19. Dangerously （Un）dressed
Dangerously (Un)dressed
Outside the open window, insects chirped as the sun set over Babilon’s tree canopy. Squire stood on the ledge, his head cocked to the side, yellow eyes wide as he looked at me nervously.
A decorative fountain gurgled in the corner, and a humid breeze fluttered the sheer curtains. I sat on my canopied bed and debated the merits of deserting from the military and living alone in a Northern ice hut. Some things in life were not worth fighting tyranny over.
Mainly, my current outfit.
Doors banged, voices rising as the others stepped out into the hall at our agreed-upon time. Steeling myself, I stood up and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the corner mirror. No way, I can’t do this.
I sat back down on the edge of the bed, cradling my head in my hands.
Squire chirped.
Stop acting pathetic. It could be worse.
I stood up. “Don’t be a coward. It’s not that bad,” I said to myself as I paced back and forth. “You’re just being dramatic.” Stretching, I started to feel better. “I can do this.”
Tawny feathers billowing in the humid breeze, Squire watched, eyes wide. “Zora,” he hooted. “Are you a harlot?” (Not helpful.)
Stomping over, I pushed him out the window. He flew back up, hovering outside.
“The slutty harlot mad,” he sang (really unhelpful). His situationally appropriate use of vocabulary was equally offensive and impressive.
“How dare you,” I said, pointing my finger at him. “After everything we’ve been through together. It’s just an outfit.”
He chirped and flew away to hunt, soaring up above the rooftops.
“Don’t you run away from me, mister!” I yelled.
Squire squawked back with attitude, disappearing into the trees.
Knock. “Zora?” Ella called through my door. “Did you say something? It’s time to leave. Do you need help getting ready?”
“No!” I turned away from the window and girded myself. With a fresh pit in my stomach, I stepped out into the hall.
Water gurgled as it trickled down the inn’s vine-covered stone walls. Magic. I could feel it with all my senses. It was a steady pressure behind my eyes and a faint tingling in my fingertips. Flowers hung from the ceiling, creating a soothing ambience. Peaceful calm.
The lack of danger set my teeth on edge.
I enjoyed frigid, austere things.
“Someone made a mistake,” I said as I tried to cover my exposed skin with my long hair, which I’d left down to help the situation. “Somehow it looks way worse on.”
The twins blinked at me, their jaws open.
“Wow,” they said in unison.
I pointed to Ella’s chest. “How come you get clothes beneath yours?” Under a white chiffon dress that hung to her knees, she wore shorts and a sleeveless top in the same color.
“I requested it before we left,” Axel drawled.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, folding my arms across the tiny scrap of fabric that was pretending to be a bra.
My long-sleeved white button-down shirt was completely sheer atop it. The only consolation was that my matching pants had a nude liner, so you couldn’t see everything; it just created the illusion that you could.
Axel shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”
Ella covered her mouth, a laugh escaping from behind her hand as she wiggled her eyebrows at me. “You look . . . dreamy. Very ethereal.”
“I look naked.”
“Ethereally naked.”
Axel arched an eyebrow as he lazily looked me over from head to toe. “He’s going to love this,” he said sarcastically. None of us needed to ask what prude he was referring to. “I helped him change with his shackles a while ago. I don’t know what’s taking him so long.”
“He’s probably primping,” I muttered, cognizant of my own exposed state.
“This is a disgrace to the Commonwealth,” I said, moving my hands over my torso protectively.
“The Emperor is murdering everyone, and they put me in this. It’s blasphemy.
I will be filing a detailed report about these . . . inappropriate working conditions.”
Ella nodded along. “To whom will this report be addressed?”
“Everyone in the military,” I said. “The Marshal. The old god.”
Ella rubbed at the sheer material on my back, her touch burning through the silky fabric. “It’s just for the mission. If anything, it will help us complete it quicker. How bad can it be?”
A lock clicked.
The sharp scent of dark cherry mixed with . . . the desire to rule the world? Chains clattered against priceless decorative platinum cuffs.
An icy shadow stretched out into the corridor, and colors lost saturation. The sound of falling water grew sharper, less bubbling and more aggressive. Flower petals ripped away as vines rustled. An unnatural wind gusted sharply as his hostility poisoned the air.
A man or a maleficent monster?
Both.
Tarantula stepped into the hall and halted mid-step.
The tips of his ears turned pink, light glinting off the rows of piercings as he purposefully stared at the space above my head.
“Absolutely not,” he said. Maroon lips pressed into a flat line, and a vein pulsed along his jaw. His mask did nothing to conceal his displeasure. He loomed stiffly in the hall.
I choked.
