Chapter 12 #2
“One moment you proposition me, and the next you insult me. You’ve an interesting way with men.”
Thank the moon, Wise was picking his way toward the front of the cave.
“Is it an insult? Or simply the truth?”
Vorik shook his head and waved toward Wise, hoping to divert Lesva’s attention.
But she stepped closer to Vorik, putting a hand on his chest, the same way she had to Jhiton scant minutes before.
“You’re not bringing your gardener wench back here to become one of us,” Lesva whispered.
Vorik’s heart thumped noticeably at the admission that she’d spied on his conversation with Jhiton the night before.
“I don’t care what the general thinks, but she’d dilute the tribe with her weak blood.
Any children you had would be soft and probably half-blind.
Wyvern bait. You don’t deserve that any more than the tribe does.
You’re not weak, Vorik. If you were, I wouldn’t bother with you.
” She slid her hand down his chest toward his groin.
He caught her wrist to stop her.
Undaunted, she said, “You owe it to the tribe to have strong children who will ensure our survival.”
“You needn’t concern yourself about what children I may or may not have.” Vorik should have stopped speaking then, pushed her away, and turned his back, but he unwisely went on, moved to defend Syla. “But her offspring wouldn’t be weak. You saw for yourself that she has power.”
“I would have killed her easily if I hadn’t been trying to extract information from her.”
“Fighting prowess isn’t the only kind of power a person can have. Jhiton saw her in the shielder chamber. He knows.”
Lesva squinted at him. “Don’t tell me he’s into soft gardener women too.”
“Is sex all you think about?”
“It’s most of what you men think about. I’ve learned that well. Trust me.” Face cold, she looked back into the cave, past the approaching lieutenant and toward the fire where Jhiton had settled to rest.
Vorik pushed a hand through his hair. He hoped he hadn’t just implied that his brother was also interested in Syla. Vorik highly doubted that was true. “Just because he doesn’t want you doesn’t mean—”
“I know exactly what it means.” Lesva pulled her wrist from Vorik’s grip and stepped back.
Wise had come close enough to hear their words, but he slowed his pace, looking out to sea instead of at them.
“Wish me luck on my mission, Vorik,” Lesva said. “With the gods behind my back, perhaps I’ll get an opportunity to end the threat to our tribe.”
“What threat? Syla?”
Lesva smiled cryptically at him, then swept her blanket around herself and strode into the cave.
Making his voice as cold as he could, Vorik said, “Stay away from her, Captain. Or next time, you’ll find out exactly if I would have finished you off or not.”
Lesva brushed past Wise, deliberately bumping his shoulder and giving him a pat on the ass, before continuing into the cave.
Wise came to stand beside Vorik. “I hear she eats men after mating with them.”
“I know some haven’t survived her attention,” Vorik said, but his heart was numb.
He hadn’t meant to remind Lesva of her hatred for Syla and now worried that he’d done the princess a disservice.
Jhiton was sending Lesva to the island next to Syla’s and Vorik off on a quest who knew where.
Lesva might get an opportunity to attack Syla while Vorik would be far away and helpless to assist.
Many minutes later than Vorik wished, Agrevlari finally alighted on the ledge, stretching his wings and his tail out with a yawn that was almost a roar. Wise’s dark-gray dragon, Tonasketal, came after, taking up less room on the ledge when he landed.
“You have egg in your fangs,” Vorik told Agrevlari.
Smoke wafted from the green dragon’s nostrils, and the next yawn brought fire roiling from the depths of his throat. Fortunately for those camped near the front of the cave, he didn’t send a gout of flames into the interior. He did sear whatever remained of his breakfast off his teeth.
Better? Agrevlari asked.
“Much. Let’s go and get this mission over with.” Vorik hurried to climb on, vainly hoping that he could find the components and bring them back before Lesva had an opportunity to bother any gardeners. Especially the one he cared about.
Clouds hid the sunrise, but the day grew brighter as Fel led Syla and Teyla down from the bluff and through the streets toward the harbor.
Once, Syla would have given friendly nods to the gray-uniformed enforcers on patrol, but she avoided their gazes and hurried past them now, afraid General Dolok might have given orders for her arrest. Though the Royal Protectors, Royal Fleet, and Kingdom Enforcers were all different arms of the military, they often worked together, and Dolok had been around a long time. He had a lot of influence.
Fel didn’t say anything, but he must have been thinking similar thoughts because he also skirted the enforcers, taking a longer route than usual to reach the harbor. They passed through a seedier section of town near the docks that her bodyguard usually would have avoided while she was with him.
