Notes on the Chapter

Harylas - Macedon's capital city
Ecclesia - the part of Macedon's democracy that handles noble and military concerns.
Monokeros - Eden's version of a unicorn—it is carnivorous, and the army wants one because its blood is able to cure wounds.
‘hilts - slang for "sword-hilts," Macedon’s currency; has a raised sword-hilt shape on it.
Kada - POV character; a seven or eight year-old girl living in Harylas. She is a helper in the hospitals, as there is a plague in the city, caused by the infected body of one of Keihyn’s friends who died when he was bitten by a monokeros.

Kada

Someone wanted to get in.

Outside the city gates, there was rustling, scratching, and hoof beats. On my side of the wall, there was screaming and dying and the whispering of birds. I pressed my ear hard against the thick wood-and-stone gate. No night guards were left to shoo me away.

"Who is it?" I shouted through the planks. My breath made plumes of mist shaped like curious hands.

"The rest of Liak's party: Keihyn and Kiar," called a voice. "The other members of our party came several days ahead of us. Why are the gates shut so early tonight?"

I melted into the holes and hollows of the wall like a rat, twisting and squirming past exposed nails, broken boards, through rodent-chewed crawl spaces. Loose stones gave way under my practiced fingers like lyre strings. Soon I had sculpted a passageway big enough for a goat.

The two men jumped when I sneaked out of the wall on their side, outside the city.

"Hello," one of them ventured, while the other stayed back in the shadows. "I'm Keihyn. Are there any night-guards who can let us in?"

"You're that man who bought me a sparrow pie," I said.

He knelt down, peered closer, and with a friendly smile brushed my mats of hair off my cheeks. "You’re the girl who ate it." A particularly loud cry echoed mournfully over the walls, startling him. The clouds of magpies shifted in their sleep.

"Don’t worry," I said, "Those are just the invalids. Didn’t you hear about the plague?"

"The—?"

"The whole city. Everyone's getting it, even the rich people who stay indoors. All the beggars are sick."

Keihyn looked at me curiously. I kept talking. "It makes your skin hang off your face, like this." I pulled my cheeks down and rolled my eyes back in my skull. "And your skin goes white and wet, and your tongue gets black and rots out of your head. It came into the city through two dead men and the rider who brought them. He’s in the prison now."

"Those were our men." Keihyn’s cheeks were pale as milk.

"Oh. Well, half the city’s dying because of you, then."

He looked desperately to his friend. "We have to do something, Kiar. The monokeros?"

The other man led the horses forward, and I saw that one of them was not a horse. Its velvet-dark fur and slender legs were normal enough, but then I saw the eyes—

Keihyn saw my eyes get big, and he clapped his hand over my mouth, but I never screamed, only stared.

Its teeth were long and black, held shut only by a rope wrapped strangle-tight around its nose. Ignoring the men, it craned its neck forward, lifting its nostrils to suck in my young, tender smell. I crept under its neck and stroked its nose with my palm. Its jaws strained at the rope, and the long teeth scuttled and scraped vainly at my hand through the little muzzle. It was only a baby.

"What's its name?" I asked.

"I didn't name it. It ate two of my friends."

"Yes, that's why the city is sick. You sent us the infected bodies." I said darkly.

"What else were we supposed to do? Throw them away, like rubbish? They needed to be buried…"

"Why not? They can't have been worth very much." The city was dying loudly behind me. "I don’t care, at least. I'm not going to die from plague."

Keihyn shifted uncomfortably. "We might be able to save some of the sick people with the monokeros. Can you let us in?"

"They lock the gate, even during the day now, unless you're bringing in supplies. Other than that, it's always shut. They don't even open it to throw out the bodies—they just float them out of the city on the river. But I can squeeze you through the tunnels in the wall." I looked dubiously at the monokeros… "It'll fit. It's not even the size of a donkey."

I vanished into the wall and waited on the city side. I heard them arguing about the horse.

"The monokeros will fit, but the horse won't, and neither of us can sit here and watch it."

"Feed it to the monokeros then. The last thing we want is for it to get hungry inside the city."

"The horse!? Feed my beautiful, expensive horse to the hungry little monster? Are you mad, Keihyn?"

"Well, good luck then. I'm going."

Kiar moaned and groaned for a little while, and I imagined him stroking his horse's soft nose. He sounded like he was poor—he'd probably never get another one. "All right, but you untie its mouth."

Then bones crunched, and something shrieked horribly, blending into the cries that bellowed nonstop from the city. "Quick, quick! Tie its mouth shut!"

Then Keihyn squeezed through the wall to my side. Kiar stood on the outside and Keihyn stood with me, tempting the monokeros with a piece of bloody, fresh horsemeat. It plunged in enthusiastically, ignoring the sharp edges of stones and nails that nicked at its soft sable skin. When it had struggled halfway through, its front hoof plunged through a rotten board and into a nail below it, and the animal stuck fast. It wrenched and squirmed toward the steak in Keihyn's hands, to no avail.

"What do we do now?" Keihyn called to Kiar from the other side. I watched suspiciously at a distance.

Chapter 5, Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5