Chapter 195: Lost her

Torin’s POV

The neutral market square was incredibly loud, a roaring sea of chaos that normally wouldn’t bother me, but today it felt entirely suffocating.

Hot bodies pressed against me from every single direction as shoppers barged past, their loud voices calling out over one another to bargain for cheap winter goods.

The thick, heavy smell of freshly baked bread and greasy roasted meat mixed uncomfortably with the clouds of dry dust kicked up by the rolling wheels of passing wooden carts.

I moved through the thick of the crowd with both of my hands shoved deeply into my trouser pockets, my head lowered as my mind drifted miles away from the stalls.

I just needed a bit of fresh air to clear my lungs.

I needed physical space and a quick break from everything- the endless questions, the dark suspicions, and the crushing weight of the terrifying secret we had just discovered about Isadora back at the pack house.

So, I kept walking through the rows of tents, hoping the mindless noise would drown out my own anxious thoughts.

And then, my boots locked completely solid against the packed dirt path.

Someone in the distance caught my undivided attention.

It was a brief, sudden flash of bright blonde hair cutting through the crowd.

It was a completely familiar, utterly unforgettable shade that made my chest tighten instantly.

My heart stopped dead for a single second before my brain could even fully process the reason why I was reacting so violently to a stranger.

I took a clumsy step backward, my eyes narrowing into a sharp squint as I forced myself to look harder through the gaps in the crowd.

I needed to make sure that my tired mind wasn’t just playing cruel tricks on me.

But it was truly her.

It was the beautiful apple angel from the Hollowcrown kingdom.

She was the same girl from the market square several weeks ago, the one I had clumsily bumped into while buying fruit, whose face had lingered in my mind ever since.

What was she doing all the way out here in a Crescent Moon?

A sudden spark of excitement flared up in my chest, and I started walking quickly toward her location.

I had fully intended to cross her path and speak to her directly.

I wanted to try my luck with her one more time, just to see if she carried a single fond memory of our brief encounter.

But before I could call out to her, I froze for the second time.

She wasn’t alone.

She was currently locked in a quiet, intense conversation with another woman.

My eyes tracked up the stranger’s form, landing on a thick mane of vibrant red hair that made my blood run instantly cold.

I quickly ducked my body behind the canvas flap of a nearby spice stall, my heart hammering violently against my ribs, though this time it wasn’t from a rush of excitement.

It was from pure, unadulterated dread.

The crimson-haired woman the angel was whispering to was Isadora.

Well, it wasn’t the real Isadora, to be perfectly exact.

It was the dangerous pretender currently wearing her face.

A million frantic questions began to scream inside my head as I watched them from behind the canvas.

What kind of secret business could a sweet apple angel from a distant kingdom possibly have with a ruthless spy embedded in the Crescent Moon pack?

I kept my body hidden, watching the two of them from a safe distance through the small gap in the spice bags.

The blonde angel reached beneath her cloak, her slender fingers handing Isadora a small, dark bundle wrapped tightly in thick cloth.

The wrapping was so secure that I couldn’t tell what kind of mysterious object was hidden inside the fabric.

Isadora took the bundle quickly, stowing it away in her own garments, before she gave a sharp nod and muttered a few quick words that the noisy wind completely blocked from reaching my ears.

Then, without another word, the two women abruptly parted ways.

The blonde angel turned on her heel and walked rapidly toward the left exit of the square, while the fake Isadora shifted her weight and headed toward the right path leading back to the carriages.

I had to make a split-second decision right then and there.

Leaving my hiding spot behind the stall, I turned my boots toward the left and began to secretly follow the angel into the crowded streets.

I moved as fast as my legs could carry me, though I kept my steps incredibly careful and silent.

I desperately needed to get some solid answers out of her.

Why was she operating out here in the middle of nowhere?

Did she possess any real knowledge of the dangerous plot she was mixed up in, or was she simply an innocent girl being used as a tool by the fake Isadora?

I was so completely focused on tracking the movement of her blonde hair through the crowd that I became totally blind to my immediate surroundings.

Before I could even register the person standing directly in front of my face, my chest slammed hard into a solid body.

A sharp gasp echoed in the air as the force of the collision knocked the stranger back.

A large, delicate ceramic vase slipped right out of the person’s hands, tumbling through the empty air before it hit the hard, stone-covered ground with a deafening shatter.

Sharp pieces of glazed clay exploded in every direction, scattering wildly across the dirt path.

I stopped dead, looking down at the absolute disaster by my boots.

The broken pieces looked incredibly expensive, a fact I could tell just by staring at the fine sheen of the blue glaze and the intricate, delicate craftsmanship of the rim.

This wasn’t cheap market pottery.

Whoever owned this specific object was going to be completely furious about the loss.

I quickly lifted my chin, searching the crowd to see if the blonde angel was still within my line of sight.

But she had vanished into the thick sea of people.

"No," I muttered under my breath, a wave of pure frustration washing over me as I realized I had completely lost my only lead.

"You damn fool," a sharp, biting voice barked out from right in front of me, cutting through my thoughts like a whip.

"Are you blind? Look at the total disaster you have just caused."

