“That’s ’cause they were born without souls, they can’t feel nothing!”
“Aye, rats will never understand what they don’t have. That’s why they fought against us, ’cause we’ve got mages and healers when all they’ve got are their smoke and their steam.”
Morrígan tried to hide her tears, but there were too many people around her.
“I… I want to go home!” she cried, jumping from her chair, and hurrying towards the front door of the inn.
As she left, Peadair rang his bell, signalling closing time.
“Have you no homes to go to?” he bellowed, over and over, half in jest as he always did. “Have you no homes to go to?”
Outside, Morrígan started into a run.
Mother. Gone. Really gone.
She reached the northern side of the town square, taking the High Road towards her uncle’s house.
Without Mother, without Father, what’s left for me?
As tears streamed down her cheeks, Morrígan’s feet carried her to the front door of her uncle’s house. She pressed a hand against it.
How could this happen to me? Rage boiled in her stomach as she pushed the door open.
Morrígan barely took two steps into the house when a sudden scream split the silence, a howling from the clinic further down the hall.
Yarlaith’s patient!
The image of the young Pyromancer flashed through her mind; his arm being twisted and pulled from its socket with a sickening crunch.
Part of Morrígan wanted to peek through the clinic’s door and see what was happening… but she recalled her uncle’s words. A delicate procedure. A young man in great pain. A warning that neither should be disturbed.
Morrígan slowly turned away from the cries of pain.
She made her way upstairs towards her uncle’s spare room in the landing. Upon her freshly made bed sat a strange, folded fabric. As she approached, Morrígan saw that this was some sort of cloak made of out black feathers. Next to it lay a letter, which she promptly read:
To my dear Morry,
I know this is a day you will be happy to forget in years to come, but I did not forget that this was supposed to be a special day. This is a cloak made from the feathers of a beadhbh from the Glenn, and quite popular amongst travellers and adventurers these days. Wear it at night, and I promise you will be safe.
With love, Yarlaith
Her uncle’s unique signature adorned the bottom of the note, each letter looping extravagantly into the next.
Morrígan picked up the cloak and threw it over her head. It fit well around her shoulders and draped low without touching the ground. She crept into bed and cried herself to sleep, wrapped safely in her birthday present.
Chapter 2:
The Double Agent
Farris woke up drunk, not quite sure where he was. With a stretch, he dragged himself from bed, his head throbbing, his mouth as dry as the Dustworks of Penance.
He stumbled across creaking floorboards towards a nearby window, hoping the view outside would provide a clue to where he was. With delayed, deliberate movements, he pulled open the shutters and grimaced as sunlight stabbed his eyes.
Once his vision cleared, the morning commotion of Cruachan’s markets greeted him, with people buzzing around clusters of squalid stalls dotted along Barrow’s Way. It was a familiar sight. Farris figured he was probably in one of the inns that lined the North Wall of the capital.
He glanced across the room and cringed at the sight of the half-clothed female Simian sprawled across the featherbed.
I must have gotten stupid-drunk again.
Suddenly aware that his naked body was on display to all outside, Farris slunk away from the window and crouched down to put on his trousers. He spotted his leather tunic thrown over a chair in the corner of the room, then tiptoed across the floor.
The tunic was heavy; its concealed weapons and brass buckles rattled as he pulled it on. He tried to quell the clamour, but concern for his sleeping hostess vanished once he spotted a sink against the far wall.
He went over and twisted the tap, putting his parched lips to the running water. Although he didn’t believe in heaven, for that moment alone, Farris experienced paradise.
A jaded voice interrupted his bliss.
“You must be pretty thirsty, considering the state you were in last night.”
Ah, a perceptive one! Farris turned to face her, suppressing a grin. The Crown would do well to hire you as an agent in their ranks.
She was pretty enough, though her body wasn’t quite as supple as Farris’s typical bed-mates. Still, a captivating smile revealed teeth that would have been beautiful if they hadn’t been stained sallow from years of thainol and bacum abuse.
The details from the previous night slowly came together in Farris’s mind, but none brought him much relief. Her name was Jane, a barmaid working in The Stained Glass, and it wasn’t the first time Farris had found himself in her bed. Still, he couldn’t remember why he had been drinking so much the previous night.
“Marc, are you going to stay for breakfast this time?” Jane sat up and reached for a grey blouse on the floor.