“That’s Princess Syla,” a freckle-faced girl blurted from a corner where she and her equally freckled brother were selling small brown bags of cookies and biscuits from a box.
“It can’t be.” The boy looked to be about eight, a couple of years older than the girl. “The princess is royal and important. She would have an entourage and a huge gilded carriage with eight horses.”
“Why eight?” The girl squinted at them. She was barefoot and wore a sleeveless dress that might have been made from a grain sack.
Fel touched Syla’s arm, trying to hurry her past, as if small children should be avoided as assiduously as the enforcers.
“Important people have at least eight horses,” the boy said. “And bodyguards.”
“She has him.” The girl pointed at Fel. “He’s huge. And look at his muscles.”
Fel lifted his chin.
“He’s old,” the boy said.
Fel shot the kid a glare and picked up his pace.
“Princess Syla.” The girl grabbed three bags of cookies and ran to intercept them. “Is it you? You’re a healer, aren’t you? My aunt worked at Moon Watch Temple before the attack.”
Syla slowed down, worried the girl would say she’d lost her aunt, and feeling she should, at the least, buy some of the cookies and give her a hug.
Fel lifted a hand, as if he might stop the girl from getting close, but he must have decided a six-year-old wasn’t a threat. He did give the eight-year-old boy an ominous look though, perhaps contemplating thumping him to show how not old he was.
“I’m a healer, yes. Is your aunt?”
“No. She washed the dishes in the kitchen and sometimes fetched vegetables for the stock pots. She got away before the attack and is all right.”
“I’m relieved to hear it.”
“We don’t have much time,” Fel murmured, looking at Teyla, as if she might hurry Syla along.
Teyla, this part of town perhaps reminding her of her kidnapping, had been touching the sword strapped to her pack while peering nervously into the alleys, and she missed his look.
“Can you heal diseases of the private parts?” the girl asked.
Syla blinked. “Er, yes, usually.”
“My mom is very uncomfortable and can’t work a lot right now.” The girl held up the bags. “I’ll give you all these cookies if you can heal her.”
“We’re supposed to sell those,” the boy whispered.
“If mom can work again, we won’t need the money from them. You can go back to eating what we make.”
The boy opened his mouth, like he might object, but maybe the logic suited him.
Syla smiled faintly, recognizing a fellow schemer in the girl. “I can take a look at her if she’s near?”
“Your Highness,” Fel objected. “We’ve got a captain to meet. And you can’t go to a brothel.”
Until that comment, Syla hadn’t fully put the pieces together about what the girl’s mother did, but she realized his guess was probably correct.
“It’s very close.” The girl thrust the bags at Syla.
“You don’t have to give me your cookies,” Syla said, though the scents of cinnamon and sugar reached her nose, and she wondered if dragons liked sweets. Probably not, but… “Well, maybe one bag. They smell delicious.”
“Here. Take them. Please. My mother is just down that alley.”
“Alley,” Fel grumbled distastefully.
Syla followed the girl, who left her brother to man the sale of their baked goods. After his sister’s back was turned, the boy slid a cookie out of a bag and chomped on it. Syla had a feeling she was the more responsible kid in the family.
“This isn’t a good idea.” Fel squinted at a pair of enforcers a block away.
On patrol, they didn’t turn up this street, instead continuing through the intersection along the waterfront.
Even so, Syla noted their presence. Normally, she would be glad that order had been restored to the city, but as the day grew brighter, she worried about escaping.
If a street urchin had recognized her, the enforcers would too.
A carriage with eight horses might have been a good idea, though that also would have drawn attention.
“Next time you’re going to sneak out of the city,” Teyla said, walking at her side, “you should grab a cloak with a big hood that can hide your whole head. That’s what adventurers in the Kingsman’s Tales always wear.”
“It’s the end of summer. You don’t think cloaks and hoods would be conspicuous?”
The girl led them down an alley so narrow that Fel’s shoulders brushed the sides, then through a side door for a building that had been marked as Sailor Services out front.
“Not as conspicuous as you with your auburn locks, regal air, and hand glowing moon-silver.” Teyla eyed Syla’s birthmark instead of her locks or regalness. “Mine doesn’t glow. Is that normal?”
“Usually only when I use my magic.” Syla glanced at her hand, surprised it hadn’t stopped glowing since the library.
“Odd.”
“I do seem to be, yes.”