13. Tiera and Her Firebird Take Sapphira to Get a Gift #3
With her short legs, Isabel has to run to keep up. “Isn’t there anything else you can show us?” she asks. “Please, it’s for Kaelen.” She lays a hand on Tiera’s arm.
The woman groans. “Fine! But only if your friend stops laying into my merchants.”
“Done,” she responds before Sapphira gets a chance.
Tiera then takes them deeper into the room and down short steps. Isabel sees how embarrassed Sapphira gets, walking more quickly when they pass an intimate scene transpiring in the dark. Isabel holds in her laughter. The princess’s modesty is adorable.
“This is our jewelry,” Tiera says, waving toward the room, where people are bargaining and cutting deals—and probably getting swindled too. “Are you sure you can afford it?” she asks, cutting her eyes to Sapphira.
The woman puffs out her chest. “Never found anything I couldn’t buy,” she says. Then she sweeps past Tiera, nearly bumping her on the way, and heads over to the first table, which glitters with bracelets and ankle charms.
Isabel follows her as she wanders from table to table, her eyes focused and face scrunched in concentration.
Sapphira’s putting a lot of thought into Kaelen’s gift.
Isabel’s heart squeezes at the thought, warmth blooming across her chest. She once worried that Sapphira and Kaelen might never get along.
Sapphira stops at a small table. Beside it stands a tall rack with colorful, jewel-studded items displayed on it. “What are these?” she asks, and the man behind the table lights up. He’s an older, graying man with dark-tan skin. His face is as sly as a cat’s.
“These are neck cuffs,” he says. “The finest across Cielo.” He pulls one from the rack.
It’s thin and embedded with diamonds. They sparkle when he moves them.
“I have all types, any that you’d like. I have white, yellow, rose gold, chains, and links.
” He grabs more. “And there is silver if you’d like that best. And these ones have embedded jewels. Rubies, emerald, draek?n scale!”
Sapphira shakes her head, and the man purses his lips. Sweat beads at his brow as he explains the different styles. Though she is being difficult, Sapphira still hasn’t walked away yet. That’s a good sign.
“If you don’t like the material, there are ones that buckle in the back,” he tells her. “They’re made of the finest silk and draek?n hide. There’s fur and cotton as soft as clouds.”
Sapphira looks at each neck cuff, picking them up and inspecting them. She freezes, her eye catching on something tucked away. She points. “Let me see that one.”
The man follows her gaze, and his eyes light up when he spots it. He rushes to grab it and brings it to Sapphira. “This is a new one we got in. It was brought from Ilyath and was worn by the royalty of the red elves. A young prince.”
“And how did you get it?” Isabel asks, raising her brow.
The man splutters. “I’m not the one who did. It was one of the runners. An independent supplier. Said he won it in a gamble.” The merchant shrugs.
Sapphira is concentrating hard, holding the cuff to her face. It’s pretty, one of the thicker bands made of thin, swirling gold inlaid with teardrop gems in a color-changing blue-green that reminds Isabel of the sea. There are little dangling gems at the end that would trail down the wearer’s neck.
“This,” Sapphira breathes, staring down at it in awe. “This is perfect. I’ll take it.”
The man’s anxious face instantly lights up. “It’ll cost—”
“Here,” Sapphira says, shoving the coin pouch toward him.
Isabel struggles to keep up as Sapphira struts away with the golden neck cuff wrapped in a fine, cushioned box.
“That was most of your money!” Isabel hisses as she follows her. “I— I don’t think you understand the currency here, Sapphira. That was a lot of money.”
“I know.”
Isabel’s eyes widen. “Are you sure that’s the one you want? I’m sure Kaelen will be fine with something cheaper. We can still return it.”
Sapphira scoffs. “Like that merchant would accept a refund. He earned a nice sum of coins by up-charging for this piece. But I don’t care. It was worth it. I would have taken it for more if he asked. Kaelen will love it, and nothing less would have done.”
Isabel lets out a long breath. “Okay . . . I guess it’s your money.
” She accepts Sapphira’s response. The woman is free to do what she likes with her coin, and I won’t try to tell her otherwise.
She is a princess, after all. She’s used to fine things.
And when she returns home, she will have much more than the coin she got off a single damaged dress.
Isabel’s stomach twists. She can’t afford expensive jewelry and doesn’t live in luxury like Sapphira was born to.
She takes a good, long look at the woman.
She’s confident, head high as she strides across the room, cutting through the chaos and desperation.
