“Meh fyreon, I do apologize. I meant no disrespect to your…household.” Luscia grimaced, unsure how to navigate the path between etiquette and conviction.
Kasim glared at her. “Just stop talking.” Inching closer to the short table, either to angle toward Salma or distance himself from Luscia, he asked, “How old was Wren? What was her role here at The Veiled Lady?”
“Sixteen, perhaps? She never said, I never asked.” Salma shrugged, and Luscia’s stomach knotted at the confirmation of her youth. “Wren went straight into night-business—papyon. She wanted the money. And she gained popularity, fast. Eh, novelty always does.”
“Who called on her, habitually employed her services?” Kasim pushed.
“You know yancies prefer cross-castes, something normally off-limits. Members of the Peerage made up the majority of her clientele. Oh,” she added, tapping her lip, “and the other alpha—the harsh one, with the scar.” The madam pouted at him. “Your friend takes advantage of our amenities, even if you won’t. The girls don’t like him as much as they’d like you, Jaha.”
Luscia’s forehead wrinkled as she glanced toward Kasim, confused at his lack of patronage. He’d suggested quite the opposite.
“Can you think of anyone who’d want to harm Wren, or ever tried?” the southern al’Haidren rushed on, nostrils flaring, clearly irritated by Salma’s mention of the other alpha.
“Ano zà. My house indulges these men to protect our family from who they are in the outside world. My clients know such behaviors are never tolerated inside.” Salma rubbed her slender wrist in her lap. “The desires we pacify are just shadows, Jaha. Desire is erratic, tied to so many things. Outside, men allow desire to turn ugly, violent.” Her eyes flashed to Luscia. “At least, in the world of a lowly cross-caste.”
Luscia met her gaze levelly. “I am well aware of the things you speak.”
Salma’s eyes dropped to Luscia’s bare neck and the ugly tale etched into her skin. “Uni, I see you are.”
A chasm reopened in her chest as she maintained eye contact with the matron of The Veiled Lady. Loss, pain, and anger were equalizers; emotions that crossed class or territorial boundaries on a map. Behind an unspoken yet recognizable sadness, there was strength in the other woman’s eyes. It rimmed her earthy irises in a green aura of defiance.
What an odd sensation it was, for Luscia to suddenly find herself coveting something in Salma, the owner of a brothel.
“Did you see anything else, hear anything else that night?” Kasim interrupted.
“Ano, Jaha. As you know, I was with you.”
“Uni.” He stood and rubbed the back of his neck. “Then we should go, before questions are raised about my maid. We’ll leave the way we came. Business as usual. Shàla’maiamo, Salma.”
“Tadöm, truly. Boreal thanks you for your candor,” Luscia said as she covered her hair, resembling Mila once again, and followed Kasim out the office.
“Zaethan,” Salma called his given name when they reached the end of the hall. “Remember Owàa’s fate.”
Luscia didn’t understand her farewell, but Kasim seemed unconcerned by the madam’s ominous message.
As they descended the rickety steps into the ruckus of the tavern, Kasim went rigid. She watched his shoulders roll back to embody his full height. After a breath, he marched to a corner gaming table shrouded by a throng of dancing women.
“I can see why your pryde disappoints, Wekesa.” Kasim glowered at a Darkaian alpha lounging at the table, dice in one hand and empty glassware beside the other. “Get up.”
Roughly his al’Haidren’s age, the alpha’s arrogance was palpable in his delay to fulfill Kasim’s order. Plucking unseen lint off his navy tunic, he rose from the chair and strutted to stand in front of Kasim. Bone beads swung in his braids, though they only hung from one side of his scalp. The damaged flesh of the opposite was gruesomely uneven.
“Is this why you’re so obsessed with my investigation, Alpha Zà?” He sucked his teeth and scanned Luscia’s assets, on full display in Mila’s poorly sized dress. “Ni yeye ràtomdai na wewe?”
The alpha posed the Andwele question to his superior, but fixed his overconfident smile on Luscia.
“Ano,” Kasim answered in an amused voice. He then repeated himself, emphasizing the final syllable. “Ano. Zà.”
