Ashwyre had just begun to stir, the city yawning awake with a groan of wooden wheels and a shiver of shop-sign chains. Vendors pushed their carts over dew-slick cobbles, the wheels squealing like gulls. A fishmonger's wagon rolled past Cerys, leaving a briny wake that mixed with the sweeter aroma of honey cakes from the next stall over. Bolts of dyed linen unfurled in slow banners of indigo and saffron, catching the faint breeze that drifted up from the river. Every sound seemed louder in the thin morning light, yet none of it clung to Cerys. She moved like a shade—head down, shoulders rounded, gait uneven, the practiced shuffle of an old sailor whose knees never healed right. The faded cloak she wore had been rubbed with peat until the wool smelled of smoke and algae; it hid the red of her hair so completely that even she nearly forgot its color.
Rodion flickered inside her vision, his text crisp and clinical.