The voice was rough and deeply irritated, but the tone made it clear that the speaker was a woman.

However, there wasn’t a single drop of soft femininity in the way the words were thrown at me.

The voice sounded incredibly blunt, crass, and completely unbothered by basic manners.

It was the speech of someone who didn’t give a single damn about politeness.

I slowly lifted my head to face the person I had just run over.

A woman was standing directly in front of my chest, her arms crossed tightly over her torso.

She possessed short, cropped blonde hair that barely reached her jawline, and she was dressed entirely in men’s clothing: a rough leather tunic, thick riding trousers, and heavy mud-stained boots.

There wasn’t a single dress in sight; she wore no jewelry, and there was absolutely nothing soft or delicate about her posture.

She looked to be somewhere in her late thirties or early forties, her frame solid and weathered by a hard life.

Her piercing green eyes were narrowed into a deadly slit, looking at me with an expression that suggested she was fully prepared to kill me right where I stood.

She was frowning deeply, her lips curling back in pure disgust.

"Are you deaf as well?" she demanded, her cold voice rising much louder as she took a menacing step into my personal space.

"Or are you just naturally stupid?"

I blinked my eyes in total shock, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth as I stared at her angry face.

Around us, several market shoppers stopped walking, turning their heads to stare at the two of us as a heavy, embarrassing scene began to brew in the dirt path.

The silence between us stretched out for a long, agonizing moment as the angry woman continued to glare at me, her chest rising and falling with sharp, irritated breaths.

I could feel the collective gaze of the crowd pressing into my back, their whispers murmuring over the sound of the nearby merchant stalls.

I quickly cleared my dry throat, holding up both of my hands in a peaceful, apologetic gesture to try and de-escalate the explosive situation before she decided to draw a weapon on me in public.

"I am sorry about your vase," I said, keeping my deep voice as calm and polite as possible.

"I was distracted looking for a friend in the crowd, and I honestly did not see you standing there. It was a total accident."

The blonde woman let out a harsh, mocking scoff, her green eyes flashing with an even darker wave of amusement.

"An accident?" she repeated, her voice dripping with pure, unadulterated sarcasm as she pointed a finger down at the shattered blue clay by her mud-stained boots.

"My finest piece of imported glaze is currently sitting in a little tiny pieces in the dirt because you cannot bother to look where your massive feet are tracking, and you want to call it a simple accident?"

She took another aggressive step forward, her short hair shifting around her jaw as she got close enough for me to see the fine lines of irritation etched around her eyes.

"A simple apology is not going to put this vase back together, boy," she hissed out, her tone turning incredibly cold and demanding.

"That specific piece was promised to a very wealthy buyer who does not handle disappointments well."

"You are going to pay me for the full damage you just caused, down to the very last silver coin, or I swear you will be spending your night explaining your blindness to the local town guards."

I let out a soft, defeated sigh, my shoulders slumping as I realized I had absolutely no way out of this mess.

I reached my right hand slowly into my pocket, my fingers brushing against the small leather pouch of coins I had brought along for the journey.

I knew I had enough money to cover the cost, but the sheer frustration of losing the apple angel’s trail because of a broken pot was making a bitter taste form in the back of my mouth.

"Fine," I said flatly, pulling the pouch out into the light.

"Just tell me exactly how much the vase is worth, and I will pay you the full amount right now so we can both move on with our day."

The woman’s green eyes instantly locked onto the sight of my leather money pouch, her harsh expression softening by a fraction into a calculating, greedy look.

She slowly crossed her arms over her chest again, her chin tilting upward as she began to mentally calculate a price that would undoubtedly take advantage of my desperation to escape.

"Fifty silver coins," she stated firmly, her voice leaving absolutely no room for negotiation.

"Not a single copper less."

My jaw tightened slightly at the ridiculous price.

I knew for a fact that even the finest imported ceramic in this small human trading village didn’t cost half that amount, but I didn’t have the time or the patience to stand in the dirt and argue with a crass stranger while the fake Isadora was out there completing her secret mission.

I quickly unbuckled the strap of my pouch, my fingers pulling out a handful of heavy silver pieces.

I counted out the exact amount she demanded, the metal coins clinking sharply against each other in the quiet space between us, and reached out to drop them directly into her open palm.

"Here," I said, my voice completely cold and level.

"Fifty silver coins. The debt is fully settled."

The blonde woman grabbed the money quickly, her fingers counting the silver with a practiced, lightning-fast motion before she stowed the coins safely into her tunic pocket.

A sharp, triumphant smirk finally broke across her weathered features, replacing the deadly glare she had given me just moments before.

"Pleasure doing business with a blind fool," she said with a mocking wink, completely unbothered by her own lack of manners.

Without casting a single glance down at the broken blue clay left rotting in the dirt path, she turned around on her heel and walked away, disappearing smoothly into the thick crowd of shoppers.

I let out a long, heavy breath, running a hand through my hair as I looked around the bustling streets one last time.

The apple angel was completely gone, the fake Isadora had already escaped with her mysterious bundle, and I was left standing in the dust with nothing but an empty coin pouch and a growing feeling of terror for what was coming next for the pack.