Astounded, Luscia careened toward Kasim. Her furious stare glided like darts into his cinnamon skin. Kasim stepped aside and gestured obligingly in her direction. Before she could object, Luscia felt a sweaty heaviness land on her hip, urging her forward.
“Yeah, you want some real papyo—ahh!” The other alpha screamed when Luscia crushed his knuckles in her hand. Thrusting her thumb into a pressure point, she twisted his wrist mercilessly. “Y’siti bitch!”
“The y’siti bitch belongs to herself!” She bent his wrist further and threw his hand back. “And she does not want your papyon!”
He cradled the injured hand to his chest and swung his good fist toward her face, but its impact was thwarted by Kasim’s grip on the alpha’s dark, corded forearm.
“The yaya doesn’t want you, Wekesa.” He clutched Luscia’s shoulder, spinning her toward the door. “Now stand down. That’s an order, Alpha.”
The tavern hadn’t quieted much during their scene, but the nearest parties watched intently as she and Kasim exited. Returning to the streets, he released her. Luscia assumed he was too distracted to remember to wipe his hand this time.
They hugged the exterior buildings to pass behind a row of bustling market stalls. She glanced over, perturbed by his unusual silence, and saw that Zaethan Kasim was grinning from ear to ear.
“Did that display please you somehow?” she asked scathingly.
“Incredibly.” He beamed, strutting contently. “My cross-caste scullery maid did what I am not permitted to do at present.”
“Injure his dominant hand?”
“Publicly humiliate him.”
Luscia chewed on his statement as they returned to the abandoned alleyway. Rounding the corner alone, she located her things and began to undress. Pausing, she toyed with the unraveled lacing from the lining of Mila’s garment as curiosity nipped her thoughts.
“Why didn’t you correct me earlier?” she wondered aloud. “When I accused you of frequenting Salma’s tavern for…you know.”
“You’re Boreali. I’m Darakaian. Would the truth have mattered if I had?” Kasim asked from the other side of the brick.
Half undressed, Luscia slumped against the wall and struggled to formulate a response. For some puzzling reason, against all understanding, it did.
The truth mattered.
TWENTY-TWO
Luscia
The vibration of Aksel’s snore lulled Luscia to sleep as her head sank further into the pillows of her lavish Unitarian bed. With a weighty sigh, she let go of the evening she’d spent at The Veiled Lady; her seductive song and ravenous banter, the skeletons her matron masked with desire. Troubled but limp from exhaustion, Luscia melted into the sea of sheets. At last, rest would come.
Rapid murmurs in the receiving room outside licked her ears. Rolling over, Luscia buried her face in a blanket.
“—claims it’s important, m-madam. I’m not to return without her.”
“I’ll say it again. The al’Haidren is not to be disturbed at this hour. Now go, you little twit!”
Groaning, Luscia swung her feet to the ground, much to Aksel’s dismay, and cracked her bedroom door. In the foyer stood Dmitri’s young page. Shakily, he extended a sealed scrap of parchment to her enraged lady’s maid. Tallulah ripped it from the timid boy and studied the impression in the wax. Straightening her nightcap, the older woman looked up, bewildered.
“Ock, why’d you not show me this ten minutes ago? Making me all upset when the prince’s seal was in that sorry pocket of yours!”
&nbs
p; “It’s okay, Tallulah,” Luscia said with a yawn, making the maid jump. “Let’s have it,” she added, reaching for the correspondence.
“Oh, Lady Luscia, I’d have woken you if I thought the boy was speaking truth! This foolish lad here, he—”
“Wem, the prince’s message, Tallulah. Boleava, please.”
“Ah.” She handed over the crisply folded note. “Right.”
Luscia,
Another five. Please, it is urgent.
Yours,
Dmitri
Pushing the unbound hair from her face, Luscia caught the page’s eye and nodded. “Allow me to prepare myself and we’ll depart immediately.”
