The Crown of the Thunder King

CHAPTER ONE

A breeze buffeted Adlai Basil as he stood in the center square of Ittho, and he squinted his eyes against the dirt and leaf dust that it whipped up. His light brown hair flapped and came undone from whatever effort he put into combing it that morning. He couldn't be bothered to fix it; the wind was just going to toss it around again, anyway. Instead, he let his eyes wander over his surroundings for what had to be the fourteenth time in the past two minutes. He'd found the third loose stone in the plaza the last time he'd done it. Maybe he'd find another one.

Although, I wouldn't really call looking for rocks "fun".

Another gust of wind blew by, fiercer this time, and Adlai shivered, regretting his decision to wear nothing over his shirt. It wasn't as though Autumn was quite there yet, but why did it feel like the weather hadn't gotten that message? That was northern Tevyne for you; winter came a whole month early, and somehow the locals made it into a selling point. It was impressive, at least.

Ittho in particular was an interesting town. It was broad, open, which seemed a little stupid to Adlai. They were just exposing themselves to the elements, like the wind and whatever else happened to come through. The mostly timber buildings also didn't do much to protect against the cold, he could imagine.

Adlai stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together to warm up. What was taking Sanja and the others so long, anyway? It would have made sense if they'd spent a decent amount of time in the Archivist's home, but they were almost two hours gone at that point. His fingers were starting to go numb.

Adlai stifled a yawn, stretching, and cast a glance at the door they had disappeared behind. It was an entirely nondescript house, bordering the very edge of the plaza; you wouldn't expect it to hold some of Tevyne's most currently coveted knowledge, but there was an old, cliched adage about that, and Adlai couldn't bring himself to repeat it even in his head.

But seriously, this is boring. It might be more interesting if I was one of the ones who went in, but the job's easy, so I don't think so. Can't even feign interest. That's probably why they didn't pick me, huh.

That was fine by Adlai, anyway. But if he were to stay sedentary for too long, he felt like he would lose whatever motivation he did have. He turned his gaze over to the two people standing a little apart from him, hoping to strike up another conversation, but one of them beat him to the punch.

"Dobrea, they've been gone a really long time. We should check on them, shouldn't we?"

The auburn-haired girl who spoke was tugging on another girl's sleeve, tilting her head up to make up for the height difference.

Dobrea Namjere smiled gently and brushed the hand off in a soft movement. Tucking her own silky, dark hair behind her ear, she replied, "You know we can't do that, Lily. The Archivist won't do business with us if there are too many people in there."

Lily Gurit sighed, kicking at the ground.

"I know, but I'm worried. Sanja said that the visit would last an hour at most. What if something happened to them?"

Adlai couldn't help but laugh at that.

"What, do you think that Archivist could actually manage to beat Sanja in a fight? His knees looked like they were screaming in pain every time he took a step."

Lily turned to him, resting one hand on her hip and pointing a finger at Adlai so that she resembled a tiny matron at the Capital Barracks.

"You should be more worried too, Adlai! Show more concern for your friend. And for Elke, too."

"If I think I need to worry about him, I'll worry about him," Adlai said languidly. "But why in the world would you think they'd be in danger? Think the Archivist actually is trying to get us? Also, Kolohe doesn't get any love?"