Даниил Зверков – The Last Queen Of Noctyra: Awakening Of Aronella (страница 11)
Somewhere ahead, beyond the dark alleys and empty streets, there was light.
Warm. Yellow. Alive.
A tavern.
She knew now how to find it. Raik had known the city.
She walked, and the city breathed at her back.
The narrow lanes twisted between houses, ducked beneath arches, forked and diverged. She no longer chose the way. Her feet found it on their own, guided by the map Raiks blood had left in her.
This alley cuts through faster.
That corner is an ambush; better go around.
Here lives the old market woman—her house always smells of pies, and sometimes a loaf can be stolen from her.
She walked on and felt herself to be both herself and him. Two consciousnesses knotted together inside one body. One ancient, exhausted by eternity. The other brief, vicious, starved, full of fear.
Raiks voice still sounded faintly in her mind as she passed darkened windows.
She almost smiled.
Dogs.
She did not fear dogs.
But the habit of listening to anothers warnings remained—now forever.
A dog barked somewhere to her left. Somewhere to the right, a lute rang out and ended in drunken laughter. From a basement window came the thick smell of cheap tobacco and the shrill cry of a woman.
Aronella passed without slowing.
The coins in her pocket clinked again. She closed her fist around them—seven copper, two silver. The price of the wretched life she had taken. The cost of entering this new world.
Would it be enough for a room?
Raik had never known. He slept in cellars, attics, under bridges. Sometimes with women who took him in for a few coins.
But you are not Raik, she thought. You are Aronella. You were a queen.
The thought stung like cold iron.
Queen of what? Ruins? Memory? An eternity that had begun to feel like a curse?
She pushed it away.
Ahead, at the end of the alley, a yellow glow appeared.
The signboard—old, cracked, the image of a split anchor barely visible beneath layers of grime—creaked in the wind. Steam drifted from the half-open door. Voices spilled out with the smell of roasted meat and sweat.
She stopped in the shadow opposite and watched.
People came and went. Sailors in torn jackets. Dock laborers with hands hard as wood. Two women with bright painted lips, laughing too loudly, their eyes utterly empty. A drunk who had just been thrown out, now trying to stand and failing over and over again against the wall.
An ordinary tavern. Ordinary people. Ordinary life.
Aronella watched them and felt something strange stir within her. Something almost forgotten.
Curiosity.
How did they live? What did they speak of? What did they fear?
She stepped forward.
The door swung open, letting another patron out. The roar of voices grew louder, clearer.
She entered.
And at once—a wave. Sound, smell, faces, all of it crashing over her, filling every part of her, making her stop just inside the threshold.
Warm, damp air. The smell of ale, fried onions, sweat, smoke. A hum of voices in which she could now distinguish every word, every shade of meaning.
ship in from Talmor
taxes again, wont be long before nobody can afford food
that bloodhunter, Kael, did you hear
She made her way toward the counter, weaving between tables. People glanced at her, but no one stopped her. Pale, strange, foreign—but taverns were full of such people.
The innkeeper behind the bar was stout and thinning on top, with the kind of face that had seen everything and feared nothing. He was wiping out a mug.
What do you want? he grunted without looking up.
Aronella laid a silver coin on the counter.
A room, she said.
Her voice was hoarse, but the words came correctly. The language obeyed her now.
The innkeeper looked up and studied her sharply.
For how long?
I dont know.
He grunted, took the coin, and jerked his head toward the stairs.
Second door on the right. Water in the morning. No noise. No fighting. Dont bring anyone He broke off, looked at her once more. Never mind. Youll sort yourself out.
She nodded and went to the stairs.
Creaking steps. A narrow corridor. A door.
She entered.
The room was small—a bed, a table, a stool, a window looking out over the rooftops of the port. A candle on the table. Clean bedding. A floor that creaked beneath the slightest shift of weight.
Aronella walked to the window.
The city lay before her—dark, alive, noisy. Below, drunken songs still rang out. Somewhere people were quarreling. Somewhere they were bargaining.
She looked over the lights, the rooftops, the endless sea of human life crawling below, and felt something new rise within her.
Not fear.
Not hope.
Not despair.
Resolve.
She did not know who had destroyed her empire. She did not know whether anyone of her kind remained. She did not know what awaited her in this new and alien world.