Does she long for home? she wonders. She must be itching to get away from this simple life . . .
For the first time, Isabel wonders if she can give Sapphira the things she wants. If she’s fooling herself to think Sapphira might actually be happier staying here.
Isabel’s head is swimming by the time they return to the opening they came from. Tiera stands beside the exposed stone, leaning against the wall. The breeze rustles her curls.
“Leaving already, little healer?” she asks, uncrossing her arms and stepping forward.
“We have to hurry back, remember?” Isabel replies. “Are you coming to Kaelen’s party? I didn’t send you an invite because I thought you’d be out of town, but—”
“Nah,” Tiera says, brushing her off. “The takops doesn’t like me much.”
“No surprise,” Sapphira huffs under her breath. “He has good taste.”
Tiera cuts a look to her but turns back to Isabel without a response. “Besides, I’m busy. Don’t be a stranger, Isabella, and hurry back soon. Maybe sometime, you’ll take me up on that offer I gave you.”
Isabel’s cheeks heat. She looks away from Sapphira’s questioning stare.
“I had to ask,” Tiera says, though there’s a glimmer of disappointment in her eyes. “Anyway, let’s get you two back to the ground.”
The phoenix drops them back beside Askerh?lla’s statue, and Sapphira turns back toward home while Isabel says goodbye to Tiera. Then she hurries to catch up.
The walk back to the cottage is mostly silent, with only the shuffle of their slippers as the sun begins to set, a rosy orange behind them. When the cottage comes into view, Sapphira asks, “What did that woman mean back there? When she asked if you’d take her up on ‘her offer.’”
Isabel’s eyes are trained on the ground, her throat closing as she remembers the offer. Her voice is hoarse when she speaks. “A year ago, before she left for Aelestis, she asked me to come with her. That’s why Kaelen doesn’t like her. He felt like she was trying to take me away from him.”
Sapphira’s face is unreadable. Isabel hates the blank look that overcomes it. “And you were considering it?”
Isabel quickly shakes her head. “I couldn’t leave Cielo, and I wouldn’t be parted from Kaelen either. There was no choice for me to make.”
“What if Kaelen went with you?”
“I . . . don’t think that’s what she was asking.”
“Oh.”
It’s quiet when they enter the cottage, and Kaelen is still fast asleep on the couch, snoring. His arm hangs over the edge, and the blanket is half off him. Sapphira disappears, heading straight up to Isabel’s room, and Isabel lets out a long sigh as she watches her go.
Busying herself, she begins preparing the sweets spread for Kaelen’s birthday breakfast. She already prepped some ingredients, so it shouldn’t take too long. While the pastries bake, she chars some meats and cuts the best cheeses, setting out a platter of nuts and dried fruits.
Isabel is sprinkling sugar on one of the pies when Sapphira makes her way down the stairs and Kaelen begins to stir.
The chimera watches fondly as his nose twitches, then he shoots upright before his eyes have even opened.
“Happy birthday!” she shouts, holding up a cake with his name sprawled across the top.
Kaelen’s eyes flit between Isabel and Sapphira.
He jumps up from the couch, hugs Isabel, and then grabs the cake.
Isabel laughs. “It’s almost like the cake is all you care about,” she says as he sinks his sharp teeth into it.
“What other reason is there to celebrate a birthday?” Kaelen asks.
“Hey, at least pull a piece off first,” Sapphira scolds, whacking his head as he guards it like a rabid dog. “I want some of that too.”
“Don’t worry, I made another,” Isabel says. “And there’s more dessert where that came from.”
“I literally love you, Isabel,” Kaelen groans, and Isabel rolls her eyes fondly.
Kaelen scarfs down his breakfast quickly, eating multiple slices of cake and meat, while Isabel rushes to grab the present she hid. As she walks back to the table with the gift behind her back, the birthday boy eyes her suspiciously.
“So . . . I know how much you love pairing tea with your after-dinner sweets, so I got these!” She pulls the velvet bags from behind her back and dangles them in front of her. There’s a purple bag with golden string, a red one with silver string, and a yellow-green one with black string.
The first has a tag with a curling, boxy symbol that goes out in four directions in stark black and shimmering gold. The other two have the same tag: a smushed face with a long tongue in soft brown-reds and blue-greens.
“I had Senor Yasi at the mail house make a special order with the traveling merchants coming in from Campo de Flores and Santus Lucentia,” she says. “They’re the shires best known for their tea, so it should be an experience.”
