Chapter 3 #2
They entered a neighborhood block where street vendors were abundant.
Yemi saw an elderly woman beneath an awning of suspended mandolins plucking one of the instruments herself, goading a seller of hand drums across the street into a song about a drunken sea god.
An auntie dressed in layers of white linen who knew and apparently loved the song spun herself into a dance off the edge of the sidewalk.
The traffic halted to let her, and Yemi stopped to watch.
The Blessed Torque, they called it—the odd, arrhythmic jerk of the limbs amid flowing movements, made to mimic the long-gone days when the Obé Ursla would possess bodies of the faithful and move them about to her whims. Beaded jewelry on the woman’s wrists and ankles glittered in the sun, and the singing voices of pedestrians drifted in and out as they passed through the area.
These were the brilliant, animated moments Yemi would miss when she was confined to the palace. Moments her mother probably hadn’t seen since she was a child.
Inevitably, the auntie spotted her, whether familiar with her face or with the space Nova had carved around her for her protection.
The song came to its natural end, and the woman ceased her dance, and went panting into a deep bow facing her Qorrea.
Yemi led the enthusiastic applause and gestured for everyone to stop their confused bowing and kneeling to instead praise the woman.
Cameras flashed their loud, white light in the taking of pictures sure to feature in tomorrow’s paper.
She reached out and helped the woman to her feet, a few pieces of gold tucked into a hand as tribute to whatever order of priestess she represented.
The woman smiled brightly and kissed her ring before Nova grunted in a way Yemi understood meant that it was time to keep moving.
A block later, they ducked into a taproom selected more for the craftsmanship of the open bear mouth framing the massive doors in the facade than for any promise of sandwiches. Nova paid a small boy to run up the block and report to Moss where they’d landed, and he took off in a flash.
The place was fairly busy, overlapping conversations bouncing off brick walls making it seem more crowded than it was.
Patrons appeared to mostly be soldiers in and out of uniform, laughing loudly at scattered tables over thick glasses of sloshing drink.
A few old men slumped on the fringes seemed to have been there all morning.
They made their way to the bar in the back without anyone in particular taking notice. Spirits in glittering glass bottles lined the back wall. The barkeep, a tall, olive-toned, and relatively young man with white hair, approached and seemed stunned when he noticed who she was.
“We’d prefer you didn’t draw attention to the Qorrea’s presence,” Nova said before he could start stumbling over decorum.
He nodded silently, his eyes darting around over their heads as if worried he’d given her away already.
“A beer,” Yemi said brightly.
The barkeep hesitated. Nova raised an amused eyebrow.
“Age-old question,” she cooed. “Do you serve your Qorrea, or do you refuse to serve her because everything back there is unfit?”
The barkeep looked for a moment as if hoping someone would solve the riddle for him, before turning around to get a glass.
“Sandwich is how we say beer now?” Nova chided quietly.
“I’m sure it is in some language.” Yemi shrugged.
Nova leaned against the bar, sure to face outward so she didn’t lose sight of the action. She deftly caressed the back of Yemi’s arm in a way that made her tingle.
“You know, I’m sure I’d enjoy this recklessness of yours more if I wasn’t working,” she whispered, leaning in close and smelling of sea and sandalwood.
Yemi met her eyes and recognized the mischief in them. She winked, silently relishing in all the things Nova meant.
The barkeep returned with a mug of something golden and frothy. Nova slid a couple of gold pieces across the bar.
Yemi hiked a leg up to sit on a stool, met with Nova’s disapproving head shake.
“Not there. You don’t want to make this a thing—you sit in the corner.”
“You’re very good at your job,” Yemi replied, obliging her.
“Why does that feel like an insult?”
They took seats at a small round table near a corner of the bar, Yemi forced through Nova’s glare into facing the wall while Nova herself watched the busy room over her shoulder.
The beer was only mildly enjoyable. It was bitter and bubbly, smelled a bit like apple and orange rinds, but went down like damp sawdust. Yemi didn’t imagine anyone drank it for the taste.
“You haven’t told me yet about lunch,” said Nova.
Yemi flashed back to Dahlia’s gaze from the car. Her desire for “connection.”
“Nothing to report.” Yemi shrugged. “Packard was sloshed by the time I got there.”
“Not surprising.”
“He and Ambler arrived and left together.”
