Cassian could tell they were north now. The air was different. Cooler, more stiff.
He didn't know how far away from the gates of Norrath they were, but he had a feeling they were close.
He wasn't sure if they could pass through the main gates, or if they even should. He looked at Amy as she rode beside him. He remembered what he'd talked about with Dea, how would he even explain it to her. What did she even know about marks?
He would teach her about it when he got the chance. For now, all that mattered was entering Norrath and finding out how they were tracking him.
Cassian stopped a distance from the main gates. He could see it now — they'd have to go from here for now. It wasn't too far from Norrath, and not too close either. It was on the outskirts. A small gap. He kept walking, Amy a few steps behind him. He took the horses and tied them to a tree.
"Are we going in yet?" she asked.
"We're not."
"Okay."
There was no way it was that easy. She had questions, she had to have them. She kept looking ahead, not paying any heed to what he'd said. Like somehow none of it mattered. Like he hadn't just told her that they would be living on the outskirts of town like fugitives. Could she be dense? He wondered if she was — that would explain a lot, like why she kept asking questions about everything. Because she didn't actually know anything. Cassian looked around. He didn't know how he was going to make it work, but somehow he had to. This place had to be enough. They were going to live here.
He needed supplies for that.
He wanted to send Amy in, but she didn't know the terrain. He looked at her and she was staring at the sky again. Even if she did know it, she'd probably still get lost.
He had to get in himself, but he couldn't go through the main gates. The guards there could know what he looked like. Maybe they'd be shocked he was alive. He couldn't wait to see the look on all their faces. The Archon, everyone that planned to have him killed.
He stood up. That was when he remembered — there was a passage somewhere. An entrance, different from the main gate. A hole on the other side. They'd left it for people with the flesh-eating disease. They didn't let them walk with the regular people. It had been a while since the plague — far before Cassian was born — but one of the kings thought it reasonable to keep it, in case any other plagues came again. It was guarded, but not as heavily as the main gates.
Cassian told Amy to wait, to stand there, beside a tree, that he would be back. He walked around the gate, keeping his distance the whole time. He couldn't risk anyone seeing him.
He saw the hole, big enough to let people through, small enough that it wasn't royal. The guards there were practically asleep. Careless. He just walked in. It worried him, how easy it was to get in. Maybe it was a trap, maybe they knew who he was, and they just let him in so they could capture him. He kept turning, looking to his sides and his back. He pulled his hood over his head.
The streets were the same as before. The air had the same confining, restricting scent to it. He walked past the town square and saw the platform. It was moist, even from this distance he could tell — they'd had someone killed recently. If anything was different now, it was the fact that he didn't care what the temple did, or about Korvus's wrath. He could think these things freely. He walked past rows of buildings, the same places he used to like when he was back at the temple, and he wondered why he'd liked them in the first place. They were all a mesh of white.
He walked to a shop. The door creaked as he walked in. It was packed with people. Cassian pulled up his hood — these were different parts, far from the temple, but he couldn't risk anyone from the temple seeing him and causing a scene. If he started running in this part of town, it wouldn't take long before some good saint knocked him down and helped with his arrest. They had that behaviour embedded in their nature.
'Love and help your kin, as you would want yourself.'
More ways to keep them docile.
He stood still for a while, letting the man beside him pass through, then he walked forward, towards the man at the table. He was huge, twice Cassian's height and size. It was a scary sight. Cassian wondered if he was even human.
"What do you want, boy? Are you just here to gawk?"
"Two tents."
The man raised a brow — was it an odd thing? asking for a tent on a day like this. The man didn't care, though. No one did in the end. All he wanted was his money, so he went and got the tents, handing them to Cassian.
Cassian wasn't sure how much the people here knew, but it seemed that, for the most part, the civilians of Norrath were in the dark. That meant the Archon wanted to keep his death a quiet matter. After all, it went against everything he preached. Following the scriptures would mean a trial, and then he'd have to find a reason to kill him. And he would struggle — but then Cassian realised he'd attacked multiple guards at this point, so he did have a reason.
There was a ringing, a familiar ringing of the gong at the centre of the town. The one only the Archon was allowed to ring. He imagined him there, standing lofty at the top, ringing his gong, not knowing that his death was here. Or maybe he did know. Maybe he already knew he'd entered the city. So he rang the gong to welcome him. It was a gesture Cassian appreciated. He would let him know — kill him in some grand way too. To show his respects.
Cassian walked out the hole. The guards were still asleep. They had to be drunk or dead to be sleeping this deeply. He looked at them and saw the rhythmic rise and fall of their chests. Not dead, just drunk.
He saw the horses, still tied to the tree.
"Amy?" She didn't reply. So he went closer. She wasn't there.
"Where is she."
"Maybe at the back somewhere." Dea whispered
"I told her to stay here. So far she's been able to follow orders."
He ran to the back of the tree and looked around. She wasn't there. Either something had happened to her, or she'd fled. Either way, he hated this situation.