The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) by Jeffrey Quyle Page A

wide at the unexpected revelation.  “Is that true?  Are you just making a bad joke?”
    Alec’s eyes grew moist in turn, and he broke the eye contact they had maintained.  “She died of natural causes, and I took her home to her home village so that she could live her last days in her childhood home.  I was on my way home when I found you.
    “Come on,” he didn’t want to talk about Andi any longer.  “Let’s go to the market.”  He began walking again.
    Kecil took hurried steps to catch up with him, then strode silently by his side as they walked for another block.
    “Do you want me to ask someone for directions, or do you know where you are going?” she finally asked.
    “Ask for directions,” he instructed tersely.
    “I’m sorry,” she told him.  “I didn’t mean to bring up your wife.  I didn’t think you were married.  You didn’t say anything about a wife,” Kecil interpreted his short manners as anger at her.
    Alec stopped abruptly, and reached out to grab the girl’s arm.  The man walking behind Alec was brought up short by the sudden maneuver and bumped into him.
    “Step aside, bub,” the man blurted his frustration, and then moved on down the block.
    “Kecil,” Alec looked at the girl, and as he did, his Spiritual sense gathered awareness of her melancholy breaking out, triggered by the unexpected dust-up with the only person she knew among the millions of humans around her.
    “Kecil,” he repeated, “we’ve both had difficult times happen in life lately.  Nothing’s your fault – nothing’s my fault.  Let’s agree on that, agree we’re friends, and agree we’re apparently going to be married this afternoon.
    “Excuse me,” he reached out to a woman who was walking by.  “Where is the closest market?  We’d like to get some food for breakfast, and maybe some new clothes for my lady too,” Alec asked politely.
    “Well, you’ll go down here about five blocks, maybe six, until you come to the corner with the Emperor’s Boulevard, where there’s a large bank with red shutters, then you turn left two more blocks, and you’ll come to the market,” the woman explained easily.  “Are you new to the city?” she asked in a kindly tone.
    “We just got here last night.  We came from Witten,” Alec answered.
    “Welcome to Vincennes,” the lady spoke, then went on her way.
    “Let’s go find some clothes for you,” Alec said, and the two of them followed the directions for ten minutes of weaving through the traffic on the streets, until they reached the edge of the market.
    “I’ve never been anywhere like this before,” Kecil said two minutes later, as Alec led her into the bewildering maze of passageways that wove among the innumerable small stalls selling a wide variety of goods.  They passed first through the vegetables and greens section, where Alec stopped to buy a few herbs and items he could use medicinally, then they came to the fish market, which they passed through to get to the adjacent meat market.
    “It smells awful in here,” Kecil told Alec with a wrinkled nose.
    “We’ll pick just the good things,” Alec assured her.  “You can breathe through your mouth if it bothers you too much.”  He scanned the goods the vendors offered using his Healing vision, and selected eggs and sausages and a haunch of ham that all appeared safe for consumption.
    “Let’s go over this way,” he led the young girl out of the meat market and into the dry goods section of the market, where he bought a large basket to carry the goods that filled their arms, and then he led Kecil to a row of stalls that sold material and clothing.
    “What should this girl have to wear?” he asked the vendor at the fourth booth they walked past.  The woman was a younger vendor than most, and Alec’s Spiritual sense detected no greed or falsehood in her, only a desire to please people with pretty clothes.
    The woman’s eyes lit up at the question and she rose from her