Rive stepped as the line dictated, waiting at the city gate, forcing Sethlzaar to the torment of the heat of the sun.
Sethlzaar couldn't help but feel that somehow he'd relegated the strain of walking for the crime of the heat. It was preposterous, considering he'd have suffered the heat regardless.
Or was it?
The priest, in his hooded cassock taken from within one of the sacks dangling from Rive's saddle, made walking look too easy. Then again, his hood did protect him from the sun.
Sethlzaar caught himself in a pout, and frowned. Not only was the priest oblivious to his problems, but now he was beginning to act like a child. It wasn't the priest's fault he had no hooded clothes.
The priest paid no entrance fee when he approached the guards at the gate. After a brief search, they were within the city walls.
The guards had only stopped him for the briefest moment, simply searching his sacks with utmost care before sparing Sethlzaar a look that seemed one of pity and sending them on their way.
Sethlzaar had intended at some point to ask the priest why he had worn the hood, but deeming the question one the man would most likely not answer, had allowed the heat of the sun suffice.
Arslagh proved itself worthy of its fame and, living up to the tales, told of its wonders. When Rive trotted into the city the sun was at its peak, signaling the presence of high noon, smiling upon them in a controversy, as seen amongst lords engaging political rivals in the presence of their subjects; enough to dictate a state of superiority but not too much to be considered openly disrespectful.
The city welcomed them with a market possibly the size of the conisoir if they dared to explore it. Though the concept was appealing, it didn't take Sethlzaar long to dissuade himself from the idea. Not only did he doubt the priest would allow it, it didn't seem like the kind of place a child would want to walk around alone. In the conisoir he'd thought only the toughest lived there. Casting his gaze around him in nothing but a simple market, he was as disillusioned by it as he had been at the tavern.
He watched each stall as they moved, each merchant enchanting passersby with tales and prices fashioned in the most elusive words, so much so that as obvious a lie as the words were, Sethlzaar wouldn't have been capable of pointing out where the truth existed and were the lies smiled to save his own life. This, despite how despicable it seemed, was art. And when he looked at the commodities they spun their compulsions for the sake of, he couldn't blame them. Every item screamed of quality he had never dreamed possible, beautifully presented in stores arranged so grandly that they created easily traversable paths he could only imagine created a labyrinth through the market.
From his place atop Rive, he watched the great city buildings, standing high and towering over the market in the horizon. Made of marbles, stones, and, bricks, they spoke of monuments the kinds to house behemoths able to withstand the harshest of weathers. Their boldness seemed to demand Ayla test them with the greatest of storms and harshest of weathers. It should have been unlikely since to declare such was to oppose Ayla, an action tantamount to blasphemy by the teachings of the credence.
The priest led them past a stall and Sethlzaar caught sight of elixirs and varying concoctions, some of which he could recognize where fashioned to aid treatment of illnesses as well as a few to heal wounds. He spotted a few Ventril had claimed where designed to give a man the strength of ten men by inducing an unnatural rush of adrenaline known to often drive men into a blind rage.
Still, most of them were completely unfamiliar to him. One of the vials held a green concoction that reminded him of the time Shallan had vomited all over the room floor when he'd come down with some form of food poisoning. He wondered what exactly it did that made a person pay to consume it.
It might not be as bad as it looks, he considered, scratching his scraggly hair before pausing and regressing into a frown.
There were a lot of things he'd been forced to learn as a child. One of them was that things rarely, if not never, tasted better than they looked, and since elixirs were only drunk, external applications were considered less effective and often times redundant.
Veering to the side, Rive followed the priest on a new road, ignoring the path that had remained before them and diverging into a segment of stores that traded in the most exotic of animal parts. He watched with awe as men ground and butchered legs, hooves, bladders, and even livers with massive cleavers held with as much abandon as a man drinking a cup of ale: easy and uncaring. It was startling how easily they conversed with each other despite the obvious potential for danger.
Yet, what caught and, unlike the others, held his attention was the beating heart submerged in a liquid with a hue of red he imagined was what blood would look like if diluted with enough water. It easily stood out as a Vulcan and, while it held him enamored, he wondered how it remained very much alive. It opposed what he'd learned from the priest earlier in their travels.
As if reading his thoughts, the priest spoke. "With certain nutrients, a Vulcan heart can be kept alive for as long as the nutrients are provided."
The priest led them down two more turns and out of the public's eyes, so that their path was littered with only a handful of people existing around them, walking towards their destinations in silent conversations and minding their various businesses. Whatever they were.
It wasn't long before the priest mounted his stead, settling behind Sethlzaar. He kicked the horse into a canter. Taking his one opportunity since they'd drawn near the gates, Sethlzaar glanced behind him to catch a glimpse of the man's expression, because now—as he had done before—he was beginning to feel the itch at the back of his mind that told him he'd been bought, not adopted.
The sight he met only made him wish he hadn't looked. If he didn't know better, he could've sworn the man seemed like a person hiding from watchful eyes hidden in the faces of every stranger.
Sethlzaar paying attention to his surroundings, found them engulfed in a sea of trees standing impossibly tall with branches beginning their sprouts at heights well above that of a full grown man, expanding largely the higher they went. The trees towered over them, their leaves blocking out the sun in a cooperative effort, their branches undulating to whatever commands the winds fashioned.
The forest came with a darkness. He could have easily believed night had fallen. But his mind held no space for pondering the time of the day as the darkness brought with it an ominous presence with the whirls of mist pooled around the dirt, near blocking it entirely from sight. From what the forest permitted Sethlzaar to see, Rive might as well have been riding upon the clouds on a haunting night. With the thought came the realization that sometime in his revelry the horse had been spurred into a gallop and they seemed to ride the clouds at the pace of lightning.
Unlike his first time in a forest, Sethlzaar's journey with the priest had adapted him to the feelings that came with it. He no longer feared the sudden attack of a creature that did not exist behind the trees, and when he did, however, it was with good cause. At least a good one by his standards, because a squirrel eating an acorn on a tree branch could easily be a python waiting to strike.
The realization of Rive's speed and evolution from a canter came with the acknowledgement of the inability to beat a hasty retreat. He had thought himself accustomed to the wiles of the forest, but this one drew it all back with a fury. He not only found himself looking around with every step the horse took but also scratching itches he didn't have.
They rode through the forest for hours. Eventually, Sethlzaar began to believe somewhere beyond the roof of leaves above them the sun was beginning its descent into solitude, relinquishing its watch over Ayla to the moon.
As if his fears were not enough, he felt the alertness of the priest, his head turning ever so slightly at intervals but never taking off the hood. Sethlzaar almost soiled himself when the man finally stopped.
The priest, stiff as wood, deadly as the night, and as alert as prey in the presence of predators, scratched his scar.