The Art of Blood and Power (Book 2 in The Gifted Trilogy)

34- Enemy Territory

Despite the fact that it was still early in the afternoon, the Shadow Court appeared as if a thin dark veil had been draped over it, blocking most of the sun's light from reaching the surface. The few rays of light that managed to seep through reflected a desolate and dreary picture.

The few people that milled around the marketplace outside the gates of the Shadow Palace donned intricate dark cloaks, fur lining the edges of them despite the fact that winter had not yet arrived and the only sign of the creeping cold was the frost that stained every breath. It was clear they were the well-off Gifted, likely friends of Nox, which is why they didn't give the Shadow Soldiers at the gates a second look.

The same could not be said for the timid workers that stood behind the market stands, selling home goods ranging from fruits to umbrellas. If someone were to watch a singular worker for long enough, they would realize that there was never a moment where the person was not aware of where exactly every Shadow Soldier stood in proximity to them. These cautious gestures told me all I needed to know about the role of the Shadow Soldiers: they were to keep the commoners away from the palace and, when necessary, they would intervene on matters using force.

I staved off an unwanted chill at the constant worry that seemed to follow every person in the market who did not have Gifted abilities to protect them if things took a turn for the worst.

"Why the hell would we not just use the Veiling to sneak into the palace?" I had asked in our strategy meeting as Cicero was laying out the different steps we would need to take.

"Because the Shadow Court has technologies pertaining to the Shadow Fold" he had explained. "When I was General, we would use this device that could detect when tears or foldings happened as a result of someone using the Veiling to enter the Fold. It can pinpoint the location as well as the time it occurred and is used to alert the user of potential ambush attacks or traitor Shadow Soldiers who attempted to escape the Army in the middle of the night. I have no doubt that Nox has one of those in place in the palace and, seeing as those things usually have a detection range of about a mile radius, we will need to stop using the Veiling before we get to the capital city surrounding the palace."

The first leg of our trip had been easy, with Cicero taking most of the brunt work of transporting us to the boundaries of the Shadow Court undetected, passing through the Wind Court at one of its border checkpoints. In the short amount of distance traveled from the border to the capital city, we didn't see a single Shadow Soldier or even a Royal Guard positioned anywhere. I tried not to feel too paranoid about it. Usually when things went too easily for us, it meant there was a trap waiting.

But there was no way they could have known we were coming. Not a soul outside of our group of five knew about our plan. We took careful and exhausting measures to ensure that the only people who knew what we were about to do were ourselves. This meant I wasn't able to give Tessa or Briar or even Katrina a proper goodbye in case the worst ended up happening.

I shook those thoughts out of mind. This plan had no room for doubts or hesitation. I needed to be entirely focused on the end-goal, preparing myself for the search for the ancestral crown that would have to be quick and completely undetected.

I kept my head down with a drab black hood covering my face. I had a basket in hand on the off chance that I was stopped and questioned by any guard on why I was walking through the city. Inside the basket were a few bundles of wool.

Cicero, June, Kess, Ash, and I had parted ways at the entrance of the city, wishing each other a brief good luck before lowering our heads and separating, moving towards our individual missions.

Mine consisted of monitoring the outside gate, our first barrier through getting inside the palace. In theory, there were supposed to be soldiers positioned at every checkpoint where the towering gate had the potential to open and allow a person through. Cicero told us that he could hardly remember a time where every single checkpoint had been completely guarded. My job was to check and see if this was still the case.