Retreating to the privacy of her bedroom, she rushed to complete the tedious steps necessary to produce the requested vials. Repeating Alora’s bizarre instructions in her mind, Luscia took the edge of a knife and crushed the ennus thorn, releasing its savory odor. Scraping the chalky powder into a mixing glass, she carefully poured nixberry oil into the beaker and held it over a candle until it boiled. Hastily, she stirred in eüpharsis extract, encouraging the thick, bluish serum to slide into the bubbling liquid. Luscia rested the elixir on her dresser and tugged at the long, gilded chain around her neck. Using the sharp bone key, she added the final ingredient from her index finger.
Five drops of Tiergan blood—no more, no less.
Dividing the liquid between a set of vials, Luscia quickly set them aside and ground the poultice for her finger, dabbing it onto the wound. Tucking the vials in a pocket of her dressing robe, Luscia thrust her feet into a pair of upturned boots and returned to the foyer. If Dmitri’s page questioned her appearance, as it hadn’t improved during the time she’d made him wait, he didn’t voice it as they traversed the halls of the palace. When the page turned down an unfamiliar corridor, Luscia grabbed his arm to correct their path.
“P-please don’t hurt me!” The boy shook in her grasp.
Luscia released him. “I’m not—I just…” She rubbed her temples, cursing the Unitarians for their tales of northern witchery. “Isn’t His Highness’s suite in the southern wing?”
“The prince asked that you meet elsewhere, m-m’Lady al’Haidren.” He ducked his head and gestured to a stairwell.
“Of course.” Luscia made to comfort the nervous page in some fashion, but faltered. “Thank you…Callister, isn’t it?”
Callister murmured something affirmative in response and signaled for her to descend the stairs, apparently alone. As she neared the base, an exquisite set of crystal doors came into view. Though night had long fallen, torches lit a curving path through an impressively manicured garden on the other side. Luscia hadn’t a chance to visit the famed gardens herself, but had heard many stories of their beauty.
Unsurprisingly, a trim Darakaian was stationed to the right of the entryway. A spray of southern coils flanked his stern expression. Luscia lifted her chin as she entered the maze of trimmed hedges and flowering towers, painfully aware of the unspoken implications of her ill-suited attire.
Handsomely wrought sconces painted amber patterns across the back of Dmitri’s crushed velvet jacket and played with the edges of his dark, wavy hair. Seated on a bench, the prince perched against his gleaming cane with an intent expression, as if he contemplated the universe. Hesitating to interrupt his ponderings, Luscia stopped just short of the bench and waited.
“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” Dmitri angled his face as he peered into the flickering darkness. “I often come here to think when sleep evades me. It drives my guards mad. Will you sit with me, Lady Boreal?”
Wrapping her dressing robe tighter, Luscia dutifully took a seat beside her sovereign. She felt in her pocket for his vials, the faint clinking of glass disturbing the quiet.
“Five, as requested, Your Highness.”
“Dmitri.” When the prince shifted to retrieve them, a noticeable tremble ran through his fingers. Without hesitation, Dmitri brought one to his mouth and swallowed, pressing his eyes shut. “Shtàka, that is vile,” he said, coughing.
After a few measured breaths, Dmitri faced Luscia. His cheeks showed little color, which was ironic, for his Unitarian skin was shades darker than her own. Higher, a plum hue cradled his lashes. Wan lips twitched sheepishly as he regarded the four remaining doses.
“I am indebted to your promptness, Lady Boreal. I apologize for calling you from your bed.” Dmitri glanced at the hem of her robe. “I know I am not your favorite person as of late,” he noted, keeping his gaze fixed there. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“It’s true I have been…cross with you.” Luscia chose each word prudently. “But you are my future king. You are owed promptness.”
He nodded, yet seemed displeased by her reply. Luscia didn’t know what else to say. The Prince of Orynthia refused to fight for the children of Boreal as they were slaughtered in his own city, and she could no longer expect him to. Luscia wouldn’t be so naïve again. Justice for her cross-caste brethren floating in the bay, massacred and strewn in the streets, demanded vigilance. And if such vigilance demanded an illicit alliance with the al’Haidren to Darakai, then so be it.
“Do you like my garden?” Dmitri waved to the manicured landscape around them.
“It—it’s lovely.”
He chuckled. “But?”
