I kept my head high as I walked through the streets of the Eastern Quarter. It was a far cry from the neat, clean paths of my palace. Hells, it was a far cry from the streets of Merchants’ Row.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d traveled to this part of the city. Being the leader of an entire empire didn’t leave much room for traveling outside of important meetings, or waging wars on cosmic threats. As such, my body recoiled at the thought of spending any amount of time among the dirty, crusted streets of this part of the city.

  But, I didn’t have much choice. 17 Gold wouldn’t even get me a room for the night in Merchants’ Row, let alone one of the nicer parts of the city. Plus, this part of town was the most likely to offer someone of my nature the kind of work I’d need to procure, if I was going to raise a worthwhile hoard.

  As I walked, I kept my hand on the hilt of the dagger in my belt. The men in the garden had taught me a valuable lesson, and an empress does not forget her lessons.

  My mother’s voice echoed through my thoughts as I walked. The way she’d held up her staff to my chest, forcing me to straighten my back and walk like a goddess among men. I mirrored that body language; back straight, chest puffed out, my chin up, eyes watching every dark corner for any signs of trouble.

  The Slumbering Drake was, by all descriptions… a dump.

  It was much worse off than the last time I had visited—I suppose two hundred and fifty years would do that to a place—and I had to forcibly bite down the revulsion building in the back of my throat at the thought of even stepping into the place, let alone eating or sleeping there.

  Despite rising three stories along the city’s outer wall, and taking up roughly half a block, the Slumbering Drake was small compared to the inns I usually laid my head in. Those had been few and far between, of course, but they’d always been outfitted with places for a dragon to rest.

  This building, though, was… unapologetically human.

  I grimaced as I pressed through the small door at the front of the building, the scent of sweat, unwashed bodies, and ale crashing over me. I was actually happy that my dragon senses were dulled, as entering such a place at my full strength would likely have knocked me on my ass.

  As it was, it mostly just led to mild discomfort, and the sickly taste of bile pressing against the back of my tongue. Oh, the sacrifices I make for my people.

  The room was unelaborate. A large room with rafters from which several oil lamps hung, the hoses that fueled them hanging precariously close to the flames they emitted. The air here was filled with hazy smoke, the culprit several pipes that littered the mouths of the various customers nursing their meals and mugs of ale. It was late, so the crowd wasn’t particularly large. Just a few dockworkers who looked like they’d been worked to the bone, and an old man who sat in the back of the room alone, a bowl of something resting in front of him, his white hair pushed back into a greasy ponytail.

  The older man looked up as I entered, his eyes catching mine. A glint of knowing filled his gaze, sharpened teeth barely peeking out through his grin, before he turned it back to the bowl in front of him. I narrowed my eyes slightly, but ignored him.

  I was too exhausted to deal with anything else.

  I’d been attacked once already, and I didn’t want to even think about the scene at the palace gates again. I wasn’t sure who might be leading my empire, considering I had been given someone else’s body. Did that mean someone else was walking around, wearing my skin?

  I shuddered at the thought, but pushed it away. That was a problem I’d need to solve later. For now, I had so much to figure out about this damned System, and what it was capable of.

  I huffed out a breath of air—a motion unbefitting of an Empress—and made my way across the room to the large counter, where a broad-shouldered man with a rough, grey mustache and beard leaned against the wall.

  “Evening, miss,” the man said, his voice deep and gravelly. He had a pipe of his own, but it didn’t look like it was lit at the moment. He pressed some tobacco into it and packed it down. “Welcome to The Slumbering Drake, pride and joy o’ the Eastern Quarter. Guarantee you won’t find a better night’s rest anywhere in the city.”

  That I did not believe for one second.

  I glanced around the room as he spoke. The complete lack of any other women beyond those serving the steadily drinking dockworkers was all I needed to see to know this place would not be a luxurious retreat. But, I didn't have any other option at the moment.

  “How much for a room?”

  “Well,” he said, pulling out one of the oil-powered firestarters that humans had become so fond of, over the past few decades. He flicked a finger against the top of the contraption, and a small flame erupted from it, which he held to the pipe. “Depends on what kind of room yer wanting.” He puffed on the mouthpiece of the pipe and smoke began to billow out of it.

  “The comfortable kind,” I responded, my voice flat.

  The man eyed me, his beady eyes looking me up and down, in the same way a cook might eye the shelves of baking goods at a general store. The taste of bile at the back of my throat increased, and I felt the same fury from earlier rebuilding within my gut.