He’d been given a golden chiffon fabric, the color matching the lowlights in his blond curls. His pants draped with perfect tailoring down his long legs. The worst part—he’d left his long-sleeved sheer button-down shirt undone.
Layers of lean striations flexed across his bare abdomen. His Adonis belt formed a razor-sharp V line, framing a tattoo of a silver butterfly—the bottom of which disappeared below his beltline. The sheer shirt emphasized the shocking width of his shoulders and narrowness of his waist.
Diamonds glinted at his neck, and his prisoner chains looked elegant, like purposeful accessories.
He seemed . . . royal.
Filthy rich.
Untouchable.
Despicable decadence.
The chiffon material pulled taut around his crotch, near bursting. His butterfly tattoo should have looked feminine and not so devastatingly masculine.
Shivers scraped down my spine.
Axel had more skin exposed. He wore only white flowy pants, no shirt over his chiseled chest, but he wasn’t the one making it hard to breathe.
“What the damned art thou wearing, Ravenal?” Tarantula’s guttural accent made me jump out of my skin. Chains clinked as he lifted a long finger and pointed at me accusingly.
“Oh, look,” Axel drawled, “they match.”
I backed toward my door, laying more of my long hair across my torso as I tried to hide.
Chest heaving, Tarantula turned away from me and gripped the doorframe, muttering expletives under his breath.
Oh.
My.
Old.
God.
The sheer material slid luxuriously across his inked, muscular back. His expansive, ornate tattoo had unusual markings, and I leaned closer, trying to get a better view because the circular design seemed . . . familiar?
A noise of horror escaped my lips, and I slapped my hand over my mouth, too late to stifle it. The same five symbols in Mom’s journal. The snowflake, fire, lightning, wind, and water icons were arranged within the intricate circle. Storm magic.
Tarantula whirled around, glaring daggers at me—well, trying to. Cheeks bright red, he stared at the space above my head as he struggled to compose himself.
“I think Zora looks perfect for our mission.” Ella had far too much glee in her voice. “Sibrain Cortz won’t know what hit him.”
Tarantula’s upper lip curled. “And how shall she stop him without magic?” He infused each word with maximum cruelty.
“Worry about yourself,” I said as I pulled a dagger from the sheath in my combat boot and spun it between my fingers.
His smile was sardonic. “Ravenal, we both know thou art not going in public like . . . this.”
Just like that, I liked my outfit.
It has a certain flair.
“Yes—I am,” I said coldly, matching his tone. “We’re dressed the same. Are you changing?”
Axel raised his hand and blurted, “I vote for Zora.”
Everyone turned to him with confusion.
“She wears it best.”
Tarantula’s gaze was knifelike. “Don’t thou dare look at her.” He pointed at Axel, who rolled his eyes and turned around, swaggering down the hall.
“That’s my cue,” he called over his shoulder.
Ella couldn’t hide her laughter as she chased after her brother, and both disappeared around the corner.
Wait, guys?
I followed after them.
“Ravenal.” Tarantula’s voice cracked the air like a whip.
I froze.
“Who left those . . . terrible marks . . . on your back?”
Slowly I turned around.
We faced each other in the hall, an arm’s distance between us. I recoiled, horror washing over me like a bucket of ice water. His mask of decency was obliterated, and in its wake was . . . death. I’d thought I’d seen his madness before, but I was wrong.
The entity before me was a force of nature, as moral as the dark side of the moon.
Total annihilation.
Murderous was too tame a description for him, because there were no words to define his capacity for destruction.
“Who?” he repeated quietly, voice frigid.
“It was a dire bear,” I said, shrugging because I always forgot about the scars on my back. “Same as my face, but I’m fine now, so it doesn’t matter—”
“Which dire bear?” he asked harshly. Silver turned black, magic rolling in waves off Tarantula’s wide shoulders as he tensed; the exposed planes of his body went impossibly rigid, face contorted with wrath. “What did he look like?”
“He looked like a bear, because he was a bear.” I laughed awkwardly. “It was just a wild animal—”
“What were his markings?” He enunciated slowly, “I. Want. A. Name.”
Sanity is not his strong suit. Animal growls echoed in my darkest subconscious.
I closed my eyes and clutched my head, emotions churning, struggling to stay calm.
Memories played, each faster than the last: the Barren Forest, a bear standing with blood-covered paws watching me stumble, excruciating pain; waking up healed in bed with no memory of how I’d gotten there.
An ache throbbed behind my eyes.
When I opened them, a gasp tore from my throat. Tendrils of water sparkling silver with magic had drifted off the walls behind Tarantula and swirled slowly in a spiral—a mini-cyclone.