by K. A. Linde
“Don’t listen to him,” Brigette said with a smile. “I haven’t met an Affiliate in nearly a decade, and I would love to know everything about your homeland.”
“Oh. Well, of course,” Cyrene said.
“Perfect. I hope you have found Eleysia to your liking.”
“As much as I have seen so far.”
“Not much, I’d wager, but we’ll fix that. But, first, let me introduce you to my sisters.”
Cyrene steeled herself to meet all the girls standing before her. There were so many. She had no idea how she was going to keep them all straight. Even with her quick memory, it didn’t seem likely.
“In age order, my sisters, Princesses Susann and Karin.”
Both were tall with straight blonde hair to their waists. Susann had a book open in her lap and barely glanced up at Brigette’s introduction. Karin had on an extremely low-cut dress and the most makeup. She flounced over to them and curtsied to Cyrene.
“So, you’re the reason Dean came home,” Karin said bluntly.
“I…” Cyrene began.
“We thought he’d be gone forever.”
“Must be important to bring the girl home to meet the family,” another girl said, after Karin.
Two other girls followed close behind, and they looked similar with frizzy bright red hair, a splatter of freckles, and round faces.
Brigette pointed at them in order. “The triplets, of course—Princesses Lissa, Lara, and Livia.”
Lara pushed past Lissa to get to the front. “Is that what this is all about? Dean, have you finally found yourself a girl?”
“And Byern born at that?” Livia cried in protest.
Cyrene’s cheeks flushed at the comments, but they wouldn’t let her or Dean get a word in edgewise.
“And an Affiliate at that,” Lara said in disgust.
“Didn’t the last one try to kill him?” another girl with fair hair and big, round green eyes said. Her gown was plainer than the other girls’, and she was a bit wider than the rest. She seemed bored by the conversation.
“That’s Princess Ruthe,” Brigette said. She was making no move to correct the girls or any of their accusations. She seemed perfectly happy to let it continue as she made introductions.
“I distinctly remember the Truffle Incident,” Ruthe continued.
Another girl behind Ruthe just shrugged. She was petite with hair the color of burnt copper and a hawk-like nose. “Who cares? She’s not here to stay.”
“That’s Princess Hether.”
“If she were here to stay, Mother wouldn’t have had an official audience. She’s a visitor. No need to get too comfortable,” Hether said.
A set of twins nudged Hether.
“You think she’s leaving?” one of them asked.
They were the only ones with brown hair in the bunch, but she couldn’t tell them apart.
“Of course she’s leaving. Don’t be absurd, Tifani. It’s not as if he’s marrying her.”
Cyrene’s mouth dropped open, and she tried to find the words to correct them. They had it all wrong. She wasn’t here for Dean. She hardly knew Dean. It didn’t matter in the slightest that he had kissed her last night or the way he’d looked at her or the way he could carry on such an easy conversation with her or that he just seemed to accept her for exactly who she was without pretense, despite his country’s prejudice against Affiliates.
“The twins, Therese and Tifani. Though, they’re younger than Alise over there.”
Alise didn’t say a word. She just stared at Cyrene, as if Alise could see straight through her. Through every sugarcoated word Cyrene had said before their mother. Through every reason for why she was here. Through the relationship between she and Dean. And Alise didn’t just look curious about what was going on and what was to come; she looked angry.
Cyrene diverted her gaze and turned back to Brigette and Dean.
“Only Alise, the twins—Therese and Tifani—and I still live full-time in the palace. All our other sisters are married with lots of children, so they won’t be around as much.”
“I see,” Cyrene said, trying to keep everything straight in her mind.
Dean sighed heavily. “Well, you’ve met my sisters. Ready to run yet?”
Cyrene almost laughed. She had faced a Braj twice and Indres. Not to mention Kael’s magic. A few girls couldn’t be that bad.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Cyrene said, making sure her voice was strong and level.
They seemed to have one idea about her, but she didn’t want to back down from their taunts either.
