The streets were too narrow, too crowded.
Buildings leaned together, their wooden timbers seared with age and rain. The cobble streets were broken, holding puddles of dirty water where the rain had pooled.
It smelled like wet stone, roasting meat, and ale left too long in the sun.
Taryn adjusted the strap of her pack and kept walking.
She didn't like it.
Not the noise. Not the press of too many bodies moving too close. Not the way no one paid them any attention. That should have made her breathe easier. It didn't.
They had spent too long in the wild, where every sound had meaning, where the silence before a fight was the only warning you got.
This town? It felt too… safe.
And that made her uneasy.
Lucien, of course, looked right at home.
"This," he sighed, dragging a hand through his hair as his silver eyes swept the street, "is civilization, my darlings."
Kah'el made a low, unimpressed sound.
