate. Michael had made that quite clear this morning with a smile and a smack on Ellis’s shoulder, saying how it would be a shame to see him go and that he would ‘miss the little fella’.

  Every word out of Michael’s mouth during that exchange had sent grey and white lights popping off in Ellis’s eye, the weight of it gentle yet the feeling of his eye being poked out over and over again, even gently, was not a fun experience.

  However, he had realized why those lights were going off. It said so right in the necklace’s status screen. He wanted to smack himself for not seeing the answer that hung right around his neck.

  Lies. The necklace lit up his eye if there were deceptions. Once again Ellis glanced down at it, trying to figure out if it was really Ada that day when he had received the necklace, or if it was Anwir, planting the seeds, like he knew all of the bad things that were going to happen to Ellis and just couldn’t wait to see it happen. Ellis would never be sure. But he sent a prayer to both of them anyway.

  However, while he hated the necklace’s entire nature, he could not help but appreciate knowing exactly how Michael felt about him. So Ellis had nodded along to Michael’s falsehoods, pretended the man wasn’t lying through his teeth, and thought of a way to stay closer to the duo ever since.

  …until the trees around him parted into a valley, and the view of The Albus Citadel greeted him. Much like the stories his mother had spun for him in his youth, the first thing he noticed from his vantage point was the silk road that cut through the heart of the city, leading from the city gates to the beautiful palace built into the side of Albus Mons, the mountain renowned for its salt deposit that supplied every city, and almost every village in the empire. Or that’s how his mother had phrased it anyway. The city’s red tiled rooftops sparkled brighter from the white of the salt that lined the floors, the walls, the roads and… everything. It lined everything.

  Ellis could not believe so much salt existed! He could see the sun glinting off the salt crystals forming from where he stood, and he found it difficult to make out the people within the walls. And oh, the people. From the foot of the hill he stood on, to the gate far off in the distance was a long line of them, a mirror image to the line of black he had come across days ago. Except, more. Far more. If this was just the line to get into the city, he didn’t want to think about the staggering amount of people that must live within those high walls.

  Surrounding the walls was a thick moat that separated the city from the fields and fields of farmland. The land outside the gate looked like a painting, long roads all filled with people weaving through crops and farms that dotted the earth below him. They all intersected at the silk road, like a children’s paint of a tree, long branches connecting to a thick trunk.

  Its splendor took Ellis’s breath away. But the only thing he felt upon the sight of such beauty was loss.

  “Ada… Do you see that? I was going to move us there. It was going to be your wedding present,” he choked back a sob. “I miss you. They’ll be dead soon, I promise.”

  He felt a heavy hand fall on his shoulder, and turned to see Michael, who wasn’t even attempting to hide his smile at the sight of the city. “Good luck killing those guards, Ellis. Now, let’s go join that line shall we?”

  It took half an hour for them to reach the line. Once they joined, each person that was close tried their best to get away from them. Ellis wasn’t sure if it was the Rass corpses Michael was dragging behind him on a piece of old fabric Ameena had provided, or the rank smell drifting off his unwashed, bloody clothes. They stood in that line for three hours before they even reached the shadow of the high walls, the afternoon sun baking Ellis’s skin with its heat.

  Michael could not stop grinning the entire wait. Every ten minutes or so, he would bob his finger on the heads of the people in line, as if he were counting each one. His grin grew wider after every count. Sometimes, he smacked his forehead like he could not believe the amount of people here.

  But Ellis hated how he smiled at them. It was the same smile he wore when he was hunting Rass, and it made Ellis shudder. He tried to ignore it, tried to ignore the grief and the wonder and everything else, except on how to make that bastard want Ellis to stick around longer.

  They were approaching the front gates now, a golden hue that seemed to dim the sunlight with its size, the drawbridge over the moat hanging down to let people cross. On this side of the drawbridge, however, were the famed guards of The Albus Citadel. It was the single profession in Ellis’s youth that had tempted him away from being a hunter, until he learned he needed at least a 7 in strength to be eligible to join their ranks.

  After learning that, he had imagined them as hulking men with long flowing hair and a kind smile, that could wipe out armies with one hand and woo a girl with the other. What greeted him were ordinary men with swords at their hips, barely covered in any semblance of armour, lazing about and chatting with each other while a bald man with a hard face questioned those at the front of the line.

  Most would cross the bridge that stood over the moat surrounding the high walls after talking with him, receiving bracelets as they were ushered through the gates. But some were turned away at sword point.

