Six Goblets #2
“Can you believe Prince Janos will be here tonight?” Esme squealed, rushing up to them and biting her lip. “I hate that I have to go back to the kitchens. I wanted to see him.”
One girl clapped and spun around in her oversized red dress. “I wore my mother’s prettiest dress because I get to deliver him the wines!” she bragged.
Answer secured.
“Lucky,” Esme whined, handing over the obscenely poisoned tray.
“Well, I have to go up to the general,” the other girl said, crossing her arms. “He’s not even dreamy.”
Hey!
“I think he’s handsome,” Esme said, blushing and looking away.
“Well, you smell like shit. Of course you’d like him.” The other girl rolled her eyes. “I want a prince, not a brute.”
“Maybe he’s quite sweet. How would you know?” Why the hell was she bickering with a thirteen-year-old? She handed over the tray and stuck her tongue out at the girl before stomping away.
She slinked to the closest closet and morphed back into her normal body. The stress of keeping such a tight glamour almost had her crumbling—that, and her own deplorable stench. She needed soap, mint juice to swish around her mouth, and a new dress.
She shuffled past the mops and buckets to a trunk tucked in the back that she’d stashed the previous day while pretending to be a maid for twenty minutes.
She was already late for the feast, and the Bond was making her pay for it.
Omniel had commanded the Wraiths to attend all Micrean holiday occasions, from feasts to services, and right now she wasn’t where she was supposed to be.
Her throat stung, with a magical kind of poison this time, as she stripped and threw a second, red dress over her head.
Her heart was thumping in her chest like this was her first assassination. But if this worked, she’d have done it—she’d have won. Bal would be king and then she could be happy again, move in with Mina and their terrible goats.
Maybe she would finally be able to breathe, and no one at the Lake would be killed anymore. Maybe people would be able to afford medicine. Maybe everything would be okay.
Esme let herself hope. It felt stupid to do it, but she did it anyway.
She pulled a bucket of fresh water from her hidden corner and dunked her reeking hands in as shadow fingers buttoned her overdress.
She snagged the harsh soap maids used to mop blood off of floors and let it burn her hands pink.
The smell was just barely out, but she didn’t have enough time to fix it completely.
Frantically, she draped herself with jewelry and swished with the mint juice twice.
When that didn’t work, she resorted to washing her mouth with wine, though she did not swallow; assassinations required a level of sobriety.
Finally, she folded thin, gold caps around the ends of her braids before busting out of the closet.
She grimaced at the mirror beside the banquet-hall entrance. Her face was red from the Bond’s thrashing around her throat, but if she didn’t look perfect, it would throw another fit. Not only did Wraiths have to show up; they also couldn’t be unattractive.
When she’d fixed her kohl eyeliner, the Bond finally deemed her pretty enough not to torture.
She turned and found those two almost-teenagers from before staring at her, and made a face at the one who’d called Bal a brute. Nasty little child.
The very first thing she did upon entering the glittering banquet hall was roll her eyes.
Isobel was going to bleed the kingdom dry. She’d hired acrobats that swung from mile-high benches suspended from the ceiling while Isobel made her dull opening speech. One flapped her mouth wildly, silently, making fun of her.
If the acrobats didn’t put them into debt, the rest of the decorations surely would.
Red roses weaved through the crowns of the chandeliers and wrapped around the pillars.
A red-and-orange carpet split the room in two, and golden plate settings lined the tables pushed to the far right and left sides of the hall for the feast. Each wall was covered in some giant, expensive tapestry depicting a scene from the Asterui Bukkai.
On one, Omniel tossed Brawna Baltain and her horde of cannibals into the starving God Jaw.
The artists had made her into a creature with acid-yellow eyes and a long forked tongue.
Her hair was a mess around her, clawing away from her with a wicked will of its own.
Her body twisted and bulged, like her evil had ravaged it sick.
But Esme had been there when Urias had picked her up and thrown her into the burning canyon. She’d just been a woman. Screaming, cursing, but just a woman.
Another tapestry depicted Omniel’s conquering of the Wraiths, the brilliant savior with his hand outstretched to the baleful critters slithering at his feet.
Esme hated how the artists had woven him.
No one ever got Omniel’s face right. He was a stoic leader in military portraits or a soft savior in religious imagery.
