Preview of Book 2: Agatine

The night air sucked at Armand's skin like a leech. He stared out at the empty street from the doorway of the dusty stone building. A stray cat ran by with a rat clenched in its jaws. Armand felt bad for the rat.

He ran the whetstone down the length of his sword and tried not to think too terribly hard about the caravan. They'd left in a flurry once the fighting had started and traveled here so fast he scarcely knew what had happened. Jonah hadn't been terribly surprised when he'd come crawling back, blood staining his clothes and sadness blotting his heart, but he'd had the good graces to let him back in their little band anyway.

It didn't quite feel like family, but it was something. He had a place to rest his head at night and someone to play catch-card with, although as far as he knew no one in Agatine knew how to play catch-card. He even had some money, on the rare occasions they'd had an opportunity to earn it, but most of it went toward renting this little shack where the four of them lived.

There were people stacked above them up a winding stairway. Armand had stared at it when they first arrived. It seemed so out of place that he could barely contain his awe. How did you stack rooms on top of one another? But it was common here and eventually he'd gotten used to it.

They sounded at night like they were throwing boxes against the floor. The back wall was crumbling to dust and it made the wind howl so loud that the first couple nights he'd scarcely slept. He had to share a room with one of the other sellswords but he supposed that was nothing new. It was better than being homeless.

Even the clothes here were different. Instead of simple tunics light cotton and linen people wore robes weaved out of brightly colored fabric and interwoven with gold thread. At least the rich ones did. Armand was still stuck in his tunic, though he'd managed to get a leather breastplate that at least protected him a little in the case of a scuffle. 

But this place was home, or as close to home as he'd get, and for that he was glad. He had food when he wanted it and as close as he thought he would come to a purpose. They were an odd bunch, the four of them, and Armand didn't quite trust them. But it was as good as he could hope for after what he'd done.

Jonah called his name and Armand returned inside to find the sellswords seated around the table, deck of catch-cards already drawn. He sheathed his sword and took a seat.

"Hope you're ready to lose all your ingots," he said.