“You’ve all had your fun,” Dean said with a shake of his head. “Leave her be now.”
“No, it’s okay,” Cyrene said. “They’re just protective. I understand that. I’m protective of my brother and sisters. I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
Several of the girls gave her appreciative looks, and some looked suspicious. But Alise in the back just rolled her eyes. Well, they are going to be a hard group to crack.
“They’ll warm up to you,” Brigette said. “Just give them time.” She pulled Cyrene away from the rest of her sisters and began to walk them back through the throne room out of earshot of Dean and Maelia. “It was quite a thing to see my brother stand up for you today.”
“Oh, well, I’m sure he was just being kind.”
Brigette gave her an appraising look. “He is, by nature, unfailingly kind. But not to the extent where he would speak to the Queen for a stranger.”
“I haven’t known him long, but I hardly think we are strangers,” Cyrene said. She hoped her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.
“You must be very special to him.”
Cyrene caught Dean’s eye behind her, and he smiled warmly. In that moment, she found that she was perfectly content with being special to Dean Ellison.
Despite all the formal pleasantries that had to be made for her visit in the Eleysian palace, Cyrene couldn’t neglect the real reason she was here. Basille Selby had told her to come to the Eleysian capital city and find Matilde and Vera. They would be able to help people like her. She hadn’t known what that meant all those months ago, but now, she understood.
Doma.
She needed to find Master Domas Matilde and Vera. Somehow, they were still alive even though two thousand years had passed. And it was the sole reason for coming to Eleysia.
With Orden, Ahlvie, Avoca, and Ceis’f searching the rest of the island, Cyrene had concentrated her efforts on the palace even though Dean had claimed that he had never heard of anyone with those names.
Cyrene was right the first time she had walked inside the building. It was crowded. Since the island wasn’t all that big, many nobles and members of the Privy Council chose to live on the palace grounds as part of the court. It would be as if every Affiliate and High Order lived in the Byern castle instead of reintegrating into the city after fulfilling their educational components.
That meant she had a lot of ground to cover, all while trying not to look like a suspicious Affiliate snooping around the palace. The only place she had found where no one cared if she looked around was the library, which was enormous and had so many different subjects than what were found in Byern. Her head spun in there.
But still, the first two weeks she had been in the palace, she had no luck. Maelia snuck off the grounds unnoticed to search the Lower Sector, the southern district that attached to the Palace grounds, for any clues. But both of them came up empty-handed, and worse, Cyrene hadn’t seen Dean at all. His sisters would come around to get to know her—otherwise known as irritate her to no end, take up too much of her time, and generally try to sabotage her very existence. They told her that Dean had gone back to work after his long absence, but she didn’t know what that meant. Princes back home didn’t work, not as far as she knew. Prince Kael mostly just fraternized, fornicated, and frustrated her.
She had known that it might take some time to find them, but it was easy to get discouraged when they di
dn’t have any clues and no word from her friends on the outside.
“Any luck?” Maelia asked.
Cyrene jumped on the bed where she had a pile of books sprawled out before her. “How are you so silent? I didn’t even hear the door open.”
Maelia shrugged. “Years of training with the Guard.”
“You’re even quieter than Avoca. That’s a feat.”
Maelia smiled, as if this were a compliment.
“Did you find anything?”
Maelia shook her head. “I think we should go meet with the others and see how their search is going. Try to come up with an easier way to go about this than blind searching.”
“You’re right. We need to reconvene. I don’t want to spend years searching for them. We need to be more pragmatic.”
Cyrene followed Maelia out of the castle grounds. In such a short time, Maelia had already figured out the perfect time to get in and out of court without being seen. Cyrene couldn’t help but admire that training. While Cyrene had been preparing for her Presenting and learning any number of subjects, Maelia had been learning swordplay, tracking, and other militaristic things from her parents and the guards whom she had grown up with in Levin.
