Page 52 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

The curfew was severely impacting Emmeline’s search for answers about the continent’s temple traders. Not because she was afraid of being out at night—she was confident in her abilities to stick to the shadows—but taverns and incense dens were closing up earlier, serving less which hindered loose lips.

She was tucked in the alley across from the Rogue Spirit, propped on an overturned crate. The Eastern Port was at her back, waves thumping against the rock barricade, and rubbish lined the ground thanks to the lazy Starsearchers who couldn’t be bothered to properly dispose of their shipments.

Her hood was pulled around her face as she watched the door across the alley, thinking of the man she’d killed recently. He’d spoken of a second-in-command. Someone who had been high up in the temple trades but still oversaw the shipments himself.

“Ugh,” she scoffed at the word in her mind, her stomach turning.

Still, she had years’ worth of information she needed to uncover, and she had no doubt that if the Second was still operating on Gallantia, he was who she needed to find.

When she’d staked out her recent victim, he and his friends had occupied one of the upstairs rooms of the Rogue Spirit. Despite her disposing of him, they’d clearly learned it wasn’t private. The balcony doors had been sealed tight tonight when she’d arrived, lights within off.

After scouring the den and finding no one questionable, she’d stationed herself in the alley across the way. Normally, the wait was peaceful. Tonight, it was hard to focus. And there were fewer distractions, fewer warriors wandering the streets with the looming curfew.

A commotion rumbled behind her, and Emmeline whirled.

A man stumbled down the alley, knocking into empty wooden crates and upending barrels. He shuffled, hands barely catching himself against the wall.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” he cooed.

“Drunk,” Emmeline scoffed.

But as she turned back to the incense den, the man screamed. “No! No! Don’t touch me!”

Emmeline had a dagger in her hand before she could even spin around. She ripped her arm back to throw it, but⁠—

There was no one there.

He held his arms before his face, staggering back into the wall. Cowering. “Go away, I’m begging!”

Blade in hand, Emmeline raced over to him, tucking her braid into her hood and ensuring her face was shadowed. “Hello?” she asked gently. “Are you⁠—”

He peeked an eye open, and in the space of a blink his attention shifted from petrified to murderous.

He charged forward, slamming Emmeline back into the wall. In her shock, her dagger slipped from her hand. Her head hit brick, and the world spun.

“Leave me alone! Tell them to leave me alone!”

He darted up the alley, across the street, splashing through puddles gathered between uneven cobblestones, and disappeared into the shadows behind the Rogue Spirit.

Emmeline groaned at the pain radiating in her skull, hurrying after him. He may simply be intoxicated, but he needed help. Her boots splattered water across the dim alley, and the man whirled at the sound.

His eyes widened, and he charged. He wasn’t much taller than Emmeline and didn’t have muscle to him, but his arm caught her throat, forcing her back against the wall of the incense den. Voices drifted up the basement staircase, but she bit down on her cry.

The man’s hair and stubble were both overgrown and unkempt, wild eyes rimmed in red as he bore down on her.

Twisting, Emmeline jammed a knee into his gut, just hard enough to get him to release her. He grunted, and she pulled a dagger from her belt in preparation. But he didn’t charge again.

He dropped to his knees, hands clasped to his ears and whimpering, “They’re loud! They’re so loud! I’m n-not supposed to sp-speak with her!”

“With whom?” Emmeline ask to steady him. She panted, keeping her distance in case he attacked her again.

“Her! Her! She is not mine!” He shook his head, eyes dazed as if seeing something in the alley that Emmeline couldn’t.

He was hallucinating. The bad drugs that had made their way onto the isle—he must have smoked them. Fates, he needed to visit an infirmary.

“Sir, can I help you? Get you away from…her?”

He only shook his head. “It’s wrong! It’s wrong!”