Balance and Wind

Chapter 8

Painfully, the weight of Roman’s uniform swore to drag him to the ground in exhaustion. He had taken it upon himself to patrol the streets until the sun had began to rise, and the birds sung sweetly. He doubted he got any real sleep since then as, now, he stalked the docks once again.

           The attack had been three days ago, and there was still no luck trying to find how Scrios infiltrated the city so easily.

            Roman had spread butter harder than the Scrios’ flawless plan.

            Not that it was without flaw. They all died, but the four.     

            Kalila was currently going through the logs of what ships had docked in the last week or so, while Roman poked around the few remaining ships. Unfortunately, all were looking the similar. With their cargo being fish, and their ship names varying in names related to the ocean or someone’s body part. He was more than glad he hadn’t been landed the job of looking through them. Roman could barely keep his eyes open as he stood by the swaying ships.

            Sailors and fisher men brushed passed him in their rush. Yelling orders and curses at one another. People selling their wares along the docks and streets.
Roman hadn’t been down here since he chased Lady Jysmn.

The ship she had come on, the Little Coral, was no longer ported in the City of Balance’s docks, and he had only grown slightly suspicious of that.

Had her running that morning been a distraction? To get the guards to look the other way as she led them on a goose chase. Perhaps, the reason she was so mad that she had been caught, mad enough to hit him in the face, which was now a violently purple bruise, was because he had messed up her plans. Making them have to attack that night.

Although the party thrown in her honour was already the best place to stage an attack. Already, the Captain was working on sending spies into the two other countries in hopes of catching onto what was the real cause of this attack.

Maybe the party was just a show of her power. To steal the breath from people, to blast them out her way.

She had motives, her families mistreatment to her being the only one he could find. She had run away two years ago, and was now suddenly back because the King was sick. And apparently she had already enough sway to have the King throw her a party personally.

Lady Jysmn Graceline was a very suspicious suspect.

“Good morning, sir, may I interest you in something to eat?” a venders gentle voice called to him. He stared at her. She had ebony dark hair, but blue-green eyes. A low born with what could have been the breeding of a high born. One of the highest. “A mans got to eat?”

Roman made to dismiss her, but his stomach growled. Fishing two coppers from his pocket, he dropped them in her eager hand. The vendor food she handed him looked fatty, and almost unappealing.
But once he bit into it, he didn’t doubt he was going to come back a lot more.

“Make it myself right here. Tomatoes, lettuce and onion grown in my garden. The beef I get from a friend, and the sauce is a secret,” she ranted, pointing her tongues at the metal slab she had on top of hot coals.

“This is really good,” he almost moaned, his mouth still full. He was not really Lord material. In gratitude, he pulled a gold coin from his pocket, and placed it on her crumbed table. “I’ll have to come by again.”
He was definitely showing this place to Jed and Kalila. Roman still had a jetty to explore, though, so he left the vendor with his food. Stomach screaming in satisfaction.