A Dangerous Destiny: The Pure One Book I

Chapter Fifty-Eight

As I mentioned in the last chapter, I am combining short chapters at the moment so they can be read more smoothly. As such, chapter 57 contains both Alex and Fiona again.  Because these next three posts are kinda intense and cliffhangery I will add no further author's notes till the end of friday's chapter. Please remember to vote and comment! This section is supposed to be exciting. I would love to know if it is;-)

Fiona

As Fiona waded through the tavern, slipping among the ruckus of inebriated men, no one paid her any notice. All eyes seemed to be focused on the young bar maid as she swayed her hips and teased the men raising the hem of her skirts higher and higher to appreciative cheers only to lower them again.

Fiona inhaled the stale sour smell of alcohol and sweat like a sweet perfume, listening to the curses and screams as if to a beautiful song. She relished the commotion, energy, life, and freedom. Anything was better than their prison bellow with its suffocating stench of despair and fear. Still, there had no time to waste. Fiona pushed quickly through the crowd and made her way to the door.

Outside the day was fair, the sky bright despite the late hour, the air pleasantly brisk and the sun warm where it rained down on her exposed skin, embracing her like a long lost lover. Fiona stood for a moment, surveying her surrounding through burning eyes, unaccustomed to more than the dim flicker of a candle flame for so long, blinking back the tears that temporarily blurred her vision.

Fiona was glad to see the streets still relatively full with the bustling daily traffic of people and horses. Servants headed to collect a final item from the market square and the shops along the main street before they shut their doors, men on their way to grab a drink at the tavern or a quick rendezvous with a lover before going home to their wives and families, there were plenty of bodies she might hide herself among. Fiona entered the throng of pedestrians with little difficulty and brazenly stuck to the main streets, allowing the crowds to act as her disguise.

Their  current safe house was centrally located within the middle districts and it did not take long before she could make out the wall of the Western Gate. She slowed her pace,  knowing it was unwise to get too close on her approach. There was likely to be a fair amount of traffic at the checkpoint so late in the day, as various merchants, farmers, and craftsmen left the city on their way to residences in one of the closer suburbs of the Capitol. The commotion would be useful, but she could not risk being approached by any of the King's guard that stood sentry at the main entrance to the city. Fiona walked around a particularly tall building and slid into the thin alleyway beside. Pressing herself close to the brick wall she hid in the shadow as she edged her way closer and closer to the gate to gain a clearer view.

As she had suspected, there was no lack of activity or armed soldiers standing guard. The rumors of intensified security, at least at the Western Gate, seemed to hold true. Still, Fiona was not entirely disheartened. It had been less than three weeks since the attack on the House of Lords, yet already she could sense in the eyes of the citizens as well as the sentries, a certain ease and comfort.

As the King's men searched the wares of the merchants that passed their way she observed that their inspection were no more pointed or intense than any other she had witnessed before in crossing the boarder. Fiona imagined that if she were to have come only a few hours earlier, without the pressure of the impending curfew adding to the guards alertness against the immense throng of people, it would have been quite easy to pass through the gate. With no cargo to inspect, a smile, and a quick flash of one of the gate passes Alex had obtained for such purpose, Fiona had little doubt that she might be able to leave the city walls without much effort.