“Yes, those are the bells the elves gave,” Marshal Torin said when she asked. “You will hear them all the way to the city, I expect.”

“Then we had better ride on,” Duke Mahieran said, “or the whole city will go deaf.”

As they rode, more and more people stood by the road to watch and shout greetings.

“Look there—you can see the walls now. And the bridge.”

Arian stared at the looming gray shape. Walls, towers, more towers, the tops of buildings just visible. She could not even guess how tall the walls were, or the towers within them. She saw buildings outside the walls on the downstream side—ramshackle structures, part stone and part wood, petering out into mere hovels. Her nose wrinkled at the stench of filth draining into the river, something no elf-born could ignore or tolerate.

A bridge, massive as the walls, spanned the Honnorgat, which ran deep and swift. Buildings clustered around its near end as well and stretched along the road south. Kieri had told her about that road to the Dwarfmounts that led over the pass to Valdaire and Aarenis. As they came between the buildings—inns and taverns and shops crammed together—the lines of people watching them pass thickened. The air smelled of people and cooked food and more animals.

Most had flowers to throw in her path; others waved flowering branches. Arian had never seen so many people at once in her life. Their cheers and the sound of the bells together were deafening; she could not tell what they were shouting for the noise. As they neared the bridge, Arian saw a party riding toward them, escorted by more of the Royal Guard, one in the lead bearing a great banner.

“It’s the king,” Mahieran said, shouting in her ear. “He’s come to welcome you.”

The heavy white horses Kieri had told her about, the Tsaian Grays, pranced over the bridge. Arian’s mount trembled; she soothed it as she watched the others come nearer. The king’s party stopped when the king had cleared the bridge. Someone—Arian could not see who—bellowed, and the crowd nearest them fell silent. Overhead the bell chime continued, sweet and inexorable. The king wore the Mahieran colors, with a long crimson cloak, its silver embroidery glittering in the sun, draped back over his horse’s rump.

Two mounted trumpeters blew fanfares, and the king rode forward another two lengths. Beside Arian, Duke Mahieran bowed almost to his horse’s crest. Arian merely inclined her head as Kieri had advised.