Black and gold flashed at the edge of her vision, and Sun’s blood froze.
Two guards in the uniform of her house were walking down the street towards her. At first Sun feared they were hunting for her, but she saw at once that that was not the case. They moved slowly, chatting amiably with each other, clearly off duty. All the same, they would soon pass by, and they could not fail to recognize her.
Sun turned and darted around the edge of a nearby building—and crashed straight into a red leather breastplate.
“Oof!” grunted the armor’s wearer—a reedy man half a head taller than Sun. Sun felt a chill as she recognized his red armor: the mark of a constable.
“Sorry!” cried Sun. She spun around him and made to run past—but the constable’s hand closed on her cloak.
“Here now,” growled the man. “What are you doing skulking about this—”
Before she could think, Sun reacted with instincts honed by her family’s master at arms. She spun her arm around the constable’s, trapping his wrist in her elbow and then striking his forearm with rigid fingers. The constable cried out and released her cloak, and then Sun was running through the night.
“Sorry!” she cried again, this time hearing the desperation in her own voice.
Dark below, she thought in a panic. What was I thinking?
The answer, of course, was that she had not been thinking. But the constable would not care about that. And if her family’s guards followed their duty—which they would—they would come running to see what this commotion was about. That meant at least three people were chasing her now, in a strange town far from home.
Her stomach lurched as she thought of being dragged back to her parents. For a mad moment, she wanted to keep running, beyond the town’s borders and into the countryside, and never return.
But that was foolish. She would have her adventure, and then of course she would go back.
She turned a corner and reached a low wooden bridge over a river fifteen paces wide, running through the center of the town. Sun took two steps onto the bridge before she thought better of it. She seized the railing and leaped over the side, coming down on the soft bank at the water’s edge. Crouching, Sun pressed herself back against a wooden piling, her ears pricked.
Heavy boots came pounding down the street. They thundered across the bridge. Sun heard three pairs of them. Her family guards had heard the noise, then, and now they were helping the constable in his chase. But all three of them ran straight across the bridge without pause. Sun heard “She went this way!” in the constable’s gruff voice. And then the street faded to silence.
Sun breathed a long sigh of relief. Holding the bridge for support, she clambered up the muddy bank to the street. She wiped off the mud as best she could, looking down at herself with a smirk on her face.
“You went looking for an adventure,” she told herself. “And you found one, even if it was nothing very grand.”
And then, past the far end of the bridge, her family’s guards skidded into view. It seemed they had grown suspicious and doubled back. One of them thrust out a finger towards Sun.
“You!” she cried. “Stop!”
Sun declined to obey. As she ran back around the next corner, she thanked the sky for her wisdom in not wearing her regular cloak. The guard had not recognized her from so far away—she certainly would not have referred to Sun as “you” if she had known who she was.
A strange feeling suddenly came over her. She skidded to a halt and tried to identify it. Then she realized—she had been here before. She was back in front of the tavern where she had first seen the guards.
She looked back over her shoulder. The guards were still out of sight, but their footsteps neared with every passing moment. She had no time to think.
Sun darted inside the tavern.
Immediately it felt as though a soft, gentle blanket had wrapped around her. The room was warm from twin fireplaces, but just as heartening was the low murmur of voices, filling the air with the cheer of good company. Most wore the simple clothing of Dorsean farmers and traders, with ballooning trousers and shirts that billowed at the shoulders, then gathered into tight sleeves running from elbow to wrist. Sun’s supple leathers were strikingly out of place.
She had stood in the doorway for a long moment now, and people were looking at her. Drawing her cloak tight, she picked her way between the tables. The furniture was clean but worn with age, a reflection of the tavern itself: faded, but warm; old, but enticingly fresh to her eyes. Conversations were friendly but subdued, and the patrons sat straight, their elbows collected, their posture considered. It was quite different from the drinking halls of Dulmun, where revelers lounged in whatever position they wished, some sitting on or splayed across tables, and more often than not, a fight in one of the corners surrounded by cheering onlookers.
Despite the difference from home—or mayhap because of it—Sun felt a powerful excitement stealing over her. It was as though she was in a skald’s tale, and every new face a character within it. The room felt like a place where anything could happen, where adventures lurked, waiting for someone to come and get them started.
And then Sun found a man in the corner who stood out among the rest. He was of an age that could certainly have been called venerable, but at the same time he seemed utterly uninterested in veneration. Contrary to the posture of those around him, this man had kicked his chair back to lean against the wall, and one leg was flung
