Soap Virgin
The next morning, with Esme’s mouth sticky and Urias’s hair clumped with beer, a crow woke them up with a screech.
“Why would you do that?” Esme asked the beady-eyed monster.
Its ruler was still passed out on her stomach, snoring like a hog. They’d given Bal the evening to say his goodbyes and pack before they’d found a room at Prelyn’s darling pig-themed inn and drained the rest of Urias’s flask stash.
“He says the general and his band of warriors are approaching,” Urias moaned, rolling to the edge of the bed. “And that they look stupid.”
“How stupid?” she asked.
“How stupid?” Urias asked the crow.
“Caw-Caw!” it answered.
“Extremely,” Urias translated. The Magic he’d inherited from his grandfather, an army hawk’s man, allowed him to speak to and command the actions of any bird, as well as discuss the silliness of generals with them. “He also said you’re a strange-looking crow. But he’d still shag you.”
“Good to know.” Esme pursed her lips down at the nasty little critter. Now she knew why it was rubbing itself all over her.
A few seconds later, there was a soft knock at their door. Esme whistled, and a shadow pulled it open.
She blanched. Urias’s eye twitched.
The Good General (because of course the people of Prelyn called him that) wore two swords on his back and had a knife about every three inches on his belt.
There was a blade on his calf and something else sharp strapped on both of his arms. She’d be surprised if he didn’t have a letter opener hidden in his ponytail.
Maranna had decided that she’d need four daggers, three swords, and a collection of different-shaped knives. Esme didn’t know what she planned to do with them. Trim the roses? Cut hair?
Urias cackled from the bed beside her. His crow friend hopped around to face the general and held its wing up at them, screeching a laugh.
“You look ridiculous,” Urias wheezed, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Are you going on a quest?”
“I thought we were going to Amaris,” Balthazar said.
“You’re planning to walk into the crown jewel of the world looking like a Waldov boar hunter?
” Esme said, wincing. The Waldov were the native survivors of the floating ice rock to the north named Waldovia.
The place seemed solely devoted to killing anyone stupid enough to set foot on it, with frigid winters that only saw sun for about an hour a day and soil so dead it would sooner sprout corpses than crops.
Omniel had tried to conquer it once, only to wash ashore on a beach of glass and decide better of it.
To be fair, though, Balthazar was the finest-looking Waldov boar hunter Esme had ever seen.
Her eyes ran down him, from the hair he tried very hard to tame to the boots that had probably never seen a real floor.
They were the newest things on him, but there was blood on his heel.
Interesting for a general with no wars to fight.
“The nobility of Amaris are not lovers of mud and dirt,” she said. “But we don’t need to fix you until we get to the city.”
Balthazar opened his mouth to protest, but Esme simply got out of bed and threw her bag over her shoulder. Urias, still snickering with the squawking bird on his arm, grabbed his bag of empty flasks. They left the room, Balthazar and his mini-army on their heels.
When they made it to the front of the inn, Esme hummed.
It was midmorning, and the shadows were sparse.
She wandered around until she found the dense, black shadows of Balthazar and his men’s fat, friendly horses, then pulled one of the oversized shadows from under the animal like a sheet.
She started on a face, fingers working over a long snout and wide eyes, pinching lashes from blackness, fluttering over high cheeks.
Then she shaped a graceful neck and rolled the shadows into the fine strands of a black mane.
When the face was perfect, she shaped strong legs and a sleek body.
Only when Inra was the very model of a perfect mare did Esme pat her snout and bring the shadow creature to life.
Inra wandered from her, drawn to her short, wide brethren.
Esme made the matching horse from the remaining shadows.
He was built like a bull, and three inches shorter.
As soon as Esme smoothed the juncture between his body and his legs, he jumped up to his hooves and trotted over to his sister.
His name was Ode, and when these horses had been living and breathing, he’d been Inra’s twin.
They’d been Esme’s favorite horses, given to her by her sisters in Is-Khan, her home, as a birthday present.
She could never let them go, even after all this time apart, so whenever she needed to make horses, they were the two she always conjured.
“Where did they come from?” Balthazar asked, staggering back. He watched the smaller flesh horses circle Esme’s shadow ones, sniffing their hindquarters.
