Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
He glances at the back seat of the coach, where Gwenna huddles next to me, holding my cat’s carrying sack. “Some things aren’t for sale.”
If they were, then my problems would be solved…or would they? Considering I have no money as well as no artifacts, I wouldn’t know. “Indeed.”
“So you ladies are heading into Vastwarren? This your first time in the city?”
“First time,” I agree, glancing back at the dirt field as it disappears from view. I’m tempted to grab a spade and try my luck with all the others, just to see if one can truly find an artifact in all that mud. If there’s even a chance, it’s worth trying, isn’t it? For a moment, I dream about shoveling a few spadefuls of dirt, just enough to put in a bit of effort, and then striking down upon metal. I’d pull it up and uncover a gilded, gleaming artifact. Not just any artifact, either. One with endless charges, just like the coach we’re in right now. Or perhaps one of the ones that recharge in sunlight.
And it’d have to be something useful, too. Nothing like the glass candle that creates an endless wisp of rose-scented smoke. Something like one of the shielding crystals that are used in the capital would be perfect. Or something that creates a sought-after item from thin air, like the decanter that pours serpent venom. An artifact of war from Old Prell, that’s what Honori Hold needs. Several of them, actually. We need defense, and a way to fund our hold.
And we need those artifacts to actually work. The ones currently filling our vault are all dead. A dead artifact is as useless as…well, as a holder heiress with no funds and no artifacts to defend her family’s holdings. I bite back a sigh and lean my head against the window of the coach, watching as another family hurries toward the field with buckets and spades in tow, chattering excitedly.
Gwenna nudges me, and I realize the coach driver was talking to me.
“Mmm?” I inquire, straightening.
“You didn’t say who you are and why you’re heading to Vastwarren City. Attending a party of some kind?” The way he says it sounds hesitant, as if he doesn’t understand why anyone would host a party in Vastwarren. The king avoids the place because it’s said to be rough-and-tumble. That makes me a little nervous. When I envision “rough-and-tumble,” I think of some of my father’s stableboys and how they get loud after they’ve had a few drinks. But that’s only a few stableboys. I cannot imagine an entire city of that. Leaning forward, I peer out the windows of the coach to the city in the distance. It looks like a great big stain spread over a hill, with the smog of a thousand chimneys polluting the air overhead. All of it looks dirty, but that doesn’t mean it’s unsafe…
Does it?
I’ve read a heap of books about Vastwarren City, but mostly in a historical context. I know all about how this spot on the plains between two rivers was once the hub of a large ancient city called Prell, and Prell was full of magic. The gods grew angry at the people of Prell and had it swallowed up by the ground, where it was forgotten for hundreds of years. Then, three hundred years ago, the Mancer Wars broke out. At the end of the conflict, magic was outlawed, and a new industry was started—artifact retrieval. Vastwarren City was built atop the bones of Old Prell.
Vastwarren is truly the only city that’s not under holder rule. The rest of Mithas is divvied up into great estates lorded over by holders like my father, and all of the holders are ruled by the king. But Vastwarren? It’s a place unto itself, and the Royal Artifactual Guild holds sway over it.
I don’t know what the city looks like inside. I know Old Prell had grand plazas with magical fountains, and the inhabitants imbued everything they used with magic, from cups to horse carts to weapons. It sparkled with energy and the people there were rich and glorious…but the dirty stain on the horizon tells me that Vastwarren City is an entirely different sort of place, and so are its people.
The coach driver wants to know if we’re attending a party, but he’s just making conversation. Everyone knows that the nobility avoid Vastwarren and its hardscrabble, rough people. We stick to our isolated holds and to court.
But the driver doesn’t know I’m noble, and he wants an answer. Might as well give him the truth. The new truth.
“My name is Sparrow,” I tell him, and just saying the name fills me with pride. I straighten, squaring my shoulders. “And I’m heading to the city to join the Royal Artifactual Guild.”
I expect him to make the appropriate awed noises that such a pronouncement deserves. Guild artificers are exciting, dangerous individuals, the ones stories are written about. They’re respected everywhere they go, and every holder employs the best artificer teams to hunt for them. Everyone reveres an artificer.