“It is lovely, really,” Luscia insisted as his brow rose. “I just prefer the way things are out there, within nature. Free, I suppose. When something grows amidst adversity, it becomes strong. Place it in a stone box, and it remains stunted. Frail, like a bird with its wings clipped.”
“Fascinating.” Dmitri sat forward in thought. “You exhibit such masterful self-discipline, but prefer a wild beauty to a cultivated one.”
“What you are insinuating, Your Highness?” Luscia crossed her arms before quickly uncrossing them again. Best to keep defiance under the skin, where it could not be seen, at least when it came to discussions with her aunt.
“I simply appreciate the irony. Here, you can’t stand to see even the most delicate of things, such as a flower, trapped in a controlled environment, yet you control yourself meticulously. What contradiction your entire being must hold together every day. But—” Dmitri gripped his cane to stand, extending Luscia his arm before she could protest. “—enough of that. Come, I want to show you something.”
Rising, she warily took the arm of his expensive coat. His cane rapped the cobblestones as they walked the exterior of the vast gardens. Pointing out his preferences, the prince notated each uniqueness and rarity of origin. Confined as she’d been to the peninsula of Boreal, Luscia had never travelled beyond its borders, excepting Bastiion Proper. Her eyes widened at the High One’s imagination. There was so much mystery to the shapes and colors he’d crafted, the artistry he’d etched across a world she’d never seen.
“Look, there’s yours.” Dmitri moved to a pair of modest, thorny blossoms. Their petals were a radiant pearl under the moonlight, apart from hints of yellow at the edges. “The Noculoma-Anastasis is always overlooked in these gardens. We don’t have many, only this pair and the third in your possession.”
“I’m honored.” Surprised, Luscia studied the plant and asked, “What inspired you to uproot it?”
“I wished for the third to dwell beside its match, as the other pair. Like you, I suspect, it will continue to bloom even when the light seems lost. Most especially when it is lost.” He ushered her onto a narrower walkway, past the Noculoma-Anastasis. “Almost there—this way.”
Distracted by the bordering procession of shrubs, fashioned into every type of creature, Luscia felt Dmitri’s hand tighten around her own on his arm when he lifted a finger to his mouth.
“Wait,” he whispered, pointing ahead to the sentries posted outside a smaller, more secluded garden within the walled paradise.
Luscia could not see who occupied it at this hour, but the list
of court residents with royal sentries was quite short. Beside her, Dmitri stared at the mossy gate, a tendon skipping along his jawline as his lips pursed crookedly. Cane in hand, he fiddled with something in his pocket, but ceased when the gate creaked open and a slim woman emerged.
Dmitri stood a fraction taller as his mother tucked away her handkerchief and lowered a lace veil to cover her glistening, tear-stained face. Without a glance toward where her son stood silently in the dark, the elegant queen lifted her head and mutely left her guard to somberly follow. As the prince watched his mother disappear behind the maze of hedges. Luscia swallowed and looked away, suddenly feeling as if she were intruding on something immensely private.
Moving more slowly now, Dmitri led her into the little garden. After locking the gate, he directed Luscia to a bench in the center of the rounded landscape. Encircling the bench were an array of toy replicas carved from stone: a horse, a chess piece, a soldier, a rabbit. Nine in total, bedded in the flowering groundcover.
With the aid of his cane, Dmitri bent a knee to the earth and produced a carved wooden bird from his pocket. Heaving a breath, he blew bits of sawdust off its tiny beak, as if it’d been carved by his own hand. As he placed it gently beside the marble rabbit, Luscia realized the bird was not alone—similar objects littered the soil, time-weathered and dressed in foliage.
These were not children’s toys, she realized.
They were graves.
Coming to sit beside her, Dmitri exhaled as he began, “I brought you here because…because it is unfair of me to ask for your trust, without first offering my own.” The prince kneaded one of his palms and considered the marble rabbit in the dirt. “As history tells, the line of Thoarne has ruled the last centuries during steady conflict. Reasonably, it’s difficult to produce heirs during wartime. Over those years, the line became ever narrower, most monarchs lucky to sire two healthy children. Eventually, each sired only one, generation after generation.
House of Bastiion (The Haidren Legacy, Book 1) Page 21