  “One with some privacy,” I added. I leaned forward, closing the distance between us, as I made a heavy-handed motion of putting my fingers around the hilt of the dagger at my waist.

  His eyes found my motion, and his lips quirked into a smile.

  “Don’t worry, traveler—nobody will bother you in our rooms. Very private. Very comfortable.” He rapped on the counter with his free hand, and a small woman with a pinched face appeared from behind a swinging door next to him. She looked young, even younger than the body I currently wore.

  She stepped up beside him and he whispered something in her ear before she nodded and scurried away. She stopped long enough to grab one of the other serving girls and then they both disappeared up the stairs in the corner, which I could only assume led up to the rooms.

  "They're just making sure we have a room ready for you," the man behind the counter said as he took another puff from his pipe.

  I nodded and waited. After several minutes the two women returned from upstairs, both looking flustered and out of breath. The first returned to the counter, where she bowed slightly, her eyes locked onto me.

  “Good evening, miss, my name is Irinda.”

  I returned the motion with a nod of my head, my eyes flicking back to the man behind the counter.

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  “Irinda will take you to your room. She’ll make sure you get settled in nicely.”

  “And the price?” I asked, still waiting for him to answer my original question. It was bold of him to assume I’d just accept the room without knowing the price.

  “One Gold and five Silver,” he said, holding up a hand, palm facing upward.

  I raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t exactly as cheap as I’d been hoping for… “How much for a private bath?”

  He chuckled at that, taking another puff of his pipe. “Irinda can draw you a bath, but it won’t be private. Only bath we have is on the second floor.”

  I stifled the anger that continued to swell within me, begging for his blood to run down my blade. Killing him would get me nothing but thrown in the palace dungeons. If I were lucky.

  “Very well.” I withdrew one Gold coin and five Silver coins, and laid them on the counter. “But, I would like to make it known that if anyone bothers me during my bath, I will be forced to protect myself. And I’m very good at protecting myself.” I let the words linger, even cocking my lips into a smug smile as I stared him down.

  He nodded his head, as if I'd just told him that I planned to buy him a gift for his trouble.

  “Of course,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “I’ll make sure Irinda keeps the door locked.”

  I turned my gaze back to the young woman, her head still bowed slightly. She was far too young to be working in a place like this.

  “Lead the way, child.” I said, letting an air of command coat my words. She hurried to obey, bobbing her head at the man behind the counter, and then motioning for me to follow.

  We crossed the room, Irinda leading me through the tables and benches, away from any of the customers still nestled throughout the place. I caught a few of their eyes lingering on us, but they always glanced away when I turned to them. I tightened the grip on my dagger as we passed the last table and turned up the stairs.

  The stairs creaked and groaned under our weight as we climbed to the second floor, and then the third. The stairs gave way to a long hallway, with one door on the right, and two on the left.

  “The bath is located in the first room on the second floor, as Master Brin advised you already.” Irinda told me as she shuffled to the only door on the right. She withdrew a key from her pocket and pressed it into the hole in the doorknob, twisting it until the mechanism within clicked.

  “Once I get you settled in here, I’ll head down and draw the water up. It shouldn’t take long, as we have an oil furnace that helps heat the water.”

  I nodded along as she swung the door to the room open and motioned for me to head inside. I passed by her, finally releasing my hand from the hilt of my dagger, and took in the room with a single glance.

  It was mostly bare. A simple table with some drawers, a wooden nightstand, and a full-sized bed that had blankets folded up at the foot. The blankets looked more worn than my first set of armor.

  There was also a mirror over a small sink situated in the corner, and a small fireblasted toilet next to it. I grimaced at the sight.

  Fireblasted toilets had risen to fame over the past few decades, around the same time that oil lamps had started to be replaced by magelights. They'd been given their lovely name thanks to the batch of flames that blasted away your waste after you had finished. They were very effective, but the stench was awful.

  I turned back to Irinda and held out a hand before she could leave.

  “Your master, is he a good man?” I asked. It wasn’t really a question I had expected to ask her, but something about this body…

  The way that those men in the garden had looked at me—like a piece of meat for the taking—and how the man downstairs had watched me…I was starting to understand something I’d never had to deal with before.

  Vulnerability?

