Legends of Dimmingwood 02:Betrayal of Thieves by C. Greenwood Read Free Book Online

too distracted to admire their magnificence. Why had the Middlefest celebrations begun so early? The sky-fires shouldn’t have started until tomorrow evening.
    The answer that came to me was one I didn’t like. Had I been out all through the night and the following day? It was possible. I had known men to sleep for days after a blow like the one I received. But if I’d missed the dawn celebrations, I had also missed my meeting with Hadrian. My heart sank, but I refused to accept defeat so easily. I set off briskly down the street, clinging to the faint hope I might still find the priest among the celebrants there. What other options did I have?
    As I made for the Beautiful district, I kept a watchful eye out for the city guard, because even if curfew had been banished for the holiday, as it apparently was, I still wanted to avoid attention. For that matter, I didn’t need any further encounters with street thieves either. But I needn’t have worried. The streets of the common district were nearly deserted, and I encountered only a handful of citizens hurrying, like me, toward the gardens.
    I followed the path I had left by the previous night and emerged around back of the temple to find the grounds crowded. The other day I had thought the marketplace teeming with bodies, but that was nothing in comparison to this. I had never seen so many people. They spilled out of the temple grounds and into the gardens. The entire yard was motionless, enveloped in awed silence, as every eye but mine followed the impressive display of sky-fires being engineered from an upper terrace of the temple.
    I viewed the scene in the eerie light of the illuminations. Tables had been set up around the grounds, many holding food, others kegs of ale or enormous bowls of punch. I passed stands selling glimmer-stones and flowery wreaths for half-pennies. It was clear the vendors of the city didn’t miss a chance to profit from the holiday. As I pushed my way through the crowd, I earned angry looks and muttered curses for treading over the feet of whoever got in my way—which was pretty much everyone. But I couldn’t care about courtesies tonight, not when I had only one thing on my mind. Finding Hadrian. I scanned the crowd for a large, dark-haired man in gray robes, but finding the priest among this mass of humanity felt like a hopeless task. Clambering up a low half-wall at the yard’s edge to get a better view over the heads of the crowd, I studied the audience.
    Once, I caught the flash of a gray robe, but when I looked closer it was only one of the temple priests, ducking through the crowd on some errand. When at length, the sky-fire display ended and the crowd began to mill around, it became impossible for me to see anything. A handful of rowdy youngsters came, shoving and crowding me for my spot atop the wall and I gave it up without a fight. It was clear I wasn’t going to find the priest like this anyway.
    I shoved through the press again, even more difficult now the crowd was in motion, and fought against the stream of people slowly pouring out of the yard. I emerged at the front steps of the temple only to find the doors were shut against the late hour and I couldn’t gain admittance. After making a final circuit of the grounds, I gave up in despair and left the grounds to wander off into the gardens.
    I walked past the water cemetery and the paradin pens and the tall statue of Queen Tamliess. Someone had set a garland of ivy leaves atop her crowned head and small candles glowed in her cupped hands and within the carved niches of her skirts. More candles ringed her feet, and she seemed almost to come to life beneath their flickering glow. The sight briefly distracted me from my disappointment. I walked the gardens, breathing in the heady perfume of the elfblossom and maidenseyes and taking in the scenery. Tamliess wasn’t the only statue adorned with garlands and candles. The gardens were aglow with warm, flickering lights