“I’m not needing another barmaid, Shemmel,” Seydir said.
“She will learn fast,” Shemmel said.
“I don’t need one.”
“What about tending bar?”
“A girl?” Seydir raised an eyebrow.
“Why not?”
“I tend the bar.”
“You need a break sometime.”
“A girl cannot hold this job. The demand is—”
“I can do it better than you,” Adora interrupted.
Seydir looked at her. He didn’t smile.
“You’ve tended bar before, girl?”
“No,” she said, which wasn’t exactly true. The Order had trained her for this. She had memorized drinks, worked taps and glasses for months at the Order House. There was pitifully little to know. The only challenge she imagined would be the rush of people, demanding many things from her at once. She looked forward to that challenge.
Seydir shook his head, turned his frown on Shemmel. “Look Shemmel, I appreciate what you have done for—”
“Give me one week,” Adora interrupted. “One week for free and I’ll run this bar better than you. Otherwise you don’t pay me.”
Seydir paused.
“Afterwards, when you see what I can do,” she said. “I shall have two silvers a week and a room to live.”
Seydir looked at her, again directly at her eyes. “It won’t come to that,” he said, rubbing gnarled knuckles against a sideburn. “If it did, you’d get five coppers a week and whatever the patrons see fit to tip you.”
“And a room?”
Seydir ignored her, looked at Shemmel. “In a week’s time, you come get her or she’ll be on the street.”
“In a week’s time you’ll want to marry me,” Adora said. “But I won’t let you.”
Seydir laughed then, a deep rich sound, and Adora smiled.
Shemmel left her at The Floating Stone with a satchel of possessions. Some were actually hers, and some were carefully crafted keepsakes to prove her life as the daughter of a traveling merchant: an armband from a tribe of Benascan savages. A book of children’s stories, containing a collection of pressed leaves from three corners of the empire. Four changes of clothing. A hair brush, half-a-dozen paper-wrapped cakes of soap, maps of the area—marked with Shemmel’s supposed trade route—and a silver mirror, which was to be Adora’s prized possession. And, of course, the cloak of a ten-year-old boy.
She lifted it from the satchel and pulled it softly across her fingers. Patches of the waterproof treatment had been rubbed away from years of handling. This was the only thing she really owned. When every person she loved had betrayed her, one boy had fought for her. A boy who would never betray anyone.
She put it to her face and took a deep breath. It smelled like him, like wet leaves and clean hair. It smelled like safety. She breathed into it for a long moment, then put it back into the satchel. This was her new life. It was time to get about it.
She laid her possessions out on the small table. Seydir said she could have the extra storage room above the tavern. It used to be a guest room, but he rarely used it. It was larger than she had hoped, and it had its own rickety wooden staircase and a door to the outside, which was good. Adora did not want Seydir knowing whenever she came or went.
There were a few boxes in the corner, a window that looked out on Clapwood Street, a window that looked out on the alley beside The Floating Stone, and a small side room that, she decided immediately, would serve as her washroom. Adora had given up almost all of her former habits, but she refused to give up bathing. She had learned to work in dirt, with animals at the Order house: pigs, horses, chickens, cows. She had learned to get on her knees and scrub floors, polish windows, change oil lamps, make meals and pour drinks. But she put her foot down about cleanliness. She would never learn how to be dirty for more than a couple of days. It was disgusting.
There was no bed, but that was no matter. She’d have Shemmel bring one from the Order house—a ‘trade’ he would have made for her in nearby Moondow—and then she’d either make a mattress or buy one with the tips she would receive.
After sweeping, mopping and scrubbing every corner of the room, she nodded her satisfaction. She emptied the large wash-basin into the alley, filled it again from the pump and brought it upstairs. She christened her new room by stripping down and washing the grime from her body. The floating droplets reflected the sunset that could not be seen in the city of Fairmist, and warm orange light filled the room when she stepped out, dripping and clean.
The first challenge was done. Seydir had accepted her, and she had a new home. The second challenge would come tonight, as she created herself for the rest of Fairmist.
And the most important challenge...
The Whisper Prince would be meeting her in that tavern below. Soon. Only a matter of days now.
He didn’t know he was meeting her, of course, didn’t know anything about Baezin’s Order or how he had been written into the prophecy. He didn’t know that Adora had watched him for the last seven years. She watched him help his father at his shoe-making shop, watched how he was gentle with his step-mother, how he looked after his little brother Julin, even as he acutely felt the bars of their prison.
They deserved better. They deserved a life free from the slinks, free from an emperor who demanded the Debt of the Blessed. Adora’s own sister, so far away now, deserved it, too.
Adora’s orders were simple. Seduce the Whisper Prince, become his confidante, and prepare him with the teachings of the Order. She must be bound to him when the Event occurred, which would be in the next few months. She had asked Lyndion incessantly when the Event would occur, and his frustrating reply was always, “When it happens, you will know.”
Aside from that, Adora was free. She was free to explore Fairmist, free to make friends and to live for as long as she could. Cooped up for years with men who treated her like an exotic bird, she was excited to explore. Her body fluttered with sensations carefully held in check around the Order’s ascetics. Before she left, she had asked Lyndion, “Can I take a lover?”
