The city was washed with confetti. With colored paper running down the walls as we entered. Two giant doors behind me, I looked back to see where I’d come. Large metal doors, red crystals chipped away in the form of an insignia of a Lion. Or some other feral cat. The doors measured far wider and far taller than any building I’d come from before, I couldn’t even see the sun past the height. Only the the rain of paper. Giant white walls connected to the doors, they each had their little crown tip at spaced intervals where tower men must have lingered. I couldn’t tell. Couldn’t see their shadows, couldn’t see their bows, I could only see small specks of black across the tip-top of the walls wander here and there.

“We finally made it.” Kal said. His horse took a wide berth, hauling him and his sword by leather straps underneath its belly like a tortured passenger. He looked up and took out his pouch and drank.

A line of citizens formed next to us. Men and women with little flat hats, they clapped and threw rice at us. Which I suppose, was their custom. The buildings behind them, adobe stone constructions with rounded edges and little holes where the small faces of children peeped from.

“Ain’t it a sight, Young Blood.” Sylas said. “You should enjoy it.”

“I am.”

I looked around. A young woman ran up and gave Obrick a bundle of flowers. He looked surprised for a moment, then shrugged and put them on the nape of his horse. A child ran with a basket, blanket hiding its contents. A man tipped his hat to cover his face. The sun, too bright? I held to my knife. Vincent was ahead of me on his white horse, with his palm out, nodding and waving at everyone in the crowd.

“You don’t look it.” Sylas said. “It’s okay to just breath.”

“It’s hard to breath when I know what can happen. What has happened.”

“Shit, Young Blood.” Sylas rode ahead of me. “You’re going to lose your mind at this rate. You don’t sleep. You don’t relax. You’re one bad time away from snapping.”

My eye twitched and I took my hand away from my sword. I scratched me neck and looked down to my side. A wife - the husband behind her - approached with a jug. A striped porcelein jug. I lowered down and took it with both hands and brought it up to me. Opening the lid, the strong scent of heavens berry struck me. I sealed it and nodded and smiled and she smiled back, the creases in her wizened face cracking. As if she was a statue, bronze, and about to collapse.

“Relax, huh.” I said.

I looked ahead, far, far ahead to where the city lines disappeared into a mess of rising houses and the gardens growing on their square tops. Green and yellow, slowly losing their color to pale white. The city grew and grew and the streets widened and the marble lead up the long steps, up to a peak. A growth to the side of a mountain, a complete alabaster white, almost in the form of a beak. Dragon’s Tooth where King Xanthus ruled. Home of the state house or castle if it were better said. He waited for us there. He waited for me. He waited for an army, coming fast down the streets, celebrated by his people.

I felt the pedals of paper fall on my shoulder. They came down my neck and sent a kind of chill, like having a finger run down my skin. I flexed and the jug tipped. I jumped and steadied it. My horse reproached with a loud neigh.

“Yeah. I know.” I said. “I know. I know.”

I set my saddle down by a rack and stable, two guards came to my sides with large robes across their chest, a medallion along their shoulders buttoning it together. They wore long skirts, armored at their tips with iron. Each layer of the skirt drifting. Their eyes stone faced, charcoal across the bottom of their eye lids so that at every angle all I could see were two dark holes peering at me through a bronze helmet. They wore their shields to their back and carried short swords on their waist and a long spear in a hand. Each took a reign. Each moved orderly and set my horse in place. I’d climbed down and wandered close to the front of the castle keep, looking up to the painted glass that lined the walls.

Soveros stood in the front of the line. The wide berth of his shoulders like two nestled crow wings, he looked back, glaring.

“No one do anything stupid. Just bend when you’re asked to bend. Clap when you’re asked to clap.” He said. “Breathe when you’re told to breath.”

All of the fourteenth gulped, save for Sylas who walked with crossed arms and his head lowered and eyes closed.

To our sides were the officials with their purple-colored robes and their meek and soft hands, clapping gently with the tips of their fingers against their palm. Dainty people. Dainty noise. A soldier came around and we stopped in front of him. He took out a horn and blew into it. We remained in the after-silence, watching how the chandeliers moved above, how the candles flickered from their long wicks along golden staffs or at the top of busts. One side of the room was the mountain. Literally. And on it was the carved history or some other, a lion with its fangs in the neck of a dragon, dragging it down. All of it on the alabastor marble that was the mountain peak. This creature stretched all across the west side and underneath it were the carved hallways into the rest of the keep. We turned to Xanthus. Sitting on his throne at the front of the castle. A stone seat where roots and flowers had grown wild vines across his seat rests.

Xanthus looked. The Flock formed a line. He rested his hand on his palm and stared at us, tapping with one foot along the floor. A well-built man, bronze skinned like the ore that decorated the palace. Curly short hair. A wide brow. And upon him was one golden robe set across his chest. It went down to his knees and he held it when he stood and walked. A ruby medallion pieced his clothes together. It was set, tied to a little red ribbon, and it rode off his right shoulder and followed him like a dragging stain of blood as he walked slowly towards Vincent.

The nobles quieted. They lowered their heads. All of the Crows started to kneel and Kal grabbed my arm. I followed.

Vincent alone stood. Up until Xanthus stood in front of him. Then he started to go down, but King Xanthus gripped his arms and pulled him back up.

“My boy, what a travel it must have been. You come from the west coast, no?” Xanthus said.

“Yes. It was a long travel, my lord.”

“Certainly. And what fine men you’ve brought me.” Xanthus walked back some. He walked up steps leading up to his throne but stopped midway.

“We bring gifts, my lord. The finest liathel pelts.” Vincent nodded. Four men ran to the back of the room, out the gates and scrambled. They yelled and cursed and cleared their throats as they came in. On a platform held by the pallbearers, a nice coffin of liathel pelts. In a yellow-sheened bronze box, the furs stuck out.

They dropped them in front of the King Xanthus and did not look up to meet him in the eyes.

“My my.” King Xanthus said. He snapped at the guards. “Take those to the leather worker. Fashion me…a rug…yes? A rug to cover these nasty walls.”

Xanthus stepped back. He nodded towards the nobles, they all looked at each other and started walking back.

“What pleasantries you’ve brought me. What struggles you’ve endured. Why bore you with politics?” King Xanthus said. “You have my patronage. Rest in the greatest taverns. Fuck the greatest whores. Enjoy yourselves, men.”

We looked at each other.

“Please, please stand!” King Xanthus said. “You’re embarrassing me.”

He laughed. We all had none of it and stood up fast.

“I was hoping we could discuss our…terms of agreement. A deal, perhaps?” Vincent said.

“Oh please.” Xanthus hurried to him. He grabbed him by the arm. “Matters of war should be discussed in the dead of night. Please, Vicentius, ease your men into the city.”

Vincent looked back. He looked to me and nodded. I started rounding up the lines and having them file out.

“We can talk about these petty politics tonight, Vicentius. Over dinner. Yes?” Xanthus put a finger over his lips. “Duck perhaps? With some cherry vinaigrette? Yes. Yes! Have you ever had cloud potatoes? Mmm. What a treat you’ll all enjoy tonight, please, do try to enjoy your stay until then.”

He held a finger to his lips, in imagination, smiling stupidly.

I tilted my head. I just couldn’t believe it. This was the hundred army killer, King Xanthus? Desert Djinn. Demon of sand?