95
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298 AC
Summer Isles - Ebonhead
Sarella Sand
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Waking up on the ship after we spent the whole day yesterday looking into the pirates we began to get ready to finish what we came here for. Today we will buy the spices, yesterday was 'shopping around' and today we will buy and have the cogs that came with us loaded down. But while that is happening we will continue to look into the pirates and try and see if anyone has seen people gathering to resist the pirates.
If they have seen people gathering then that is where we should find Nata according to Eragon.
But for now, we are walking in one of the higher-end markets to get some breakfast, and then we will purchase the spices.
"If you didn't sleep in we would have had an earlier start, but now it's going to be mid-day and we haven't even made any progress." Nymeria complains to Tyene who yawns loudly with her hands stretched over her head showing off her curves to everyone's eyes.
"I said I am sorry, I didn't think it was that late already." Nymeria shakes her head and ignores Tyene as she walks up to a stall and speaks very choppy summer tongue in an attempt to buy some fruit.
"So 'leader' what are you thinking about the next step?" Tyene no longer looking as tired brightens up and stands beside me.
"I think it would be best to delay our 'leave' until we have as much information as possible so we will end up spending most of the gold we were given to buy spices and other other resources. I hope they like cinnamon back at the cove because we are going to have a lot of it." Tyene rubs her nose with a finger and her brows scrunch up.
"Cinnamon makes my nose itch, the nutmeg is not as bad and I like the taste of pepper so get more of those two spices." She closes the distance and lowers her voice. "They are rare but we saw multiple of the spices needed in the strangler as well, if you can get some of that for my collection I would appreciate it very much." Her kind smile takes on an entirely different feel as she talks about her poisons.
Out of all my sisters, she is the one who took after father the most when it comes to his love for poison. I feel bad for anyone who pisses her off, they won't even know what killed them with all the different prized poisons she has collected. Different kinds from flowers that grow under the snow beyond the wall in the north to vines from as far away as Yi Ti.
I shake my head and try to remember which plants she took an interest in yesterday and remember them being fairly expensive.
"We might not have enough gold to get much, we do have to attempt to look like we are here for normal reasons." She nods and reaches into her coin purse and pulls out a few golden dragons and places them in my hand she grabbed a hold of.
"I will pay for some of it, I didn't bring enough with me but I also didn't think I would see so many valuable things. Help me this once and I will pay you back double when we make it back to Sunspear." I nod and slip the coins into my purse.
"Deal." She smiles and Obara and Nymeria walk back over with fruits and some smoked fish.
"I got it for a good price." I look over her shoulder and see a very sad-looking merchant and choose to ignore their misdeed and press on with our day.
"Alright let's walk and eat, we need to hunt down some herbs for Tyene and place our order." I grab a mango and turn on my heels and walk toward one of the merchants I saw yesterday.
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"I can't believe they won't sell any Golden heart to people who are not born on the islands. It mainly grows in Jhala the very island we now stand on so why don't we just walk into the jungle and knock over a golden tree and get me a spear shaft?" Obara bemoans and my hand manages to find my Golden heart bow I have had for quite a while now.
"If they sold it to others then everyone would realize just how strong it is and come for more, then all the trees would be knocked down and none would be left. A golden heart is like the Summer isle's very own weirwood trees but then again there are also the Talking trees that are also kind of like weirwood trees." I tilt my head back and forth while in thought. "But the long story is they don't want to have all their trees gone so they don't sell them out to others. If you went into the jungle then you would likely get killed by some kind of wild animal like red wolves or spotted panthers." Obara sighs as we walk away from the market and head to a different one.
We will be walking past the Summer prince of Ebonhead and the leader of the Sweet lotus vales palace. It's a massive stone tower with stone arches and different animals carved into its surface. the building itself covers half the ground the palace at Sunspear does, but it stands quite a bit taller as it has a massive central building that rises up.
The histories of the Summer Isles aren't really known to outsiders, they don't share much of their culture with others. That or others just aren't interested in learning but I love the stories of Xanda Qo a slave woman who ended slavery in the Summer Isles and united them under her for the first time in history they had one leader.