Kaelen takes them and sniffs. His eyes widen. “Great stars. They smell amazing!”
“I also got you a new teapot.” She brandishes it.
“The old one was chipping. We’ve had it for so long.
This one came from the East, though I’m unsure where, exactly.
Luckily, I found this. The merchant had just procured it and made me a deal I couldn’t pass on.
It was made by a skilled eastern silversmith. ”
The pot is shining silver with a draek?n jutting out for the spout. It’s incredibly detailed and painstakingly crafted. She waits eagerly for Kaelen’s response, bouncing on the balls of her toes and hoping he’ll like it. When a smile breaks out over his face, she lets out a long breath.
“Wow, Iz. You really went all out.” He hugs her again as he takes the pot, then turns to stoke the coals below the hot stone and fills the pot with water.
“You should have brought this out before the cake so we could have tried it,” he says.
He slaps his slim belly, bloated from stuffing his face, and adds, “I feel like I’m going to explode, but I can’t wait to try these. ”
Chewing the cube of cheese she is munching on, Sapphira says, “Before you put yourself into a food-induced nap, you have to open my gift.”
Kaelen turns from the hot stone, his eyes widening. “You got me a gift?”
Sapphira snorts. “Of course I did. I’m embarrassed after Isabel’s thoughtful tea set, but I think you might enjoy it.”
Isabel isn’t sure why Sapphira is downplaying her gift.
She spent a long time picking it out, visiting nearly every stall in the night market, and looking through many styles of neck cuffs until she found the right one.
She spent a fortune on it. Far more than Isabel had.
Isabel relied on friendships and cashed in favors just to get tea bags and a pot.
Kaelen takes the box and runs his hands over it. “This material is so nice,” he says, giving Sapphira a questioning look.
“It’s just a box,” Sapphira mutters, turning away to hide her embarrassment.
Kaelen opens it warily. “I swear, if you’re tricking me—” His words cut off when he sees the beautiful neck cuff sitting atop a soft pillow.
Then he gasps, his mouth opening and closing like a fish’s.
His head snaps up to Sapphira, then back to the cuff, then back to Sapphira, and then the cuff again.
“You didn’t,” he says.
“I did.”
“This is a joke.”
“It’s not.”
Sapphira looks smug now, her arms clasped behind her back and her head held high. She’s glowing from his reaction to her gift.
Setting the box on the table, Kaelen holds the cuff out reverently, turning it back and forth in the light.
The gold shines like sunlight, and the stones shift colors from deep to light, reddish-blue to yellow-green.
When he slides it onto his neck, he closes his eyes.
It’s a perfect fit. He looks like royalty.
“How?” Kaelen whispers.
Sapphira shrugs. “I have my ways.” She points at him. “Now, just remember that the next time you feel like getting on my nerves. I could make you disappear if I wanted to.”
She’s joking, and Kaelen laughs, but there are tears in his eyes. Sapphira swallows noisily, unable to meet his eyes, which fly wide open when he rushes forward to embrace her.
Isabel’s stomach ties itself in knots, unable to stop her own tears at the sight of her two favorite people getting along. Kaelen puts out his arm, and she shuffles forward to join them, her arms wrapping around them both. They stand huddled in the kitchen until the teapot starts whistling.
Lunch is a sweet and peaceful affair. Half of the last-minute guests Isabel invited show up. The baker brought fresh bread, and the barmaid Laisa brought drinks, the hatmaker, and even Senora Alvita and her husband, who came with a basket of guava and their three boys.
They picnic up on the sunny hill behind the cottage, sharing a feast in the sun-warmed grass.
After they eat, they play patolli, tossing beans and moving around the board.
It gets competitive fast. Isabel gets a few painted stones and a beaded chain she can use in her hair or wrap around her horns.
She also lost a few cakes and a pie in the prize pool.
Each of them walks away with wins and losses, still grinning from ear to ear.
Kaelen proudly displays his new blanket, which Laisa sewed. Sapphira won a small hand drum that Alvita made.
“Thank you,” Kaelen says as Isabel climbs the steps to her room, Sapphira already fast asleep on the couch.
He glances down at the floor, then back up at her, whispering to not wake Sapphira.
“I know what you were doing, and I . . . Well, you didn’t have to.
I like the way things are now.” His eyes stray to Sapphira curled up beneath her new blanket.
“You know I’ll always love you. We’re bonded for life, remember? ”
Isabel smiles, her fingers tightening on the stones in her hand. “I couldn’t forget.”