out of the God Catcher. Somewhere public and safe and distracting. Her stomach growled. Somewhere she could find a slake.
Tennora put her cloak on and picked up her shopping basket.
The marketplace was busy, despite the low-hanging clouds threatening to burst into storm once more. The sunshine filtered through the rain clouds as a cool, dim light that made the colors of the tents and the stormcloaks stand out bright as spring blossoms and ease the gloom a little.
Tennora strolled through the stalls, taking in the smells of fruit and baking flatbreads; the sounds of flower girls calling out prices and of cleavers coming down on big, rosy cuts of meat; the colors of fat oranges and coffee beans from far south, gold chains, and roses.
Every sensation grated on her.
She kept a polite smile on her face and kept her gaze perusing the various wares, but inside her mind her thoughts were a brewing tempest.
Aundra would help-she must. But where would that leave Nestrix? She'd seemed to enjoy the fight and killing the two men. Tennora shouldn't care where things left the strange woman. She should be glad to have survived the whole mess.
But the dead men had been trying to kill them. She could ignore that until time ran backward, and it would still be waiting for her. The men weren't simply victims.
And Nestrix had said the antiquary's shop was a dragon's hoard. Not just a dragon. A taaldarax.
The word tickled at Tennora's thoughts-where had she heard it? But the more she tried to pin it down, the more it slipped away from her stressed and tired mind. Nestrix had said the taaldarax needed those men. Was it a dragon that couldn't leave its lair? A dragon that collected antiques and relics?
Tennora sighed. She'd look it up later.
She noticed the half-orc, the one from the hearth-house, when she stopped to pick out a few plums. He stood three stalls down, examining fat, spiny perch, but really watching Tennora out of the corner of his eye. He wore his hood low, and a crossbow was strapped to his back. He looked nervous.
Don't panic, Tennora thought. She paid for the plums and hurried into the crowds, twisting between the shoppers to put as many bodies between her and the half-orc as possible. She'd lost suitors in crowded ballrooms that way-she'd lose him too.
She stopped again and bought some butter, glancing back the way she'd come. Again the half-orc was three stalls down, pretending to shop for wooden boxes, but watching her rather than the merchant. The merchant was giving him a hard look.
He was clearly no zealot-even if the hope had lingered in her despite the nature of the leaflet, there was no way he was anything but a hunter after Nestrix.
And Tennora.
He was following her. He recognized her. Who did he think she was, and what did he think she'd done? Her stomach turned over at the possibilities. He was stronger and he was probably faster. He was certainly as slippery as she was.
Tennora took a deep breath and made up her mind.
She slipped between the stalls and doubled back along the other side of Market Street, keeping her eyes forward until she had passed the Market Hall that stood halfway down the row of stalls.
The half-orc was still behind her.
Tennora hurried around a stall of curios and through a tent displaying polished apples. She glanced over her shoulder. He was still behind her, watching her zigzag through the crowded stalls.
More tenacious, she thought, than an Adarbrent. No chance of escaping-he'd follow her anywhere she could go. Her heart was pounding again.
If she couldn't escape, she'd have to let him corner her.
She walked faster. When she broke free of the crowds, she sprinted up the road and ducked into the alley alongside a bakery. A doorway off the alley presented itself, and she ducked into the niche, flattening herself against its side. She drew her dagger and held her breath.
The half-orc bolted down the alleyway a few moments later. He stopped a few feet beyond the doorway, glancing around. She leaped out of her hiding spot, dagger ready.
He shouted in alarm and froze when the tip of her blade found his ribs.
'Put your hands on your head,' Tennora said, 'push back your hood, and look at me.'
He did, moving very slowly. For the first time, Tennora got a decent look at his face. He wasn't much older than she was. His eyes were a strange golden color, and his hair was jet black and in sore need of a trim. His skin was the muddied grayish green she'd expected, but through it his cheeks burned pink.
'Are you blushing?' she blurted.
'A woman half my size is holding me up in an alley,' he said, annoyed. 'What do you think?'
Tennora jabbed him with the dagger point. 'How long have you been following me?'
He hesitated. 'Since you left the tenement. You never came back to the hearth-house.'
'And how is that any of your business?'
'It isn't what you think,' he said. 'I know about-'
'Selune preserve us,' Tennora said. 'Look, you can threaten and blackmail me all you like, but I have nothing to do whatsoever with that Cormyrean. So kindly shove off before I call the Watch on you, Goodman…'
'Veron,' he said, lowering his hands. 'Veron Angalen. I'm a bounty hunter, sent to capture the woman who calls herself Clytemorrenestrix. And I need your help.'
They walked back to the God Catcher and found a spot out of the rain beneath the statue's cheek. Veron told her about the wizard, the one Nestrix admitted to killing, and the brutal mess of his throat. Tennora was ready to hear that, and it was easy-surprisingly easy-to remind herself that Nestrix had been fighting off an attacker, someone like the men in the antiquary's. Easy to imagine the wizard, leering and cocksure, and Nestrix, cornered and determined.
It was not as easy to accept Veron's version of Nestrix's origins.
'She appeared a decade ago, near Tymanther,' Veron said. 'Before that, I can find no one who remembers seeing a woman claiming to be Clytemorrenestrix.'
'Perhaps she was somewhere else,' Tennora said.
'And perhaps she was someone else,' Veron said. 'Look, I don't doubt she's spellscarred. The lands around Tymanther are full of active spellplague pockets. Why is it so hard to believe she might have gone into the changeland swamps, maybe lost off the road, maybe looking for someone gone missing? She goes through the blue fire, and it changes her. It gives her powers, but it addles her too. Makes her think she's a dragon.'
'She doesn't have a spellscar. I've seen her undressed.' Veron's eyes darted away, and he blushed again. 'She took a bath,' Tennora added sharply.
Veron closed his eyes, as if he were trying to calm himself, and took a deep breath. 'According to the wizard's notes, she has a scar as long as a child's forearm on the right side of her rib cage. That's it, I wager.'
The mating scar, Tennora realized. 'It doesn't have the glow.'
He scowled. 'Well, they don't glow unless the spellscarred are using them, do they now? A spellscar is a good way to get that dragonfear people say she has. She used it on you?'
'Yes,' Tennora said. 'It's rather variable.'
'And you'd expect a dragon to do better, wouldn't you? Look, I know it's hard to hear. But you need to understand, she's mad. She does truly believe she's a dragon trapped in a human body-believes it with such conviction that she's convinced a fair number of folks. Smart people. Not just you.'
'What are you going to do to her?' Tennora asked.
'There's a bounty on her in Cormyr. That wizard she killed has friends. She's got to face judgment.' He pursed his lips, then spoke again. 'And if they don't execute her, there's people in Chessenta and Tymanther that will pay to speak with her too.'
'What sorts of people?'
'That doesn't matter.'
'Doesn't it?' That hit a nerve of some sort, and he scowled again.
'How many do you think she's killed?' Tennora said softly.