“Besides the Prince?” His face leaked a small smile. “Take ten,” he said. “Become the strumpet of Clapwood Street if you like.” He did a poor job of hiding how much the idea excited him. Lyndion could never have her, but she knew he imagined it often. “Use your body. With him. With another to make him jealous. Preferably both. Whatever keeps the Whisper Prince bound to you.”
She knew the prophecy. They had drilled it into her from the moment she had awoken scared, drenched and bloody. She knew her part. Shemmel had taken her to see the whores in Fairmist. She knew how it worked.
“And keep your emotions in check—”
“Lyndion, I know.”
“You are there to guide him. Do not become confused.”
“Is there anything else?”
“No,” he had said. “Stay on the Path. Stay strong, my daughter.”
She shivered. She hated that. She wasn’t “his daughter” in this life or any other.
She dressed in an almost identical set of work clothes to what she had worn earlier, except black and brown instead of brown and dun. She remembered, wistfully, when she had worn reds and golds and bright yellows. Silks from Venisha and soft cotton from the Felesh plantations.
But not in this life. She was to play a poor bartender. She was to mix the confidence of her upbringing with the freedom of her low station. She was to become irresistible.
She left her little room, heard two water owls hooting above in the mist, and went downstairs to the tavern. The Floating Stone was already half-filled with customers, and Seydir was busy. Without a word, he motioned her over. She pretended to pay close attention, to go slowly at first and “pick it up” quickly.
After the first night, Seydir’s frown disappeared. Adora served drinks like she was born to it and smiled at each patron as though she existed only for him. After the first week, Seydir watched her with guarded admir
ation as she owned the bar, flirting with patrons, drawing a crowd that was there for her as much as the liquor she served.
On the seventh day, an hour before Deepdark, the Whisper Prince walked through the door. He hung his cloak on the peg and ran his hands over the hot stone.
She knew him, would know him blindfolded. Barely a day had passed that she hadn’t thought of him. He had found her, helpless and alone, and laid his cloak over her, stood fast as her guardian. She had kissed him, and he had made his promise:
I won’t leave you. I’m going to protect you.
Then the slink had come. The last she remembered was a rainbow light, and the young boy standing bravely before it. She had awoken in the Order House; the boy and the slink were gone. The Order had healed her; then they showed her how she could make things right.
Barely a year later, when they first took her to Fairmist and pointed out the Whisper Prince, the one she must steward toward the prophecy’s end, she knew him instantly. It was the boy from the forest. Of course it was.
Grei entered the tavern with a fire in his eyes that made him seem larger than the people around him.
He moved out of the way of two incoming middle-aged patrons, and politely held the door.
She looked down and watched him through her eyelashes, slowly filling a mug from the tap and passing it down the bar.
“He will burn with purpose,” Lyndion had said. “Turn that purpose to the prophecy’s need.”
Grei hesitated by the door, then angled toward the bar, peering over the heads of the crowd as though looking for someone. She took an excited breath. She had to get on top of the situation from the outset; she had to move fast.
As he reached the bar, she flipped her hair back and looked up as though just noticing him.
“Can I wet your lips?” she asked, giving him an arch glance. His wavy hair tumbled carelessly to his shoulders, dripping from the mists, wildness framing an open face. Seven years ago, he’d been a boy. He was a young man now.
She’d crafted the perfect line for this moment, a few words to make herself unforgettable. What were they?
“I’m Grei,” he spoke first. He seemed befuddled, as if he couldn’t quite see her clearly. He was struggling with how he knew her. They had been children the last time they’d met.
“I’m Adora,” she whispered. Seeing him, talking to him face-to-face, hit her harder than she’d expected. She felt like she had come home.
They looked into each other’s eyes. Then suddenly, it was awkward. They both realized they were staring.
“Where’s, um, where’s Seydir?” he asked.
“In the back,” she said, then forced herself into her role. She owned this moment. She had trained too long to foul it up. She smiled. “Am I not man enough to find your drink?”
He opened his mouth to say something, but apparently had nothing to say. He shut it again.
She filled a mug with the nearest ale, regaining her balance as he lost his. She passed the drink to him. “Start with this. Come back and see me when you find your tongue.” She winked. Grei shuffled back as though someone had thumped his chest.
Dazed, he turned with the ale and went to find a seat. He looked over his shoulder twice, as though he wasn’t sure if he should really be walking away.
Did he see the injured girl he had held so long ago?
She banished the thought with a shake of her head. It wouldn’t be the same for him as it was for her. She had studied him almost every day, paced this testing ground many times in her mind.
As soon as Grei sat down, Adora went to Seydir, who had just emerged from the kitchen.
“I need a breath of air,” she said, holding her hands together to keep them from shaking. “May I?” She nodded at the side door.
“Take two. You’re doing great, Adora.”
She kept her steps slow, holding onto the persona, swinging her hips as she walked, and left the tavern. The moment the door closed, she rushed up the creaking stairs to her little landing, sank against her new door and hugged her shins. She looked out over the lantern lights of Fairmist with her chin on her knees. The water owls hooted. Floating droplets drifted in front of her.
