I made an impatient gesture with my hands. “Wet, because…?”

He turned back, looking surprised the conversation was still going on. He seemed to think it over. I say seemed because I’m not convinced he had two whole brain cells to rub together. He alternated between scratching his huge chest through his stained, brown shirt, and rubbing his other hand over his massive chin. At last he came up with an answer. “Well… Tiers is about the river, right? And rivers is water. And water is wet.”

I caught myself about to roll my eyes and pretended to soak up his wisdom. It’s not good to openly insult someone three times your size, and I doubted my slender form could stand up to his fists if he caught me mocking him, bodyguard or no. “And what about the parts of the city that aren’t water, Ved?”

He rolled his eyes and looked at me like I was particularly thick. I guess slim, manicured people don’t inspire the same fearful consideration. “People is people, Bel. How different from Garden could it be?”

I sighed and turned to look out my own window. It had been a long three weeks. I was looking forward to getting my feet back on the ground for good. I had just the pair of walking shoes for it, in fact.

“If you’re coming into Tiers, get used to blood on your shoes,” the guard leader informed me.

Our approach to the city had taken us through dense forests and up a winding mountain trail which branched off multiple times toward the city, higher up the mountains each time. We aimed to enter by the highest entrance, along the border between what the signs called Upper Town and Low Town. Our little caravan had fetched up against the walls outside their gates, and I had stepped out of the carriage preceded by Ved, who neglected to tell me we were stepping into what looked to be a rather sizable pool of blood covered over with some hastily kicked dirt. The gate guards at the entrance to the city apparently found my horror particularly funny, one of them doubled over in laughter while another slapped his laughing friend on the back. Even Ved was grinning, the inbred jackal.

I fished my letters of introduction and credentials out of my satchel and all but flung them at the leader of the gate guard, who caught them easily and continued to chuckle to himself while leafing through the stack. Somehow, he pretended not to hear the grinding of my teeth.

“Looks in order.”

Of course they’re in order, idiot, I thought.

He waved at his men up on top of the natural wall. “Let them through!” As the gates ground open he turned back and handed me my papers, still smiling. “Have yourself a grand time, author. Shoe store is a few streets in.”

Troglodyte.

I accidentally kicked Ved on the way back into the carriage.

I don’t know what I expected, but I wasn’t prepared for a city like Tiers. A life on Garden just doesn’t prepare you for the stink of a city which genuinely does not care about its people. The fact we entered through the gate reserved for the upper class only made me concerned about what went on in the lower streets.

Buildings tended to be short and blocky. They clustered back against the cliff face in a few rows separated by narrow streets before reaching the next cliff edge. Everything seemed to be painted to the taste or ability of the owner, with no unifying theme to each Tier other than the living conditions being slightly better than the one below it. The ground underneath us was dark and gave off a fragrant, earthy smell, detectable even inside the carriage.