“She will,” Elli assured her. “She’s a good girl—she likes to work hard, you know—as long as she’s not in pain or frightened of something. You just have to let her know everything is all right and then she’ll do her very best for you every time.”
Tully just gave her a sidelong glance and Elli realized she’d said too much. People always started looking at her like that when she told them how their zorels were thinking or feeling. They thought she was odd for knowing—or thought she was only pretending to know or, worse of all, thought that she was crazy. But understanding zorels came so naturally to Elli it was hard to remember she ought not to speak about it to other people.
“What’s that interesting smell?” she asked, to change the subject.
“Spice District up ahead,” Tully said shortly.
Elli saw that the flapping fabrics had given way to stalls with wide baskets of many-colored spices. The air was thick with their scents—sharp and sweet and bitter and tangy and aromatic and peppery all at once. Looney sneezed and snorted but kept pulling steadily as the road climbed upward.
After the Spice District, they passed by the Leatherworks District and then the Metalworks, where every shop seemed to have pots and pans hanging outside, banging and clanging noisily against each other. Elli watched anxiously as Looney laid her tall, tufted ears back at the noise, but the doe kept pulling steadily, so there was no need to get out and reassure her again.
The people in the streets seemed to be mostly humanoids from Elli’s home world of Torl Prime. Though every once in a while, she would catch sight of a Tenebrian, their tall, thin bodies swathed in lace and velvet, just as Tully had described them. Some were carried in jeweled chairs, borne on the broad shoulders of burly servants but most of them were mounted on zorels of extremely fine breeding. Their fore and hind quarters matched seamlessly and their feathery manes and the long tufts of their tails were done up in elaborate ribbons and bows as fancy as their owners’ clothing.
The Tenebrians carried themselves with an air of aloof grace. In addition to their great height and slenderness, they also had pale blue skin—which in their women was milky white, giving them an almost albino appearance. Their complexions and manners set them aside from the ruddy-skinned humanoids from Torl Prime. It was clear they were aristocrats, out for a ride among the peasantry with whom they had no wish to mingle.
Elli watched them with anxiety, wondering how in the world she was going to get any of them to notice her—let alone get one to let her into the palace so she could beg for a bit of their Healing Lattice. Well, she supposed the Goddess would have to make a way if she really wanted her to fulfill this quest she had set herself.
At last they came to the Greengrocers District where Tully was to sell her thunder melons. As they rounded the corner and climbed yet another hill, there was an opening in the shops and the tall, golden walls of the palace came into view at last.
“Ohhh…” Elli breathed, looking up at its tall spires and gleaming battlements. “It glitters just like gold!” she exclaimed.
“That’s only ‘cause it’s built of sparkle stone,” Tully said sourly. “Damn Tenebrians brought it with them from their home world. Goddess only knows how much it cost to transport all that lot but they done it all right.”
She spat over the side of the wagon, as though to express her opinion of the Tenebrians and their grand palace.
“It’s beautiful,” Elli said honestly. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Well, good luck gettin’ into it,” Tully told her. “It ain’t like they let just anybody who wants to waltz in there. Still…” She eyed Elli stained white robe. “Maybe they’ll make an exception for you—you bein’ a priestess and all.”
“Hopefully,” Elli said. “Well, thank you for the r—”
The words died on her lips. Directly across the street from them, in front of a store selling some kind of ripe, red fruit, was a Tenebrian rider dressed in a rich blue velvet cloak with silver lace at his slender neck.
But it wasn’t his rich clothing that drew Elli’s eye—it was the gorgeous zorel he was riding. It was a purebred steamer—white everywhere except for the feathery socks at its front claws and back hooves and its mane and tail, which were all midnight black.
It was a beautiful animal but what got Elli’s blood boiling was the fact that the Tenebrian rider was beating it, as hard as he could with a stiff leather crop.
“No!” Elli gasped. The sight of an animal being abused had never been something she could tolerate. Before she knew what she was doing, she had launched herself off the moving wagon and was darting across the street.