Thrills fluttered through her, and she pushed them down. She hadn’t expected to lose her calm so easily.
Become the strumpet of Clapwood Street, Lyndion had said, and this was why. Sleep with others so she did not forget who was in charge. Grei was not hers to love. He was hers to snare, to guide, to manipulate. He belonged to the prophecy. That was why she had begun the rumors about herself. That was why she had drawn Highblade Ash to court her. He had visited her every day during the last week. He would probably show up at the tavern tonight.
She sat in the growing darkness, clutching her knees, fighting her optimistic heart and the dream of a life she could never have. Especially not with Grei. The Order had taken her in, nurtured her, because the empire needed her. She wouldn’t let sentiment break a hundred years of destiny.
She wouldn’t.
Chapter 6
Grei
Grei sat at the little table, pressed between the wall and the stone fireplace, staring after the woman who called herself Adora. The haze of pipe smoke drifted in layers, and his fingers clutched the handle of the seven-sided mug so hard his knuckles were white. It was her. It had to be her. The puzzle pieces of his heart fit together again. Adora was the Forest Girl.
Except she had died. He had failed to protect her and the slink took her.
But…the black and gold hair. The same features he had stared at for days. The same everything except not as a girl. As a woman.
He turned his gaze to the side door through which she had left, got up from his seat and left his beer untouched. Seydir glanced at him, his bushy sideburns doing nothing to hide his smile, and he went back to polishing a mug with the rag he always carried on his shoulder.
Grei pushed through the door into the wet night—
—and almost ran into her.
She stepped back, graceful as a cat, and he stumbled past. She seemed startled, but then smiled and cocked her hips, resting her hands there. “The beer is inside, my lord. Are you lost?”
Grei cleared his throat. “No. I came for you.”
“Not yet, I hope.”
He opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that.
He tried to rally his thoughts, but she took mercy on him and spoke first.
“I was taking a break,” she said, nodding toward the door that had nearly swung shut, leaving only a line of yellow light across the shining cobblestones. “Come back inside where it’s dry.”
“I have to ask you something.” The floating droplets caught on her hair and clothes, sparkling like diamonds.
“You can’t ask me inside?”
He looked at her, and suddenly his gaze went inside her.
He fought to assimilate what came to him. The impressions weren’t words. The only words he could hear were those of The Whisper Prince, growing louder. Purpose glowed like a bar of hot iron in her chest. And around it, fear. She was scared of him.
No. She was scared for him. About something to do with him. He could smell her tension, taste her apprehension. But it wasn’t even that. It was some other sense, faint and ticklish. It went beyond sight or smell or sound or touch, some mixture of all of them. A new sense.
He stepped back. The colors of her desires flickered past him.
“Who are you?” he whispered, trying to understand what had just happened to him.
“A keeper of the bar,” she said, watching him carefully. Then the colors, scents, and visions of her suddenly vanished as though she had closed a door. She paused. “I have worked here for a week.”
“Have you ever played in the South Forest?”
The teasing smile returned. “You want to play in the forest?”
“W-when you were a child,” he stammered.
“You want to know if I played in the forest as a child?�
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“Your heels,” he said, looking down at her half-boots, barely visible behind the hem of her skirt. “Show me your right heel—”
“Tell me this isn’t how you court a woman.”
Grei suddenly realized how strange he must sound, even threatening. “No, that’s not...” he said. “I know this sounds strange.”
She put a hand on his arm. “Not the strangest request I’ve ever had.” She winked. “But I do not show my ankles to just anybody.”
“Not ankles,” he said. “Your—”
“There you are!” Meek roared.
Grei spun around. Meek’s hulking form filled the mouth of the alley. He hunched, his huge arms and shoulders rounding his silhouette. He looked like a barrel with a head.
Meek staggered into the courtyard; he had obviously been drinking. His cloak had fallen back, and he was drenched from the water droplets. “I’ll drive your face into the stones, Grei,” he said. “You broke my nose.” He pointed at the red bulb on his face.
Two of Meek’s friends, Pad and Norcun, slipped into the alley behind him. Like Meek, they were close to Grei’s age. Neither of them were Young Blades, but they had been there with Meek when Grei took his first beating.
“Gonna make sure you end up with worse than this,” Meek said, pointing at his face.
“No one could end up with worse than that,” Grei said. Adora laughed lightly, and Grei’s heart lifted.
Meek’s scowl switched to Adora, and his eyes narrowed. “You’re Seydir’s new whore, aren’t you?”
Grei clenched his fists and stepped forward. Meek backed up.
“I told you to get him!” he shouted at Pad and Norcun, who leapt forward. “Hold him still!”
Grei drove his shoulder into Norcun, but Pad got his left arm. Grei yanked, but before he could free it, Norcun had his right. They pulled tight, spun him around.
Meek drove his fist into Grei’s face, and stars burst in his vision. A second fist slammed into his gut, and he doubled over.
Struggling to breathe, he raised his head and Meek nailed him in the jaw. Grei tasted blood. Through bleary eyes, he glanced over at Adora.
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