  And every person turned away was always for the same reason.

  “Next!” the hard faced guard said, his bored expression draining off him when he spotted Michael strutting towards him with a smile on his face and his hand gripped around the hilt of his sword, the other arm carrying the several animals he had killed over the last few days.

  “Hello there!”

  The guard looked Michael up and down before he wrinkled his nose, not even glancing at Ameena and Ellis. “State your business and display your status screen.”

  “Can’t you see my business friend?” Michael waved at the Rass carcass behind him. “Trade!”

  He then clapped the hard faced guard on the shoulder like they had known each other for years. Every guard was on their feet the instant Michael’s hand touched him, and they didn’t even try to hide themselves spreading out around the trio.

  “No status screen?” he said.

  Michael just smiled down at him as his fingers curled tighter around the hilt of his sword.

  Ellis held out a hesitant hand, “sir, my stat—”

  He pretended Ellis hadn’t spoken. “We allow the children of Anwir,” he started, eyeing them like he had seen right through their facade. “They make good business. But hiding your status screen means no entry. Next!”

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  A grey light flashed in Ellis’s eye, that awful weight returning. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the black light though, so Ellis didn’t even flinch at it this time. But he did flinch at Michael’s reaction.

  The sword hilt’s metal squeaked under Michael’s grip, the sound making every guard’s eyes narrow and Ameena’s hand drift towards her waist. They stood like that for the next few seconds, the people that were supposed to be next backing up a few steps, the people behind them squawking at their sudden retreat.

  Michael held up his free hand in a placating gesture, “My good ma—”

  “That’s sir to you, pretty boy.” The hard faced guard grasped the hilt of his own sword now. “And I told you no entry.”

  “Are you sure we cannot negotiate?” Michael asked, his grin growing wider.

  “Quite. This is your last warning. Fuck. off.”

  Ellis wanted to obey, to run as Michael attacked them and killed himself on their swords. But he didn’t. Because the answer to his prayers hid beneath that guard’s cold sneer. It felt like he knew exactly how to get into the city, the solution jumping out to whack him upside the head with the simplicity of it all.

  And maybe, just maybe, once they crossed that fine bridge and stepped out into the city’s splendor, they would see that he was useful, and keep him around.

  Much like his conversation with Ameena the other day, he just had to not die in the process. So he grabbed the necklace around his neck, ignored Michael’s ever growing smile at every step the guards were taking, and stepped in between the two men that could kill Ellis with a simple smack.

  “Sir! If I may, we are here for trade like he said—”

  “Boy, I swear to the gods if you don’t—”

  Ellis leaned in, cutting the man off. “—And if we must! We can make that trade here. From what I know, those carcasses should fetch three gold each! Surely me and you could… come to some sort of agreement?”

  The hard faced guard held up his hand to the guards closing in on Michael and Ameena, all of them halting in their tracks as his eyes narrowed. “...Just me and you?”

  Ellis could feel the daggers Ameena and Michael were staring into his back. He turned and looked at Ameena, Michael’s glare too much to bear, gulped down a prayer and nodded. “Just me and you. I was… only a traveling companion, if I remember correctly?”

  Michael almost growled. “They’re not yours—!”

  Ameena caught on before him, and held her hand up to silence the man, her face contorting with rage.

  He needed to join them. Right here, right now, they needed him to get into the city. Unless she agreed, they would have to wait to get in, if they allowed her in at all. And that means she might not even get close to the Archduke or whoever she wanted to kill… unless they decided to wait, to not enter the city today.

  But during that night he had stalked them, he had seen the desperation, the hungry need she had in the way she mentioned this city. The way her lips had curled at her target’s mere title. If she decided to wait, Ellis would have gambled and lost.

  But from the fake smile she gave him, he had gambled and won.

  “Don’t be silly, we have business together, remember?”

  Ameena and Ellis stood staring at each other for a moment, Ellis almost enjoying the power he had over them. Then Ameena’s smile cracked, and Ellis started sweating, so he turned to the guard and said, “Three passes please. And all that gold behind us is yours.”

  The guard watched the exchange, looking at Ellis with suspicion in his eyes. But with a snort, he fished three bracelets out of his pocket. They were intertwined goat hair topped with a large button bearing the city’s insignia, a sword stuck in a mountain of salt, and handed them to Ellis. “Welcome to The Albus Citadel. Keep these on at all times. And you will behave, or I will personally see to it you and your ‘companions’ are kicked out.”