Maelia flagged down a gondola and gave the man directions to where they were to meet the others at an inn in the First Sector. They cut through the water, and Cyrene got her first real look at the city during the day. It was bustling as much as the palace was. Every square inch was built up, and for every waterway that Orden had drawn on the map, there were dozens of other smaller waterways navigating throughout the various sectors. The canals crisscrossed the city in a manner quite like the back roads of any other major city. It was incredible that these boats were the major source of transportation instead of horse or carriage. Though most of the canals had sandstone bridges connecting the various buildings as well as the different sectors.
Their gondola traveled off the main canal and into a narrow waterway in the First Sector. Cyrene could tell immediately that this area of the city was much less reputable than where they had come from. The buildings were more ramshackle, and children ran around barefoot. Taverns littered every corner, offering a drunken reprieve.
“Why am I not surprised that this is where Ahlvie chose to meet?” Cyrene asked when the boat stopped in front of a tavern and inn called The Sea Bride’s Chamber.
Maelia laughed and followed her into the inn. Loud music played over the boisterous cheers from the crowd who took up the majority of the space. People were dancing in the center of the room and repeatedly crashing into each other, spilling ale all over the floor. The floors were sticky, and Cyrene was sure she was ruining her silk slippers. She wished she had worn boots, but the weather was so hot in Eleysia that most people didn’t even own them.
Cyrene cast her eyes around the room, looking for some kind of gambling table, knowing she would find Ahlvie there. Then, Maelia laughed next to her and pointed up to the stage. There, decked out in full entertainer garb, complete with a flowing mendicant cloak in a mishmash of colors, playing a lute and singing, while the crowd cheered him on was none other than Ahlvie Gunn.
“Way to stay undercover,” Cyrene grumbled under her breath.
“He is the most irritating man in Emporia,” Maelia confirmed.
“And, somehow, he always figures out what we need to know. So, let’s go see if he’s figured it out this time.”
Cyrene angled toward the stage and started meandering through the crowd toward Ahlvie. She passed a table of men throwing dice and another playing some kind of card game. She was glad Ahlvie was singing on the stage tonight rather than gambling.
He finished his song and swept a deep bow to the room. Everyone cheered and called for another. Cyrene caught his eye then, and his eyebrows rose. His smile grew into that normal devious look she knew all too well. It meant he had a bad idea brewing.
“That’s my final song for today, folks. Same place and time tomorrow,” Ahlvie called.
“Haille, one more!” someone cried.
“Mardas, sing us your favorite again!”
A cheer went up in the crowd. “Mardas! Mardas! Mardas!”
Cyrene shook her head. Haille Mardas was back. That only meant trouble.
He bowed one more time with a flourish and then hopped down. He found Cyrene in the crowd, and at least a dozen times, he was clapped on the back by happy customers who appreciated his music.
“Ladies, ladies,” Ahlvie said, wrapping an arm around Cyrene’s and Maelia’s shoulders. “Let’s get you upstairs where you belong.” He winked at a man at the bar and then pushed them toward the stairs.
“You are vile. You know that, right?” Maelia said.
“Horrid, Ahlvie,” Cyrene agreed.
“You both love it,” he said, squeezing their shoulders and pretending to nuzzle Cyrene’s neck for the crowd.
“I am going to kill you,” she growled.
Their group made it up two flights of stairs. Ahlvie opened a door into a two-bedroom suite. Cyrene’s eyebrows rose.
“You must be throwing dice to afford this room,” Cyrene said.
Ahlvie laughed and shut the door behind Maelia. “The owner of the inn lets me stay in exchange for my performances. Seems it brings good business. Better for us to have one place for everyone with ready meals,” Ahlvie said. He pulled off the cloak he’d worn for the show and slung it on a hook at the door. “Not better money than dicing, but less chance of getting thrown out.”
Cyrene shook her head. “That’s because you cheat.”
“I take from the rich and stupid and give to the poor and intelligent.”
“You give to yourself.”
“Exactly.”