She was the first to make a golden heart into a bow and armed her fellow slaves and they beat out the competition by a large margin. They then made the famous Swan Ships that were designed to combat the slavers coming to capture their people. High decks and a tall prow to stand up on and shot down onto the slaver's ships. They carved the prows into a swan and other bird heads and that's where the name swan ships come from.
Eragon wants to unite the Summer Isles and make it his own, a seat for House Targaryen. I am not sure how I feel about that, he is a nice man but that doesn't mean he would be a good ruler. I haven't asked much about it but I know for sure he isn't kneeling to Viserys and 'any' lands he takes will be separate.
He made sure to specify 'any lands' so I don't even think he will stop after the Summer Isles. He could easily take a place like Naath but there is a horrible disease that melts the flesh from the bones there.
Naath itself is not that far from the Summer Isles, on the tip of the Lizard head island you would be closer to Naath than you would be to Ebonhead.
I shake my head and put the thought out of my mind as I take one last look at the artwork carved onto the Summer princes palace and I keep walking. This is the last market of the day and after this, we will head back to the ships and see how the loading is going. We already have a rough idea of how many pirates there are and that there is indeed a camp not far from here of survivors of the pirate raids.
Nata should be there and we will make contact tomorrow before we head off back to the Cove.
"Hey, Sarella." I look away from the palace and toward where Tyene is standing beside me.
"Hey, Tyene." She snorts and slaps my shoulder and points back toward the palace, I turn and look at the palace again and shrug my shoulders. "I know it's beautiful what are you pointing at specifically?" I never thought she would take interest in the carvings.
"Not the damn palace, look at who just left the palace." I look down from the massive stone face of a spotted panther and see the doors to the palace wide open.
"What are the chances?" Obara asks as she also looks toward the woman carrying a spear over her shoulder and walking down the stairs of the palace.
The woman makes it to the bottom of the stairs and walks up to a woman that looks similar to her, the similarity I am noticing from this distance happens to be pretty obvious.
Bright platinum white hair that contrasts her dark skin, her well-fit outfit that looks a mix of light armor and casual wear highlights her figure. Her back facing us also happens to highlight the second 'feature' Eragon specifically pointed out for us to look for.
"You know, he might have been right about the whole-." I cut Obara off with a wave of my hand, we don't need to admire her ass and we need to approach her.
"What should we even say? I thought we would have more time than this." My sisters only shrug and leave me feeling helpless and I shake my head and look back over at the woman who I think is Nata talking to who could only be her mom.
Out of the thousands of Summer Islanders I have seen only a very small handful have had white hair and none this 'platinum' looking. It almost looks like it is alight in the daylight and I wonder if it would expose her as she walks through the jungle.
"Let's just walk up and ask her for her name." Tyene 'helpfully' chips in and lead the way as we scramble to catch up with her.
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298 AC
Summer Isles - Ebonhead
Nata
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"Summer prince in all too many words said 'deal with it on your own with the force you have gathered' and then I was rudely shoved out. So we will get no help and he even seems to be treating us as a threat of some kind. The indifference from before turned into skepticism when I asked for some people to help us kill the pirates." A few of the Chiefs scoff hearing what the Summer prince said and my mom grimaces.
"Well you tried, we will just have to make do with what we have." My mom tries to cheer me up and I nod, I feel a bit worried. "Do you know them?" I raise a brow seeing her nod in the direction behind me and I turn around to see four women of varying looks approaching me.
A smiling blond leads three other women who look like they swallowed a lemon and are trying not to show it. A summer islander woman is beside her, the other two are a bit harder to point out where they came from but they all have a similar trait. Their eyes remind me of a snake, the same eyes all four of them have are locked onto me and I wonder what is going on as I tighten the grip on my spear.
"Hey." The blond stops a bit away from me and waves and I feel a bit bad for the woman beside her who looks pained.
"Hey." I give a short nod in return while I wonder what they want.