As they approached the outer city and its swirling crowds, she was made aware of just how much more sensitive her Gift of Empathy had become. The pressure of all those emotions ahead of her was so strong she found it hard to believe that Kris could be unaware of it. She wished, not for the first time, that her Gift included Mindspeech; it would have been comforting to consult with Rolan the way Kris could with Tantris. She’d forgotten what living around so many people was like—and having had her Gift go rogue on her had made her more sensitive than she had been before she left. It wasn’t going to be easy to stay tightly shielded day and night, but her enhanced perception was going to demand just that. She felt a flicker of reassurance from Rolan, and smiled faintly despite her anxiety.

They made their way down the increasingly crowded road into the outer city, outside the ancient defensive walls, which had sprung up over several generations of peace. The inner city held the shops, the better inns, and the homes of the middle class and nobility. The outer was given over to the workshops, markets, rowdier hostels and taverns, and the homes of the laborers and poor.

The crowds of the outer city were noisy and cheerful. As when she had first ridden into the capital, Talia found herself assaulted on all sides by sight, scent, and sound. The myriad odors of cookshops, inns, and food vendors vied with the less savory smells of beasts and trade.

The pressure of all the varied emotions of the people around her threatened to overwhelm her for one brief moment, until she firmed up her shields. No, she thought with resignation, this is not going to be easy.

The road led through a riot of color and motion, and the noise was cacaphonic, confusion without mirroring some of her own confusion within.

The leather-workers kept to a section here, outside the North Gate, and both Talia and Kris were caught off guard by a puff of acrid, eye-burning fumes that escaped from a vat somewhere nearby.

“Whew!” Kris gasped, laughing at the tears in his eyes and Talia’s, “Now I remember why Dirk and I usually backtracked around to the Haymarket Gate! Oh, well, too late now!”

The brief pause they made to clear their vision gave her a chance to finish making her shielding automatic. Back in their Sector—once she’d gotten her shields back—she’d tended to leave them down when it was only the two of them together. Shielding expended energy, and at that point she hadn’t any to spare. Now she put in place the safeguards that would ensure that her shields stayed up even when she was unconscious—and felt a brief surge of gratitude to Kris for having re-taught her the right way to shield.