“Cyrene!” Avoca cried, coming into the main room from the bedroom to the right.
Cyrene felt the connection with Avoca like a gentle thrum. A constant reminder that they were bound together. When they were apart, she could still feel it but dimly. This was the longest she had been away from Avoca since their ceremony.
Cyrene pulled her into a hug. “I’ve missed you.”
Avoca patted her back twice. “Yes. It has been interesting without you around.”
Cyrene released her and didn’t miss the look that passed between she and Ahlvie. Cyrene wasn’t sure if that meant they had finally given in to their feelings or if Ceis’f was being a royal pain.
“Where are Orden and Ceis’f?” Cyrene asked.
“Ceis’f is on watch,” Ahlvie said. “And Orden was following a lead in the Market Sector. He should be back shortly.”
As if he’d heard his name, Orden trudged in through the door. His oversize hat drooped to one side, and he looked like he had been in some kind of brawl. “No luck,” he grumbled.
“What happened to you?” Ahlvie asked with a raised eyebrow. “Met another mistress?”
Orden glared at him and removed his hat. “Don’t mess with me, boy. I’ve had a long day, and I’ll be happy to put my fist through that pretty face of yours if you want to keep up the attitude.”
Ahlvie raised his hands. “Be careful with the pretty face. It pays the bills.”
Orden huffed and then stomped into the other bedroom. Cyrene could hear him washing up, and then a couple of minutes later, he returned. He didn’t look all that more cheerful, not that she had ever really seen him cheerful before.
“Cyrene. Maelia,” he said, dipping his head toward the girls. “Are we going to bring in Ceis’f?”
Ahlvie shrugged. “I think he’s fine,” he said casually.
His eyes sought out Avoca again, but she purposely looked away. Whatever was going on didn’t seem to be good for anyone here.
“Then, let’s get started,” Orden said. He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. “I assume you girls are here for a reason.”
“We came for news, but considering you all look ready to kill one another, I find it hard to believe you have any. Is there any good news?” Cyrene took a seat by the
unlit hearth. She didn’t understand why the room had a fireplace with Eleysia’s sweltering heat.
“Ahlvie found out that the boat we were supposed to come in on is supposed to dock at First Harbor tomorrow,” Avoca said. Ahlvie tipped his head with a devious smirk. “So, hopefully, it will still have our belongings on it, if they haven’t been confiscated or sold.”
“I see,” Cyrene said. “Well, that is kind of good news.”
“Though it seems you have new clothes already,” Ahlvie said. He couldn’t hold back his smirk.
“Dean has eleven sisters,” she explained. “They’re doing their best to clothe me in between their everyday sabotage.”
Avoca raised her eyebrows. “Anything I need to worry about?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“They don’t know who they’re dealing with if they think a little sabotage will stop you,” Ahlvie joked with a wink.
“Why, Haille Mardas, that was almost a compliment.”
He grinned devilishly. “They haven’t seen you take on a Braj.”
“Or destroy an entire group of Indres,” Avoca said.
“Or break people out of prison,” Orden added.
“Or take on the entire Aurumian army and Prince Kael,” Maelia said.
Cyrene held her hands up. “Okay, I get it. When you say it that way, it does sound pretty impressive. But you were all there; you know I didn’t really do anything. The magic saved my life. I didn’t even know how to use it. Everyone else helped with the breakout as much as I did. And…you all are just embellishing.”
Maelia touched Cyrene’s shoulder. “If that’s what you have to tell yourself.”
Cyrene smiled at her crew. At least they believed in her, even when she didn’t believe in herself. “Well, I’ve no better luck than you lot. All I’ve done is spent time in the library and run into a bunch of dead ends. I’ve had hardly any time without Dean’s sisters continually interrupting me. No one has heard of Matilde and Vera. I worry that, if I keep asking around, people will start questioning my motives.”
“How about we start with this one?” Ceis’f said. He pushed a man through the open window. He rolled half the length of the room before stopping with a thud.