Chapter 72
E ach step forward is another crunch of my slippers through the layer of fluffy snow. Another whisk of the fog churning about my feet.
I’ve stepped into another world, the sky a stretch of black velvet buttoned with pearly moons, scribbled with ribbons of aurora that cast my eerie surroundings in a flood of silver light. Clusters of hexagonal ice pillars reach for the moons, each large enough to support a nesting Moonplume.
It’s like standing within a painted depiction of Netheryn, minus the deadly chill. Minus the threat of being swooped by a broody Moonplume protecting her clutch from thieves who’d risk the climb up one of those sheer, seemingly unscalable pillars in the efforts to snatch an egg.
The air feels hollow but for the thud of the drums and a harp’s lilting tune—like someone called for Clode to sit so chillingly still within the confines of this dome. A hollowness that nests in my chest. An invisible weight I can’t grasp the shape of.
The origin of.
Shaking it off, I step into the swirl of masked folk tiding to the smooth, ethereal melody, as though they’re caught in some sort of trance.
I clear my throat, whipping a crystal flute off the tray of a passing server. “What’s this called?” I ask, gesturing to the azure liquid spilling milky mist down the sides.
“Moonplume’s Breath,” the server says, his lips tinged blue from the cold, a line forming between his brows as he takes in my scant garb. “There are fur shawls by the entrance …”
“I’m fine.” Perfectly fine. “Thanks!”
I continue on, setting the frosted rim of the glass upon my lips. I take a sip, filling my mouth with sour sweetness—crisp and so cold it’s an icy balm to my tongue, throat, and belly.
There’s a momentary thinning of the crowd, and my stare delves into the chasm between two lofty pillars.
My heart skips a beat, and I pause, spinning the iron ring on my finger …
I’m certain there’s something between them I need to see. That if I don’t go and investigate immediately, something bad will happen.
Not sure what. Feels important.
“Is everything alright?”
Definitely not.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask if Pyrok knows how I ended up with the Moonplume I supposedly charmed in my previous … existence . To ask if I raided a nest for an egg, or perhaps inherited someone else’s previously claimed beast.
To ask if I’ve been here before—the real here.
“Of course,” I say, flashing him a smile over my shoulder that falls off my face the moment I stab my stare forward again and charge through the crowd.
“Where are we going?” he yells as I weave between bodies draped in heavy layers of leather and fur, between tables and stools, moving toward the tallest cluster of pillars in the epicenter of the celebration.
“Don’t know,” I murmur, taking another sip of my drink, holding the puddle of chill in my mouth until I’m verging on a frostbit tongue before I swallow it down.
The crowd thins, giving way to a barricade of guards standing shoulder to shoulder, barring entry to a frail path that appears to thread between two immense icy pillars. Bronze armor molds to their bodies like Sabersythe scales, black masks covering the top half of their faces, dark fur shawls draped around their shoulders.
“What’s behind there?” I ask Pyrok when he finally catches up to me, a Moonplume’s Breath in one hand, the other cupping a dragon’s egg filled with curly fried things capped in a glob of white sauce.
“A game table for the highfliers,” he says. “You don’t go in there unless you have a lot of gold to waste and an ego large enough to absorb a few blows.”
Huh.
Not what I was expecting to find . But now that I’m here …
I spin and pat down Pyrok’s pockets, discovering a bulge in the left one that I dig out to the tune of his disgruntled mutterings.
“You know what you remind me of?” he grinds out as I wave the pouch of gold at the guards who part ways to let us through. “A woetoe.”
“Met one of those while I was in prison for serial murder,” I say, loud enough a few of the guards turn their heads, looking at me over their shoulders. “Nice fellow. Kept his face hair smooth and slick despite the squalor they kept us in. What game are we playing?”
“Skripi,” Pyrok mutters, following me along a frail path woven between the lofty pillars that certainly aren’t quite cold enough to be real ice. Perhaps just stone runed to look like it. “You play?”
I throw his pouch in the air, snatching it. “Lil bit.”
“Great,” he gripes. “Can’t wait to lose a sack of gold to a clutch of elitists who use pebbles of the stuff to decorate their garden beds.”
“That’s not the right attitude.” I take a few more turns down the zigzagged path, tossing back another deep glug of my Moonplume’s Breath. “Take it King Burn doesn’t pay too well?”
“Very well. For sweet fuck all, if I’m to be perfectly honest. Not the point.”
There’s an edge to his voice that makes me pause, glancing over my shoulder, seeing a hardness to the line of his mouth that wasn’t there before—his own Moonplume’s Breath entirely untouched.
Odd. He usually tosses drinks back like they’re split moments away from evaporation.
“Care to elaborate?”
“Care to get this over with so I can find a barrel of Molten Mead large enough to drown myself in?” He jerks his chin, urging me on. “Quick, before my squinn curls get cold.”