  The word made my stomach curl. I am not weak, I told myself. I almost said the words out loud to reassure myself. Killing those bastards in the garden weighed on me, but I had slain entire countries. Laid waste to entire species of cosmic creatures. I was the [Empress of Dragons].

  Weak and vulnerable were not words you used to describe someone like me.

  And yet, I couldn’t help but see myself—my new self—when I looked at Irinda's pinched face. Her subtle beauty and small stature.

  She stared blankly at me, her mouth slightly agape as if she had started to answer before quieting herself. She nodded her head unconvincingly, her lips moving as she muttered. "Yes, of course he is. Master Brin is very kind."

  “I’ll be down shortly,” I said, waving her away. She handed me the key and left. I could tell she was lying, but there wasn’t anything else I could do at the moment, and she had no reason to trust me and divulge her secrets.

  I closed the door behind her, and took another look around the room. Something was odd about this place.

  First, the third floor only had three rooms, and my room was on one side of the building by itself. So shouldn't it be larger?

  I opened the door again and stepped outside, eyeing the hallway around me. I hadn't counted the steps it took to walk the length of the hallways below, so I couldn't say for certain. But the hall here looked shorter for some reason. The floors were also covered in a thick layer of dust, which showed my boot prints, as well as those of the two women—though they overlapped in places.

  Perhaps they were simply hiding something beyond the wall. It wasn't unusual for shady places like this to be involved in the darker side of the world.

  I returned to my room and looked around once more. The floor wasn't dusty like the hall outside, which meant it had likely been swept recently—perhaps even as recently as when the two women had come upstairs before. Which likely meant this room wasn't used much.

  I walked the length of the room, gaze taking everything in. There were scratches on the floor, where it looked like the bed had been moved around. What would someone like Brin have to gain by putting me up in a room like this? Well, beyond making sure my accommodations were absolutely awful.

  Images of the man behind the counter eyeing me up and down flashed across my mind. Had he had this room made up just for me? Was it because of how far away it was from everything else?

  My hand shot to the dagger at my waist, fingers gripping the hilt.

  No. That made little sense. Even in this part of town, going about something like that so blatantly would get you caught. There had to be something else going on here. Plans to rob me, perhaps?

  But even then, he or whoever he sent would have to climb the stairs, corner me in the room, and then retreat at some point. It left too much room for discovery. Whatever he had planned, he would need to hide for it.

  My eyes shot to the walls. The bare, almost lifeless looking walls. Could the shorter hallway be because of a passageway beyond?

  I inspected the walls, looking for any signs of anything that might look out of place.

  It took a few minutes, but I finally found what looked like it might be a small peephole carved into one of the knots of the wooden planks. It was carved well—almost well enough to hide it completely. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it.

  I touched the hilt of my dagger again, and turned to the door. The peephole was located to the left of the door when you entered, opposite the bed. That meant there had to be some way to get to the other side of the wall.

  I crossed to the door again, swung it open, and stepped into the hallway. I glanced both ways, looking at the two doors on the opposite wall. What was behind those doors?

  I tried the handles of each one, only to find them locked.

  Intriguing. It made sense they were locked; even my own room had been locked before Irinda had opened it for me.

  Could I somehow get inside without needing a key? I touched my fingers to the door, and focused on the power at the core of my spirit. I couldn’t access much of my abilities, because the System had locked them behind skills. But, perhaps I could… a faint bit of magicka trickled down my arm and into the doorknob. An absolutely useless amount.

  Heat flushed against my cheeks, frustration boiling within me. I really needed to level up and start gaining access to the rest of my abilities. I wasn’t sure what I had expected from the attempt—part of me had hoped that the mechanism inside would melt, I suppose—but it was still infuriating to be proven so weak once again.

  My anger gave way to exhaustion, though, and I turned back to my room, giving up on this endeavor for the time.

  I’d do something about the peephole later, before I went to sleep. Perhaps I could clog it with something, or place something over it. For now, I needed a bath. Washing the blood in the fountain had helped, but my muscles were starting to ache with soreness, and I could feel the fatigue settling in.

  This human form was weak. I’d need to be careful not to push myself too far, right now. It wouldn’t do me any good to end up on the pointy end of someone’s blade because I was too tired to defend myself. So, I made my way downstairs to where Irinda was waiting with the hot bath.

  The Slumbering Drake might have been a dump, but hot water was hot water, and the oil furnace that heated the inn’s tub proved worth every coin I’d spent.