Summer Prince

Chapter 2

2

Layla

I pulled the hood of my black cloak lower over my face, held on tighter to my basket, and stepped out of the trees and into the narrow path leading to the marketplace.

The marketplace was a long corridor of wooden stands, erected between a natural part of the forest, where the trees curved and created a canopy against the harsh double suns. It happened only twice a month, and brought together the many races that inhabited this realm.

Orcs, gnolls, ogres, trolls, goblins, and even a handful of fae and humans—the last two races slaves to the monsters.

Usually, when put together, all these races would be at each other’s throats in seconds. But there was a silent treaty here. While everyone was trading, there would be no arguments, no fights, no bloodshed.

And most important of all: the orcs and trolls wouldn’t capture innocents to eat.

I shuddered, remembering the few times I had narrowly escaped such a fate, especially when I had arrived in this forsaken land a little over five years ago and didn’t know any better.

Now, even the trolls gave me a wide berth.

Well, most of them anyway.

I reached the first stands—some goblins sold trinkets they had stolen from others, orcs had custom-made swords and daggers, gnolls traded spices, and hobbits had some specialty cloaks and armor.

From under my hood, I saw as the creatures noticed my arrival. Like a blanket, a hush fell over the marketplace, but as I kept on moving, pretending I hadn’t noticed anything, they resumed their activities almost as normally as before.

Without wasting my time, I went directly to one of the stands in the middle of the marketplace. Juniha, the half-hobbit, half-gnoll who tended the stand, was known for her “delicious” breads and cakes—delicious had a different meaning here. If these creatures had even tasted the food of the other three realms I had visited prior to coming here, then they would know what delicious meant.

I stopped in front of the stand, and Juniha smirked her sharp, yellow teeth at me. “I thought you wouldn’t come.” She stared at me with her dark eyes, her face distorted by the snout-like nose, a wide mouth, and long chin. She was stocky and short, and fur covered her thick neck and shoulders. I should be used to creatures like her by now, but sometimes I still thought I had stepped into the pages of a fantasy book—a dark and dangerous one.

“I had to deal with some pests,” I answered in the common language. It had taken me awhile to learn it, and still now, I had to be extra careful with my accent.

“Again?” she asked, pretending to be interested. She wasn’t. All she wanted was to buy the herbs and spices I sold, which she used to make her breads and cakes. But since we started business years ago, she knew better than to ignore me.

“It seems it’ll always be like that,” I mumbled. Already tired from the trek here, and knowing I had to cross a good part of the forest to return home, I put my basket on her stand. “All right, here it is.”

I unloaded all the herbs and spices, and she paid me in silver and bronze coins. As she handed me the money, she said the same thing she always did. “I wonder what you want with so much coin.”

“Maybe one day I’ll tell you.”

She snorted, an awkward sound with her big nose, and then she looked to the side and yelled something to another gnoll in her own language.

Glad to have already been forgotten, I hooked the empty basket around my arm and turned to leave.

And froze.

The fae girl I had seen a handful of times hunkered in front of the stand across the path, her shoulders curled forward, her head low. Her auburn hair was dirtier than the last time I had seen her, and she had new purple bruises along her arms. And the damn metal shackles were still around her wrists and ankles—the four points connected to each other, to prevent her from running and getting too far if she ever decided to escape.

I clenched my jaw and held on tighter to my basket, trying to calm the rage building inside me. She was barely a child, though I knew fae aged differently than humans and witches. She could well be a hundred years old, but to her people she was probably a teenager.

And yet, somehow, she had ended up here a little over three years ago and was immediately captured by a vile troll. She had been his slave ever since. If I didn’t fear ruining my disguise, and if I didn’t know her captor was so nefarious, I would have freed her by now. But I knew him and he wouldn’t rest until he had her back, until he made her and the other who helped her pay for bothering him.

There was nowhere I could take her.

There were no portals out of here, unfortunately.

The girl turned and her hazel eyes met mine for a brief second. Then, she recoiled deeper into herself and rushed to the next stand.

I shook my head and shooed those feelings away. There was no reason to think about escape, or leaving, or saving anyone.

Not anymore.

I forced myself to move, to walk away. I had finished my business. Now, I could go back to my cottage and pretend this world was anything other than what it truly was.

“I heard it from the ogres,” a goblin told a kitsune as I walked past their stand.

“A new fae? Here?” The kitsune snorted, as if that was hard to believe. It was hard to believe, and for that, I stopped in my tracks and listened. “I doubt that.”

“I’m telling you,” the goblin said, her words slurring under the common language. “I had to go to their keep this morning to deliver some supplies. It was all the ogres talked about.”

“Hm, if that’s true, the fae won’t last long,” the kitsune added.

I sucked in a sharp breath. The kitsune was right. If the ogres had gotten their hands on a pure-blooded fae, then the fae didn’t have much time.

Which meant I also didn’t have much time.

I resumed walking. Once I was out of the marketplace, I pulled the hood of my cloak away from my face and started running.

I had to get to the ogres’ keep before they ate the fae.