None of them really captured him. In reality, his brow was heavy, his jaw sharp, but his lips were soft, and the dent in his nose reminded you that even he could break a bone.
And when he was confessing, those blue eyes were the sweetest things in the world. You could fall into them—and Esme had.
No one ever got him right.
She tore herself away from him. Isla was right. When she wasn’t talking, she was reminiscing.
By the time Esme returned to the present, Isobel had blessedly finished her stupid speech and courtiers flurried around the hall in their fussiest clothes.
The season was all about summer, and vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds danced around the room.
The Wraiths too were in attendance, and all wore some correctly colored garment with the top button popped or the neckline an inch lower than was respectable.
They weren’t here to be respected.
They were here to be ogled and devoured and lusted over. Desired, but never held. Omniel had commanded the Wraiths show up, look good, and smile, but he’d barred them from ever entering into a relationship with a noble. Courtiers could look, but should they touch, the Wraiths would pay the price.
Esme eventually found Mak’kon uncharacteristically far away from Isobel.
Hallel wasn’t here tonight, so Iso must have given him a few extra feet of leash.
He leaned in a corner, face drawn and eyes far off.
His orange shirt was buttoned up all the way to his chin.
He didn’t meet her eyes, even when he noticed them.
“Thank Valos you’re here,” came a voice behind her.
Esme whirled. Bal stood there, decked out in Wallain colors and looking every bit the dreamy prince that the serving girl thought he wasn’t.
Someone had combed his hair back and snipped the dead ends, and he wore a gold shirt with swirling red wind patterns embroidered into it.
A giant ornament of a sword was strapped to his hip.
He’d already pulled open a button on his shirt because he was sweating an ocean.
“Did you miss me, General?” Esme purred, smiling at how pleasant he looked. It was hard to look away. If she wasn’t caught up in his eyes, she was hooked on his smile or the close cut of his shirt. There was nowhere safe for her eyes to be.
“It feels like I’ve barely seen you since I arrived,” he said. “You look beautiful. I mean, you often do. Or always. You always do. And you do now, too, as well, yes,” he stuttered, and Esme blushed.
“You really think so?” She liked teasing him, even if it made her own stomach flip.
“Well, I have eyes. I know so,” he said, offering his hand. “Will you do me the honor of wandering this room with me while I avoid conversation?”
Esme slipped her hand into his, hoping he was too smitten with her looks to mind the smell. “I would like nothing more.”
Bal pulled her closer, and the gold caps on her braids made a tinkling sound as they moved through the crowd. The pair of them drew more attention than he clearly would have liked, but that was okay. Esme was used to attention, and Bal would have to become used to it too if he was going to be king.
And trust her, he was.
Wallain celebrated the blooming season of liars’ rose and the start of the most profitable time of year. The Asterui Bukkai said that the season was a gift to Omniel from the goddess Virya, a whole three months where nature itself would take his colors and the weather would sweeten for him.
Omniel had been aware that the seasons were a result of cosmic patterns of circular orbit when he’d written that, but he hadn’t needed anyone else knowing that.
Bal leaned close to Esme’s ear. “You’d think they’ve never seen a man,” he whispered, nodding to a clump of women chittering about him in a corner.
“Maybe not such a handsome one,” Esme whispered back, and Bal blushed.
“Is that why they stare at you, then? Because they’ve never seen someone so pretty?” He brushed his shoulder against hers. It didn’t feel like the compliment it was supposed to be.
“They stare because they’re supposed to,” Esme supplied quickly. “That’s why we Wraiths attend these events. To be stared at.” She nodded to where a woman hung off Padrian’s arm, her hand slapped on his chest, too drunk to see through his charming smile to the disgust just below.
Bal’s brow wrinkled. “Turiel commanded that?”
“No, Omniel.” Esme swallowed any further explanation.
Across the room, a gaggle of hyenas in hose was closing in on Daphna. The Wraith was darling and agreeable but, over their shoulder, they caught Esme’s gaze.
Esme saw disgust. Panic. Hatred.
She winked, and a little shadow dagger hardened to life in Daphna’s hand, tucked behind their back. The second they realized what the cold bit of shadow was, Daph grinned bright as a morning sun.
“Could I change that?” Bal asked, wetting his lips at the same image. He couldn’t see the knife, so it must have looked rather heart-wrenching—the poor dear, defenseless against a pride of lions.