“Only slightly more surprising.”
“Matters of industry were discussed. The Drakes… There was an interesting line of questioning about the monarchy. Whether I would personally approve dissolving it.”
A light flicked on behind Nova’s eyes, and a frown crossed her lips. “And why would they ask that?”
“I don’t know. It felt pointed, though, if I’m honest.”
“And you said?”
“That it was essentially a ridiculous question.”
Nova grunted, apparently dissatisfied. It was her job to assess potential threats not just against the monarchy, but against Yemi in particular. Yemi could see the wheels in her head turning even as Nova changed the subject.
“Well, since we’re not breaking up the government, any new thoughts on an animus?”
“One does not so much choose an animus as the animus makes itself known through them,” Yemi replied, her tone mocking that of all her tutors, who had similarly been up her ass for the last decade about it.
“I’m thinking mongoose,” said Nova.
“A rodent queen?”
“Not a rodent—common misconception—but a hunter of snakes. You’ve got enough enemies for that to make sense. Better than an ass, which would also make sense but for different reasons.”
Yemi thought about responding with something quick and biting, but all that came out was an apple-flavored belch. They both laughed.
“This is terrible,” Yemi chuckled, swishing the rings of foam around in her glass.
“You’re not wrong. We’re a wine country,” Nova replied.
Yemi’s ears pricked. Somewhere in the gaps of conversation surrounding them, she heard the words:
“… bottom line. There can be no lasting peace in Ixia while the Blackgate line survives.”
She turned to glimpse the patrons at the tables around her, watching their lips, their postures, for the telling of secrets. No sinister gazes, no clenched teeth. And yet these were venomous words someone in this room had spoken.
She glanced back at Nova, who seemed to have noticed something herself, lifting her chin to point to the far end of the room where a small cluster of people had gathered, seated before a woman with bobbed white hair sitting on top of a table. Yemi listened closely.
“Our sovereignty in the eyes of the international community can never be affirmed,” said the woman. Before she knew it, Yemi was on her feet. Nova hissed her name.
“If Kespia decides to rekindle their war, they will come at us until we’ve been depleted and conquer us when we can no longer resist. And the dissidents will never rest. Broken families will continue to join their cause until the monarchs meet their violent ends and some fanatic government takes their place. ”
There were grunts of agreement, nods, side conversations.
“Ask any fisherman, and you’ll find their catch has been low these past five seasons. How many ships are they going to let disappear into the depths? We all know who’s taken them. What good’s a half-Mer queen if she won’t rein in her own kind?”
“The fish have proven their interest is in protecting their position,” said a disembodied man’s voice. “Likely because the position is all they have, but that is a matter of family, not country. It is not a problem Ixian blood should be asked to solve. Not anymore.”
“Hear, hear,” said Yemi, stepping up on the edge of the gathered collective.
Chairs groaned and crashed into one another with the speed they were cast aside so their users could beg forgiveness on their knees.
Apart from that, the entire room went silent.
The woman with the white hair stood and Yemi blinked.
“Dahlia.”
“Apologies, Qorrea. We meant no disrespect,” said Dahlia plainly.
“Disrespect?” Yemi almost laughed. “Is that all this is? Which one of you fucks let the word fish slip out of those lipless, traitorous beaks, hmm? Soldiers of Ixia. I’d be curious to know which one of you would have reported this meeting after it ended.”
The men didn’t move, didn’t so much as turn up their faces at being addressed. There were easily a dozen of them and no way to tell if they were armed.
“Why do you stand there, when you should be there?” Yemi asked, pointing to the ground before her.
Dahlia said nothing, and Yemi’s blood quickened. She had a temper. It was a famed thing that saw her less beloved, more feared than her mother, and it had taken years of practicing thoughtful restraint to tamp down.
“Don’t you fucking move,” Nova growled at her back.
Yemi turned slightly to see Nova’s spear at the throat of a man seated at the bar.
It was clear that he was armed, not so much that he intended to attack.
But as far as either of them knew, every single person here was a threat.
Yemi was no slouch with a spear. Her parents had seen the necessity of being a fighting royal a long time ago and saw to it that she was as trained as any of their soldiers.
Nova was often her sparring partner, and they’d both bruised ribs over it.
At present, she was hoping Dahlia felt bold.
“My Light, we should go. You’ll be late,” Nova said loudly.