14. Rahzlyn
Rahzlyn
Basil was gone.
Upon returning home after my first training session, I found a note he’d left informing us he’d caught the first skyship to Alhena that morning.
Alhena was hundreds of miles to the east, at the other end of the kingdom.
We had a few client contracts we needed to sign there, but it was horrendous timing with the shop’s reopening.
I was desperate for an excuse to venture into the city to train with Yarah, and Nahn reluctantly agreed to let me handle delivery orders.
All thanks to Mel, who took temporary residence in Basil’s bed and helped my grandmother run the shop in my absence.
My friend didn’t question why her assistance was needed, and for that I was grateful.
I still hadn’t given an official acceptance to Jere.
Every night Nahn requested an answer, and every night I ignored her.
Neither Jere nor his mother had paid another visit to the shop, which did little to quell my unease.
While I was grateful Nahn hadn’t yet accepted on my behalf, the look in her eyes told me it was only a matter of time.
That my free will was nothing more than an illusion.
When two weeks passed and still no word came from my brother, Nahn and I grew worried. She wouldn’t show it, of course, but I caught her lingering stares at the front door. I was too cowardly to admit that it was my recklessness keeping him away.
Instead of letting my guilt unravel me, I devoted every ounce of my being into dancing and deliveries. Basil would come back soon like he always did.
“Are you even listening to me?” The matron smacked my draped arms back to the present strenuous moment.
“Ow!” I cried down at her from the raised circular platform where I was to eventually perform in Yarah’s absence.
“Hopeless,” she muttered. “You have no upper body strength. Your core isn’t strong enough to hold these poses.”
“I’m working on it.” My body ached all over. If I wasn’t dancing, I was running to deliver timely orders to clients. At home I fed and changed Pahn, took him on walks in the garden, and practiced the exercises Yarah suggested while the rest of the house slept.
“Well work harder.” The matron wore a relaxed white crossed top that stretched across her chest, paired with flowing white pants. Her usual snake mask sat perched across the top half of her face.
“Where’s Yarah?”
“Unwell,” she answered vaguely.
“Could I get a copy of my contract?” I inquired, thinking of Yarah’s ominous words.
“Later. We’ve got a lot of training to do according to your natal chart.”
Official natal charts were created by an acolyte through Blood Sight, typically right after birth.
Each chart consisted of a circle with the corresponding positions of the planets depending on which Zodiac constellation they were in during someone’s birth.
I’d found mine hidden in Pahn’s bookshelf.
In the bottom corner of it, the symbol of Gemini was printed in my dried blood so that anyone permitted to use Blood Sight could verify my identity with a single taste.
Most often, charts were used to determine compatibility for marriages or verify suitability for certain occupations. They were the map to a person’s soul. In the wrong hands, such coveted information could be exploited.
“I don’t see how my chart impacts my dancing abilities,” I said.
“You have no water placements.” At my quizzical brow, she continued.
“Water signs—Cancer, Pisces, and Scorpio—are the most emotional. Dancing here, in this position, requires fluidity that only a water sign can achieve. When I watched you that first night, even for a few moments, I saw that in you. Though passion alone isn’t enough to succeed. ”
“Then why isn’t Serpentine in a water queendom? Why Gemini?”
The matron’s eyes flashed with annoyance. “Enough distractions.” She snapped her fingers at the musicians, who started the song from the top.
I began the choreography and listened to her bark instructions while trying to feel the story in the sensuous melody. There were no lyrics, only instruments, but they were filled with sadness and longing. I’d never danced to anything like it, and every time I started to get into it—
“Stop!” the matron shrieked. “Stop, stop, stop. Everyone stop.”
“What’s wrong now?” I panted in frustration.
“Everything. Your movements are still too raw and untrained.”
“If it’s such an issue, then maybe you shouldn’t have hired me.”
She walked in a slow circle, assessing from head to toe.
“You are supposed to be sensual and alluring, not wild. There is a magnetism to your abandon, certainly, but those who have been here before will tell the difference between you and Yarah. You must be mysterious, as if you are dancing with a secret. You need to make men crawl to you.”
I flung my hands up. “I didn’t take this job on the basis of men’s desires. I came here to dance, and that is what I’m doing.”
She clucked her tongue. “Just follow these routines exactly as I tell you to.”
“I’m assuming you trained somewhere?”
“In Leo.”
“Like Yarah. Again, not a water queendom,” I pointed out.
“Leos are the most confident. They command attention. Everyone flocks to Leo for their flourishing performative arts, dancing included. My family had a travel stone they allowed me to use, and I trained there for nearly half my life under the most talented dancers, including those from the water territories.”
I couldn’t help but long for a life as she had described. “So why don’t you do it?” I suggested after a few moments. “Clearly you think I’m wasting your time. And you seem to know all the right moves to be successful.”
Annoyingly, I thought perhaps she was only doing this as a favor to Kole.
Yearning flickered in her eyes before she blinked it away. “I’m not qualified.”
“You’re not qualified? What am I then?”
“You fit the requirements that our founders established for this role long ago. You wouldn’t understand.”
