Wolf
Blackwater.
It’s a cesspool of a town; like most port cities where transient people intermingle to trade goods or change travel routes, it draws the dregs of society. Spies. Prostitutes. Thieves. And it’s in Duren’s jurisdiction, so the Valveres control nearly every gambling hall and brothel within the town. When I first started working for the Valveres, they had me doing more unsavory tasks than hunting boar—the kind of jobs that weren’t exactly sanctioned under their license to operate the legal vices. The nature of that work brought me to Blackwater more times than I care to remember.
As we cross the bridge into town, my stomach clenches. I threw a man off this bridge once. He hadn’t paid his debts.
Not the kind of place you want to take a beautiful, nubile, naked lord’s daughter, for fuck’s sake. And yet as we step off the bridge into the town proper, I’m cautiously optimistic. The number of glances we get on the street is shockingly sparse. Sure, there are leers, but nothing like we experienced in Charmont or Polybridge. And then it hits me: In a town like Blackwater, a naked woman simply isn’t that unusual. Whores probably cavort bare-chested in the alleys every night. The people here are used to such sensationalism, unlike the prudish villagers of Charmont.
Sabine doesn’t seem troubled by the riffraff, either: vagrants slumped in doorways, mangy dogs, fortune tellers who’ll steal your coin and spit in your eye. Her attention is riveted to everything we pass, like we’re wandering through a mystical cave filled with fascinating treasures, instead of the Sin Streets.
The sizzle of cooking meat reaches my nose and makes my stomach rumble. Mediocre fiddle music comes out of a second-story window. As we pass a brothel with a topless whore leaning out the upstairs window, Sabine leans down to whisper to me, “Is that a Valvere pleasure house?”
Pleasure house? Fuck me. The girl is so innocent she can’t even say brothel.
I grunt in the affirmative. “This is the legal vice district of Blackwater. They call it the Sin Streets. The Valveres own most of the businesses here, including that brothel.”
A drunkard reeking of herb stumbles out of the brothel, blinking into the daylight. His eyes fix on Sabine riding Myst like she’s Immortal Solene herself, awoken from her thousand-year slumber. And in a dirty town like this, she might be the closest thing to a god.
He gapes at her, and as she passes, tugs off his cap and presses it to his chest. I roll my eyes, but a part of me appreciates that finally, someone is giving Sabine the respect she deserves. Even if it is just a drunk.
She strokes her hair distractedly as she takes in a brawl outside of a gambling den called Popelin’s Hazard.
“Immortal Popelin? The pleasure house was named for him, too.”
“He’s the God of Pleasure. The patron fae of the Sin Streets. The Valveres worship at his altar.”
Foot traffic interrupts our conversation as we cross a narrow wooden bridge that spans a secondary branch of the Innis River. A few blocks downstream, the shouts of workmen come from the docks’ direction as sailors load and unload cargo. The reek of sewage and dead fish is overwhelming. This is why I’ve always avoided crowds: the tidal wave of sensations is too much for my godkissed senses.
Bristling against the onslaught of sights and sounds and smells, I jerk my head toward a ramshackle building ahead at the end of the bridge, where the two branches of the Innis River meet, along with a stream coming from the northern section of town. It’s a three-story structure that’s seen better days, but at least the pansies planted in the window baskets give it a modicum of cheer. A pictorial sign hangs over the door, showing the meeting of three waterways.
“The Manywaters Inn. You get your wish, my lady.” I give a mocking bow.
Sabine ignores my attitude as she peers intently at the widest branch of the Innis River, then at a flock of sooty brown swifts perching on a lamppost, then back at the inn.
“If there’s a bath, it will do.”
We board Myst in a stable a few blocks away, then enter the inn to inquire about a room. This isn’t my first time in the Manywaters Inn. I have memories I’d sooner forget here, but there are only a handful of inns in Blackwater, and this threadbare hovel is the finest.
Scantily clad prostitutes might be a common sight in Blackwater and even in the Manywaters Inn, but the common room still falls silent when Sabine enters, with her long hair kissing the floor and nothing underneath. My skin bristles with the protective instinct to shield her from everyone’s gazes, but realistically, the fastest way to get her to privacy is to get her into a room.
“A room. Your finest,” I bark at the innkeeper, and thunk a sack of coins on the counter.
The elderly innkeeper is thin to the point of being skeletal, her sandpaper skin sagging around her neck as she adjusts her glasses and peers shrewdly at me.
“You’ve stayed here before, haven’t you?”
I bristle again as Sabine turns a curious eye on me. “Just give me the room.”
The innkeeper’s eyes drag over Sabine’s state of undress as though trying to fit her into one of the three categories of women she could be: prostitute, wife, or sister, and coming up short on all. Her mannered bearing makes it clear she isn’t a whore. There’s no ring on her finger. And Sabine and I look nothing alike—we clearly didn’t come from the same parents.
“Two rooms?” she attempts to correct me.
“One.” My voice grinds dangerously against my teeth. It might not be proper for an unmarried man and woman to share a room, but I don’t give a fuck about propriety. There’s no way I’m leaving Sabine alone for an entire night in a town like Blackwater, even behind a locked door with me asleep at the threshold.
The innkeeper’s thin lips press together as she slides my coins into a drawer and hands me a brass key. I seize Sabine by the upper arm and drag her toward the stairs.
“Basten—”
“Call me Wolf in public.”
“Wolf, you’re hurting me.”
I stop short, dropping my gaze to my hand clenched tightly around her arm. I ease my grip, forcing myself to take a deep breath.
“I apologize, my lady. I don’t like crowds. I’m eager to get you into a room.”
She nods as we climb the creaky staircase to the third floor, a glorified attic space. The key takes us to the last room down the hall. The boards underfoot are uneven, and the mattress looks to have seen better days, but there is a copper tub and a pleasing view of the Innis River. Sabine passes right by the tub and takes a particular interest in the view, wrapping her fingers around the windowsill and gazing upstream.
I shed my rucksack, bumping my head on the sloping ceiling. These rooms weren’t made for someone as tall as me.
My gaze circles back to the bed as I unpack my bow and set it behind the door. I didn’t ask Sabine if she felt comfortable sharing a room. She doesn’t have a choice, anyway—but maybe I was a jerk for not even asking.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” I grunt.
She turns away from the window, chewing on her lip like she’s distracted. “Hmm? Oh. Right.” She starts going through the rickety dresser drawers.
“I’ll go downstairs,” I say. “Ask for them to bring up hot water so you can bathe.”