  Ellis thanked the man and tried to race across the drawbridge, but it wasn’t two seconds before Michael and Ameena were striding next to him. Michael’s hand, now free from having to drag the Rass carcasses, snaked onto Ellis’s shoulder, and then onto the back of his neck. Ellis tried not to bolt once they stepped past the gates, his legs feeling like jelly whenever he glanced up at Michael’s frown.

  But what scared him most was Ameena. Her fury had made her pretty face hideous. She stomped forward while her hands tightened around the stick hanging at her waist. It did not hide her paranoia though, because every few seconds she would check back over her shoulder like the guards would come for her.

  They didn’t start walking down the silk road, with all its strange people and their nonsensical clothing. Most of those people looked like Ellis, dressed strangely but still the same, except a few looked like the one man near the closest stall. He wore a purely black coat, his skin almost the colour of grey charcoal that no one else seemed to take two glances at, his eyes reminding Ellis of a Rass. He had heard tales of men and women from the north bearing their resemblance… but he had never actually believed they existed.

  They walked past a cart with a kind old lady who had goat ears calling out for help moving it, and strode into the alleyways. Passing guard patrols that turned from many, into a few, into none, they ducked into a dead-ended alley, most of the vast footsteps out of earshot now. Michael slammed Ellis against a wall the moment they were out of sight, holding him up with one hand that had Ellis’s legs dangling off the floor. Ameena stood behind him, watching Ellis’s face as her lip somehow curled further than when she had walked into the city.

  Michael wagged a finger at Ellis’s face as his eyes darted between the two of them.

  “You know Ellis, the only reason I lugged those stupid things all that way was to get paid. And like that!” he snapped his fingers. “You decided to just give them away! Taking away another man’s hard earned money tends to be bad for your health, or did your dead mommy not teach you to steal?”

  “No! Michael, I had to do that! It was the only way to get into the city! That's what you wanted, isn’t it!?” Ellis fished out the bracelets he was given, holding them up in front of Michael’s face to prove the point.

  He took them out of Ellis’s hand without breaking eye contact. For ten seconds, he uttered not a sound. He didn’t even breathe. Then a ghost of a smile touched his lips as hummed and hawed, before letting loose a deep sigh.

  “Yeah, but I was looking forward to a bathhouse, you know? I’ve been traveling for a while, some place to clean up would have been nice. But, you did get us in, thanks for that.”

  He dropped Ellis to the floor, a sharp pain spreading through the elbow he used to absorb the impact. Then Michael turned and walked away, calling out from over his shoulder. “Have a nice life, I guess.”

  Ameena didn’t move. She had her hand firmly gripped around the stick at her belt, like she had been waiting for her turn.

  “We can’t leave him now. He has to join us,” she said to Michael’s back, like it was the most painful truth in the world.

  Michael spun around midstep to gawk at her, the smile frozen on his face. “And why would we have to do that?”

  “If he decides to cause trouble, the guards at the front gate will link him back to us, and kick us out. Or, if Ellis follows through on his promise to kill all of them,” she gave him a hard stare, like she questioned whether he would even try.

  Ellis’s answer was to straighten his back from where he sat, heft the bow on his shoulder and growl, “All of them. Every last one!”

  She closed her eyes at that answer, the realization dawning on Michael’s face as she continued, “then we will be the first people they suspect. His ‘companions’.”

  Michael’s sword left his scabbard before Ellis could blink, and bounced it on his shoulder like he was going to cut Ellis in two as he walked towards him. “Or we could just kill him?”

  “And have them suspect us of murder? He was seen with us last and I know for a fact they wouldn’t forget your face, Michael. So no, we can’t kill him. We can’t leave him. The only thing left is to keep him close, make sure he doesn’t fuck up the mission.”

  “I won’t get in the way—” Ellis tried.

  Ameena held up a hand that silenced him immediately. “Shut up! Do not speak if you know what is good for you! I can’t kill you, that does not mean I cannot hurt you, you little shit!”

  Michael’s sword was still above his shoulder, frozen midbounce as he ground his teeth at this revelation. Ellis was sure at any moment he’d pounce and swing that sword, logic be damned. But then he sheathed it so hard it is a wonder the sword did not break. He punched the wall, the thud echoing down the alley as he stormed off.

  Ameena didn’t even glance at his temper tantrum. “Congratulations, you got what you wanted. We’re here to kill the Archduke. Now, so are you. Don’t fuck it up.”

  She followed Michael down the alley. After a moment, Ellis was running after her.