It was clear I knew little of Serpentine’s origins, yet instead of teaching me about them, she was content to pester me with resentment. She held a prestigious position here. For a woman in a masculine kingdom, that was a rare accomplishment.
“It’s my hair, isn’t it?” I questioned, then after another thought added, “Is that where the reputation of immortality comes from? Because only women who look the same have assumed this position? If that’s the case, you could wear a wig or dye your hair. Paint your skin with golden clay—”
“That would be a mirage. A lie. She has existed long before either you or I were born, serving as a beacon to both men and women who seek something more. Something better.”
“Surely if you wanted to, you could—”
“All that matters is you get up here and do what you’re told. There cannot be any mistakes tomorrow night.”
I bent down for the glass of water perched at the edge of the platform, then paused. “Tomorrow night?”
With a sigh, she rubbed her forehead. “M… my superior demands it.”
“What about Yarah?”
The matron raised her arms. “Do you see Yarah anywhere?”
“Well, no, but you said—”
“Tomorrow night. Understood?”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. With only two weeks of training and rehearsing under my belt, we both knew I wasn’t ready. But I would have to be. “Understood.”
My steps were quick with determination to finish my deliveries before the sun set. I was exhausted from dancing, but I needed to return home eventually.
A shrill scream tore through the crowded street, upending me from my determined strides.
I ran toward the sound and spotted a little girl sobbing from the ground.
Blood trickled from her kneecaps. The girl cried, immobile from her fall.
No one took notice of the girl, even as a horse-drawn wagon barreled at her.
I sprinted to her. “Come on, little one!” I hauled her upright, but she was heavier than she looked.
Shit.
The wagon raced closer—
A force slammed into me. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as blunt of a blow as a horse or the wagon. The girl and I were safely off the road, as if someone had simply plucked us up and set us aside in a single breath.
“Watch where you’re going!” the wagon’s driver roared at us with a red face.
“How about you watch where you’re going!” I yelled back. “There are children walking here!”
I realized too late that whoever pulled me from the busy road had jerked me hard enough to drop my bag filled with delivery orders. Various vials spilled out onto the street. The tags with customer names and addresses remained intact, but the rest had shattered.
At least a dozen orders had been destroyed.
“No!” I dove back for the spilled contents. Black leather gloves gripped my underarms and lifted me as if I were a feather. “Get your hands off of me!” I protested against the stranger, kicking the air. “Put me down!”
“I didn’t save your life to see you throw yourself in harm’s way again,” a man said from behind me.
“No one asked you to,” I snapped in frustration at the way he handled me without my permission, life saved or not.
The man set me down. I turned to face a tall stranger cloaked in dark fabrics.
Only the pale bridge of his sharp nose, lips, and jaw peeked from beneath his hood’s shadow.
The cloak billowed around broad shoulders.
My eyes fixated on the array of sharp blades tucked into an ornate belt cinched to his waist atop tailored garments.
Even his bracers, now tucked under his folded arms, were adorned with fine stitching.
For all the man’s quiet confidence, he exuded clandestine power.
Perhaps more importantly, danger.
His lips flattened into an unamused line. “So much for these Geminian manners I keep hearing about.”
“Reserved for gentlemen not like yourself,” I quipped. I dragged my gaze away from the ominous man and to the shattered glass that continued to crumble beneath the stampede of hooves and wagon wheels.
The little girl sniffled at my feet, reminding me of her terrified presence.
The stranger didn’t utter another word as I crouched down to address the girl finally. “Are you alright, little one?”
She wiped the snot from her nose with her sleeve. “My mama, I want my mama!”
“We’ll find her,” I said gently. “Can you tell me your name?”
A sniffle. “Novah.”
“Novah.” I smiled at her. “What a beautiful name. Can you tell me what your mama looks like, Novah? Or her name?”
“She’s pretty,” the girl cried.
I covered up a soft laugh at her not-so-helpful description. “That’s sweet, but does she have a name?”
Her cries grew louder. No one seemed alarmed by the absence of their daughter. “Shh, we’ll find her. Don’t worry.”
The man’s boots shifted above the gravel.
I’d assumed he’d left, given his gruff demeanor.
He knelt beside us, his attention focused solely on the girl.
His voice was deep as he spoke softly. “I know this feels scary, Novah, but I promise you will be okay. How about we play a game while we wait for your mama?”
The girl wiped at her bleary eyes. She didn’t seem at all afraid of this brooding stranger. “What kind of game?”
“The game where you tell me three things you can see, hear, and feel. Can you do that?”
“Okay,” she hiccupped. At first I was confused by this game the man proposed. Quickly, though, it calmed Novah profoundly. As she started rattling off the grayish-brown buildings and spotted a Hippogriff flying overhead, I sought her mother.
It didn’t take long, thankfully, for me to find a distraught woman in search of a little girl. A happy reunion was had. My eyes prickled at the sight of mother and daughter reuniting.
It was a sight I once dreamt of for myself, for Basil.
I turned to address the man, wanting to apologize for my curtness after he’d calmed the girl. Stars knew I could learn a thing or two from such a technique.
Only… he was gone. The strange man who had somehow saved us with profound ease was nowhere to be found.
I pushed away the tiniest glimmer of regret and continued onward.