Raven.
When the girl's eyes shut the madame pulled me close, and with a hiss said, "If she dies, so do you." Before leaving the room with a swiftness I'd never seen before. The gnarled hand yanked the door open and her limp more noticeable at this new speed she hobbled from the room with.
My stomach ached with hunger and I realized it had been nearly two days since I'd eaten. Fumbling through the jars and baskets on the shelves, I managed to find some sweet toast and honey. I would have to make a quick trip to the kitchens to get actual food but this would work for now.
I'd always liked sweet toast anyway. My mother would scold me to eat something more substantial, like I'd fade away if I didn't have more meat, but even before joining the Aviary I suppose I'd always eaten like a bird.
Eli.
I ran what I knew over in my mind again. The Aviary sits alone on an island. The south-facing side is covered in steep slate cliffs. The edges are unsteady, and shards of rocks were fatal to those attempting to scale its side. To the North there is the only entrance to the island, a beach with a dock. The beach holds deadly secrets, there was only one safe path littered in luminescent pebbles in the sand. Those who wandered across the sand outside of the line of pebbles were trapped facing forward towards their pasts until they starved.
It seemed the only weakness was the beach on the north-east side of the island used by naked patrons, but that was disconnected from the other entrances to the building and constantly monitored.
If a little bird fled the grasp of the cage or a snake made it through her gates the Madame would have lost profits. Lost profits could not stand. This monstrous death trap was effective to keep its inhabitants on the island and unwelcome guests from its doors. By its design, the island was one of the most easily defensible buildings in all of Salva.
But the island frequently welcomed monsters, as I had been told. The Usurper and his knights were regulars. The rumor was that he would travel to the island to torture one woman, identifiable by her curly blonde locks and bright green eyes. Bright green eyes that mirrored my own.
I still pictured her as he'd last seen her on her birthday celebration. A silver gown of patchwork gems. Emerald green accented jewelry and green emeralds bound all over her hair. She'd been a prize many had found to be so enticing that a whole country had erupted in civil war.
I swirled my mug, looking at the amber liquid inside distastefully and then I brushed aside my own blonde lock behind the ear and scratched at the scruff building along his jaw. The barmaid tapped an empty mug against my table. "More ale for ya?" She asked me making the rounds of all her tables. "Not yet" I replied, lifting my half filled mug to show her I was fine. She turned her back to me and walked away.
She might be my sister. If the usurper brought her there, if he kept returning, it was likely that she was my sister. The missing princess of Salva.
A hooded man dragged a wooden chair across the stone floor loudly towards my table drawing annoyed stares from other patrons in the bar. "I have it, do you have the coin?" He announced as he sat, back to the bar and face towards the door. I pulled a bag out of my right inner pocket full of coins and dropped it quietly on the table. The hooded man picked up the bag, weighed it, stuck his hand inside to feel for rocks and took out a coin he then bit down on between his teeth. Satisfied, he dropped the parchment on the table and moved to sit up.
I grabbed his hand, "I need to consult with a sorcerer. Any suggestions?" I asked in a rush, wanting his opinion before he fled with his money. The man shook me off, visibly annoyed at the idea of spending one more second in the bar, "I'd start with the apothecary on Farth street."
I unfurled the parchment, the architect sketches of the buildings on the island were all there as promised. I wonder which room is hers? I strummed my fingers along the wooden table before furling the parchments back up and slipping them into my pocket to study later in a more private setting. With a flick of my wrist, I threw back the rest of my warm ale and then sat up from the table.
A few heavy steps later I was out in the alley. My eyes took a minute to adjust to the bright sun. I figure it is late lunch time from where it sat in the sky but I couldn't be sure because I'd lost my pocket watch when I fled home. I desperately missed my old timepiece, a marvel of gears and mechanics designed by a faraway kingdom and sent as a gift for my 15th birthday but I had to accept it was gone.
I trudged through the heat and the painfully strong stench of pig feces holding part of my tunic over my nose. The apothecary my contact had mentioned was only a short walk away from the pub I'd been in but the area was far less safe. My eyes scanned the shadows. By the time I'd arrived at the apothecary I was certain I was being followed, but none moved against me. I caught no glimpse of my pursuer. This didn't stop the dread that settled deep in my stomach.
My face was still far too recognizable even in LakeTown. It had been ten years since the last royal tour so they'd never seen me as an adult but my blonde hair and bright green eyes were rare in Salva. It was a trait of the royal house.
Lake town was a marvel of modern engineering, a merchant town built right out of the water with buildings built upon pillars of obsidian installed deep into the bedrock below the waves. Each merchant's home was connected to the other by a small bridge over a waterway and it could be navigated internally using either the bridges or the small gondolas. Over the years this had expanded significantly as more and more merchants joined the city or as the older merchants fell into or out of favour. Because of the ever shifting political tides in the city the slums shifted all the time but no area was worse off than Farth Street.
It was on Farth Street that the laws didn't necessarily apply. You could buy dark and twisted things you wouldn't tell your family about. Things that may haunt you until the day you died.