I can only temporarily forget today's madness when the marketplace, the same one I saw on the fateful day the royal guard stormed Bianca's little home, unfolds before us.
The lively atmosphere, with the fragrant spices from all over the empire reaching my nose, and the colorful expressions on the painted masks hung in wooden kiosks, this market feels more like a place I could get used to than the frigid palace.
The first order of business is buying a map, the pricey hand-drawn information costing a little more than Emma and I expected. But we don't have a choice in the matter. Making it to Belhelm is a matter of life and death. The precious scrap of paper, with eye-popping colors delineating between busy roads, quiet shortcuts, dangerous passes, and bodies of water, is even more useful than I could've anticipated.
