Chapter 459: Lyan’s Gut Feeling (3)
Lisban’s main plaza pulsed with life as if the very stones had a heartbeat. Flames leapt high from fresh-cut timber stacked in iron braziers and old wagon wheels jammed together for kindling. Sparks spiraled into the clean night sky, every burst of orange light painting the shattered facades in flickering gold and hiding cracks for a heartbeat at a time. The air smelled of wet ash, roasting mutton, cheap wine, and forge-oil still clinging to hastily repaired armor.
A ring of young soldiers crowded around an overturned cart that now served as a table. They clanged tin mugs together, splashing wine that ran like red rivers across the rough boards. One lad—barely more than a boy, cheeks streaked with soot—raised his cup so high half its contents drenched the man beside him, who only laughed harder and clapped him on the back. Farther along, two veterans had commandeered a dented drum and a whistle with a missing note. The whistle squealed off-key, the drum thumped half a beat behind, yet every soul within earshot stamped along anyway, too giddy to care about rhythm.
Children with knees still raw from hiding under rubble that morning darted between dancers. Lanterns of cracked glass hung from ropes tied to shattered pillars, swaying each time a reveler brushed past. A clever lutist balanced on a barrel, plucking a reel quick enough to set skirts flying and braid ribbons whipping in the breeze.
Lyan stood beneath the watchtower’s angled shadow, arms folded, dark cloak hem mingling with stone. He let the hood hide most of his face, but his eyes moved, cataloguing bonfires, measuring alley mouths, noting which rampart stretches glimmered with fresh torchlight. Habit. Safety.
Wilhelmina threw back her head in a laugh so clear it rang like struck crystal; envy pricked Lyan that joy came so easily to her. Belle, waist cinched by a scavenged silk sash, spun beneath a lantern, skirts flaring. Light kissed the curve of her calf, and his gaze lingered a breath longer than it should—hips, neckline, that fleeting flash of thigh—before guilt burned his ears and he yanked his attention away. Josephine balanced atop a broken fountain plinth, juggling bruised apples like comets blazing red arcs through lamplight, while children squealed around her ankles.
Warmth should have seeped into Lyan’s chest at their delight, but a colder thought gnawed louder. The walls of Lisban had fallen too neatly. Enemy archers had drawn back with uncanny timing. When he blinked, he still saw the breach—stones lying in tidy slabs as though a phantom mason had planned each fracture.
(You’re brooding again,) Cynthia observed, her voice a velvet thread through his mind. (Victory deserves joy.)
"They knew," he muttered. "They moved before we struck."
(And that is why you watch while others dance.)