Return to Inheritance

Chapter III

"We covered in ten minutes the distance we should have covered in half an hour. I'm glad you're so athletic!" The girl smiled. She was glad too. "Now let's get back down and buy something to eat. I'm famished."

"Me too. How do we get down?"

"There are two solutions. Either the same way you got up, or jump."

"Jump? Are you crazy? We're too high to jump all the way."

"In our case we don't have where to jump, that's true. We need something soft, like a haystack."

The girl looked at him as if he were crazy. "And you call me weird!" He seemed to ignore her comment and started climbing back down. Apparently without any other solution she followed.

Getting down seemed much easier than getting up the building, but Jade was tired and fell halfway. Luckily, the assassin was already ready to help. He immediately caught her in his arms and let her down on her feet.

"Phew, thanks!" she told him.

"You're so light I'm starting to worry you might be sick."

"Well I will be if you say that again," she snapped, feeling awkward. Immediately she started walking out of the alley they were in.

"The other way."

"I knew that," she said as she turned around to walk the right way. He simply looked at her until she passed him, and only then started walking closely behind.

In only a matter of minutes they reached a market she recognised being Ovidius square. It was quite spacious, seen how few people were there at that hour. At some point as they looked through the stalls, Jade stopped and searched her coat's pockets, finding nothing but her handkerchief and her other hairband in order to tie her hair up in case her current one got lost or broke down.

"I... I don't have any money," she whispered when Cinder turned to look at her. Her face showed a worried look, but the assassin wasn't in the least upset.

"Don't worry, I have enough," he said as he tapped the pouch of gold at his waist.

The girl didn't reply. She felt awful knowing that she had to rely on him and his money when she had so much treasure on her now sunken ship.

"I wonder what happened to my little treasury," she whispered as they made their way towards a stall to buy fresh cheese.

"The pirates I had to hire looted it all during the fight. They barely gave me a few gold coins. I got so frustrated I nearly killed their captain," he whispered, making sure Jade would be the only one to hear. The shopkeepers seemed eager to get any bit of information that they could, but this wasn't for their ears to hear.

"No wonder they all seemed upset whenever they saw you. So what kept you from killing their captain in that case?"

"I still needed them. I can't sail a ship on my own." His answer made the girl let out a short laugh.

"I can, ten years on a ship taught me that. I could've helped." The assassin just shrugged without answering and walked towards a bakery. The girl was close behind.

After buying a bread, they found a nearby bench and shared the bread and cheese before starting eating.

"This should take away our hunger for a while." The girl agreed. The cheese was delicious and the bread still hot. She finished eating her part in a flash, and Cinder simply stared at her in amazement. "I've never seen a lady eat like that before."

"I'm not sure if the term 'lady' suits me very well," she laughed. "I can't remember the last time I ate cheese, to tell the truth. Usually on the ship we'd eat raw vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts and sometimes even raw fish. It's not as bad as it sounds actually."