“I made them. Didn’t you see?” When Esme’s teasing did nothing to quell the confusion in the general’s face, she continued, “I command shadows. I can tell them to do anything or choose to make them into anything. Today, I chose to make my friends,” she said, kissing Inra’s cheek before tossing herself onto her mount.
Urias scratched Ode’s head before doing the same.
“Are they alive?” Balthazar asked, finally mustering the courage to touch and then yelp at Ode’s chilly nose.
Esme twisted her mouth. “Unfortunately not. Even their personalities are just reflections of the animals they’re designed on. But they make good mounts, and they don’t require food or sleep, so they’re good for these kinds of trips.”
Balthazar nodded. He touched Ode again, and the phantom animal pushed his snout into the general’s hand just like the real animal, who was basically a puppy with hooves that greeted everyone with a big lick up their faces.
Inra, on the other hand, knew she was beautiful and refused to be treated as anything but a piece of art.
She made soft noises whenever Esme would sneak into her stable at night to braid silver beads into her hair so the two of them would match.
A sigh pulled Esme from her silent reminiscing.
She turned to the inn gate and found the little girl she’d given the coin to the previous day astride a protesting donkey, and an older boy holding the reins.
Her little arms were crossed, ruddy face screwed up with the determination of a general ten times her age.
“Wend, we spoke of this,” Balthazar said, trying in vain to keep his voice down around Wraiths as he sped over to the girl and her accomplice. “You cannot come.”
“But I packed. And Ralph, too.” Wend pushed a tiny bag of knickknacks out to him, proof of her expert planning.
Balthazar sighed, but his mouth lifted into a smile anyway.
“You know you’re a fighting man, yes?” he asked Ralph, a boy skinny as a blade of grass, with weary gray eyes that sparked only when they settled on his sister. “And she is seven.”
“You tell her no and see how much of a man you feel getting pelted by a seven-year-old,” Ralph muttered, shifting his jaw and looking sideways.
Balthazar snorted.
“Besides,” Ralph gulped, casting those gray eyes to the ground, “would two more really be that bad?” His voice was pinched, and Esme realized that he squeezed those reins not to guide his sister but to ground himself.
She studied the boy. There were lines drawn in his thin face that no child should wear. Gray hair sprouted in the middle of his head already. He wore a sword like it was a weight, not a weapon. This must be his first year drafted, but he hadn’t shaken whatever had brought him and Wend to this army.
Balthazar sighed. “I still wear my battle scars from my run-ins with Her Terrorousness,” he said, and winked, patting Ralph on his shoulder, only for the boy to hiss.
Balthazar looked at these children like they were his own, and they looked at him like he was theirs, wholly.
Not the general of an army they stayed with, or the leader of an encampment.
They looked at Balthazar Joh’el like they wore his last name.
The general cupped each of their faces, a thumb swiping to catch a traitorous tear down Ralph’s cheek.
“You’re a strong man, Ralph,” he told the boy, stepping in close and pulling the boy’s forehead against his own. “But Amaris is far more dangerous than Prelyn, and I’d never forgive myself if I broke my promise to you.”
“You promised to stay,” Ralph whispered.
“I’m not leaving. You have me in here.” He pulled back and placed his fist at Ralph’s chest. “You will be safe here.”
At the mention of the word safe, Ralph’s shoulders tensed and his eyes became glassy. Balthazar warmed those tight limbs with his large hands and softened his voice. “I mean it, Ralph. You’re safe here. Nothing will happen. And even if it did, there is nothing I won’t save you from.”
Ralph weighed the general’s promise. Esme’s own heart ached for him, for her own father who would have said just the same to her. Her lips would have wobbled just like Ralph’s. She would have sniffled just like him, and pulled her father into a bone-crushing hug just as Ralph did.
Balthazar squeezed the boy tight, then pulled away to turn to Wend and deliver the same news. Her Terrorousness wept, and Balthazar grabbed her off her belligerent steed. She clung to him like a newborn.
“I will bring you back more sweets and toys than you can imagine. And maybe even a dagger if you’re good.”
Wend nodded, wiping her eyes at the prospect of a blade. Maranna ventured close and Ralph gave her a hug too. Wend made sure to kiss her “Mar.”