Frowning, I continue forward, wondering if Pyrok has a prickly history with some of these highfliers .
Another jagged bend, and the path opens to a wide cavern, like somebody took a spoon to the ice and carved out a dead-end dollop. A hexagon-shaped table sits in the center, six high-backed chairs perched around it, all but one inhabited.
My feet still.
Four males clad in fine black garb and sooty fur cloaks wield a fan of game shards close to their puffed chests, each bearing the same simple half-face masks sculpted from polished gold. A fifth seat is occupied by a creature I’m somewhat familiar with.
An octimar.
The bulbous creature’s skin is a mottle of icy shades, allowing it to blend almost entirely with our surroundings, its numerous vine-like appendages coiled around a mound of gold piled before it. No eyes. Just a tumorous head, the skin thin enough to garner a view through to its large, luminous brain that’s throbbing a little.
My gaze drops to its mouth—a pouty pucker that looks harmless, though I’ve seen them stretched. Seen how many teeth those things pack.
Enough to chomp off an arm with a single crunch.
Seems fitting that these highfliers have the company of such a rare and coveted creature, given the fact that octimars can weave promises upon flesh, binding them to blood, body, and soul.
Each of the fae garnishes me with narrow-eyed perusals, one pulling on a pipe, blowing rings of ruddy smoke. His stare spears past me to Pyrok, and his mouth curls into a sly grin. “Looks like our Little Flame is not so little anymore.”
Pyrok’s energy stiffens.
The male draws another deep puff, blowing a second ring of smoke into the air. “Come to play with us, have we?” He gestures to the table adorned with a Skripi spread, crystal cups of amber liquid, and wiggly stacks of gold coins gathered in piles. “You know how much I love it when you have debts to pay …”
The other three males chuckle.
I cut another glance over my shoulder, but Pyrok’s stare is pinned to the male smoking the pipe, his cheeks ablaze as he white-knuckles his flute of Moonplume’s Breath.
The tips of my fingers itch.
“Not him,” I say, whipping my head around and swaying toward the Skripi table with a pep in my step.
All the laughter snips, five pairs of eyes trailing my every move as I settle into the vacant seat, set my glass on the table, loosen the drawstring on Pyrok’s sack of gold, and empty its contents.
Gold coins puddle before me.
“Finish your game, then deal me in.”
Silence prevails while I busy my hands, stacking Pyrok’s coins into tidy piles somewhat smaller than the mounds packed before each of the leering males.
The one to my right settles his hand on my arm, and I still, looking past his mask to bold brown eyes. “Sweet thing, although I admire your enthusiasm, your tiny pile is only large enough to buy you in,” he croons, one of the octimar’s tentacles slithering out and wrapping around my gold, tugging every coin from me in a clattering commotion. “Whatever will you bet with?”
I pinch the tip of his finger, peeling it from my arm. “I’m not sweet, and I’m certainly not a thing .” I flick the male’s hand back toward his own allotment of personal space, then look to the octimar, palm up. “Buy me in with a favor owed. To each of the other players.”
“ Raeve —”
Pyrok charges forward, not reaching me before the creature’s tentacle scribbles upon my skin, leaving a tickling trail.
“ Fucking —Fuck!” He pelts his flute at the icy pillar, glass shattering, blue liquid seeping down the sides with a tumble of fog. His squinn is the next to sail through the air, the eggshell smashing, spraying the floor with a litter of fried treats quickly lost beneath the reconverging fog. “I need to go and find—”
“Wait,” I say, a request in my hard stare for him to stay right here.
For him to watch.
I mouth a silent please , and he stills, taking in the males now polishing off their game, the octimar cutting their winnings and gathering shards.
Lips a thin line, Pyrok clears his throat, then leans against the pillar, arms crossed as he offers me a small nod.
“So lovely of you to stay,” the male with the pipe drawls, sliding Pyrok a slimy look that makes my hackles rise. “I can’t wait to show you how real males play with pretty females who have too much confidence and not enough sense.”
I laugh, scanning my opponents from atop the fan of illustrated creatures staring back at me.
The octimar’s tentacles spear out, slicing into the stacks of gold before each of my opponents—collating a mighty, toppling sum that makes my brows rise.
Guess my favors are a rather worthy pledge.
Good for me.
“Does the pretty thing want the first roll?” another male drawls, and it’s an effort not to choke that title from his throat, wondering how he’d feel if I gave him a derogatory name that whittled him down to nothing more than a well-cut piece of meat.
“Course not.” Gaze cast on my shards, I reorder my hand. “Then you’ll contribute my win to the advantage, and we can’t have that.”
He chuckles, holding my eye contact as he picks up the crystal mug and shakes it, the contents rattling. “Your confidence is beguiling, however ill-spent ,” he spits out, then tosses the dice.