At Qown’s astonished look, I shrugged and gave him what I hoped would pass for a sincere smile. “It’s not a trap now, mind you, but Atrine wasn’t built to be a city. It was built to be … a taunt. You see, Emperor Kandor had infantry and he fought the god-king of horses. Khorsal’s vast cavalry included thousands of centaurs, not even counting firebloods and all the other horse beasts in his service. Quur couldn’t win the war by engaging Khorsal on his own terms, so Kandor dammed all the plateau rivers, flooded the Endless Canyon, and built this city as a lure. Emperor Kandor designed Atrine to be a place Khorsal’s ego would demand he attack. He built Atrine to kill a god—occupying it afterward was incidental.” I pressed my lips into a thin, disapproving line. “There shouldn’t be so many people here their numbers would overflow onto the bridge.”

Sir Baramon gave a half-hearted, apologetic shrug. “Have you visited lately, Count?”

My jaw tightened. “We came here right before…” I paused. Before Lonezh Canton. Before Xaltorath. “It’s been a few years,” I admitted.

“Well, Count.” He scratched at the growing beard on his chin. “Things do change.”

I sighed. “Some things.” I edged Ash Flower back toward the main road. “Come on, then. The sooner we reach the city, the sooner I can warn Duke Xun about the danger to Jorat. This threatens his entire dominion. He’ll have to do something.”

“I ain’t in no hurry,” Dorna said. “You know Oreth’s waiting for you.”

“It changes nothing,” I said. “I have a duty, Dorna. The duke must be warned.”

“Fine,” she said in a sullen voice that made it clear she thought little about the situation fine at all.

We continued riding.

Atrine’s scale became apparent as one crossed the Merat Bridge connecting land to island. The city looked small in comparison to Lake Jorat, a vast inland sea terminating in an endless line of demon-mouthed spillways, spraying plumes of water. Scale made Atrine seem like a quaint pastoral castle, a god-king tale come to life. Then you saw people and realized the city’s true size.

It was as I’d remembered it from childhood.

Well, almost as I remembered it.

I didn’t remember the ramshackle shantytown squatting on the bridge leading to the city proper. Someone had built the shacks from wood and cob mud pulled from the lakeshore. I saw a dozen different styles of architecture, from western Quuros plaster to some sort of coiled mud structure resembling a beehive. Not one resembled a Joratese azhock.

“Marakori,” I said. I noted the sullen stares from the windows, the curtains pulled aside and then quickly shut. Glimpses of even skin, light brown to dark chestnut, dark hair, red or black. “What are Marakori doing here?”