Chapter 4 #2
If Taven were there, he’d throw a shawl over her and fuss about decency. Her mother would chastise the ill fit and tell her to call the tailor, as if they weren’t one missed tax collection from repossession. Fabrien would have beaten her and called her a whore.
But none of them were there to do any of those things.
As Elloven turned in the mirror, their judgments echoing only in the background, she decided she looked perfectly fine.
Before she left, she paused to consider leaving a note, but her mother wasn’t likely to wake until morning, and she didn’t want Taven to know where she was.
Taven had taken the carriage, but she’d never been good at driving and preferred the freedom of riding anyway.
It was something she hadn’t been allowed to do in seven years.
Although Mythgarde was more than an hour away, and she wasn’t confident she knew the way, Elloven threw on the heaviest cloak she could find, then dressed and saddled Gennady’s old mare, Pinky.
The horse snuffled and nuzzled her in an almost desperate call for affection.
Elloven wondered when she’d last been ridden properly.
She decided then and there that Pink would be hers henceforth.
Her own, Midnight, had been sold the day after she’d arrived in Whitechurch, something she tried not to think about anymore.
Sorting her losses was a pointless way to further weaken herself.
Riding to Mythgarde while still being hunted wasn’t the most prudent decision, but as Jesstin had said, they wouldn’t care about what she’d done.
Her sanctuary in Riverchapel extended almost to Mythgarde’s border, and no one would look for her anywhere near a place like that.
It was a risk, yes, but one she was willing to take.
Jesstin was the first person she’d met in a long while who had neither asked anything of her nor expected her to conform to an idea.
He was also the only living person who had made her feel close to her brother since his death, and maybe, just maybe he was searching for that same comfort.
Gennady had been the only pure thing in her life, and her greatest regret was not being there when he’d needed her.
“If we get lost, then we’ll be lost together, and that doesn’t sound so bad, does it?” she whispered in Pinky’s ear and spurred them into motion.
Men and women were packed shoulder-to-shoulder at the Azure when Jesstin arrived.
Music competed from the different rooms, rising just above the raucous din of laughter and conversation.
He enjoyed these nights best because no one was looking for him, looking at him.
There was no need to sit upon his perch for all to watch him pretend to get off to the skills of a beautiful woman anyone else there would be thrilled to entertain.
There was a hierarchy to the immorality of Mythgarde, and the regulars knew it well.
First time visitors might tentatively dip into the Crimson Rogue, the first tavern they saw when passing under the village gates.
It seemed a pub like any other on the outside.
The experience within was a watered-down taste of what else they could find, should they gather the courage to continue down Peddler’s Row.
The Azure was on the far end, only for the most seasoned adventurers. Rarely did it see the tentative faces of newcomers among its patrons. By the time revelers made their way that far down the line, they were fully invested in the darkness of their consciences.
If Elloven were to show up, she would be nowhere near the Azure.
Just across from the Crimson Rogue was an establishment that, on the outside, seemed not to belong.
The Ivory Rogue, sister tavern to the Crimson, looked more like an outpost of the Resplendent Reliquary of the Guardians than a house of ill repute, but it was known for one of the most fascinating displays of the entire village: the Ivory Virtues of Temptation, a dozen young maidens dressed in the simplest white gowns, their skin dusted with the palest powders and their hair covered in pearl blossoms. Virgins, all of them, chosen from families who needed the money and had no compunction in selling their daughters off to be ogled by drunken men and women, eventually sold to one of them for an astronomical price.
Some taverns had laws of their own, which the village respected and upheld, and the one law of the Ivory Rogue was to never, ever lay hands on a Virtue, unless her life was in immediate peril.
The punishment for violating this wasn’t a fine or a prison sentence.
It was death. He’d watched a dozen men hang for it over the few years he’d been the Azure’s patron, and despite that, men still couldn’t help themselves.
Jesstin rarely visited that end of the row. He hadn’t had a reason to. But if there was even a chance Elloven might show up, he intended to be there.
He stood in the center of the cobblestone road, trying to decide between the Crimson and the Ivory, and randomly chose the Ivory.
The two Rogues were as quiet as an average village tavern.
He was straightaway uncomfortable at how exposed he felt amid such a thin, subdued gathering.
Most were enjoying rounds of ale with friends, sharing nervous glances about what the rest of the night would hold, probably weighing how much truth there was to the vague whispers.
All of them thought they were brave and bold for coming to such a place.
It was easy to pick out who would last, who would not.
Jesstin ordered a house ale from the barkeep and settled into a corner table near a clouded window, where he had a view of the entrance.
“Is this seat taken?” a woman asked.
He looked up and found a familiar expression. Lidded, sultry. She was pretty, her hair dark and long and wavy. She would have no trouble finding someone to take to her bed. “Sorry.”
Her disappointment was colored with the shame of rejection. He wanted to say, It’s not you, but that only ever made it worse. If she started crying, she’d cause a scene, which was the last thing he wanted. “Oh. My apologies.”
“None required,” he said and returned to his untouched drink. Maybe it was a bad idea, venturing out of his own territory. Even if Elloven showed up, what was the likelihood she would want to see him at all? Or that she’d come that night?
“Especially if she knew about you and me, aye?”
Jesstin squinted at Gennady’s first appearance since he’d stormed out of the office. “Now you want a conversation?” he muttered under his breath. In a place as packed as the Azure, it was nothing to see a man talking to himself, but he didn’t have the same protection at the Ivory.
Nothing pissed him off quite like apparitions reading minds at their whim.
“Stay away from her, Jesstin.”
“Did you not...” Jesstin grimaced and cupped a hand over the side of his face to block the view of others. “Tell me to obey your mother and help her?”
“Now you’re done. She’s been through enough.” Gennady drummed his ghost fingers on the table. “Just get back to the Azure, will you? Doesn’t your limp cock have a show to put on?”
Gennady’s words didn’t sting the way he’d probably hoped. Jesstin’s celibacy wasn’t a flaw. It was a personality trait. “You think I’m a threat, but it doesn’t trouble you that Considine is breathing down her neck at all hours?”
“Of course it troubles me. It’s always troubled me,” Gennady retorted. “But Taven isn’t a murderer.”
“Then what? A bully? Everyone knows how your mother lives. That stable hand keeps her in squalor. So what does he do with Asterin’s gold?”
Gennady scoffed.
“You have some nerve warning me away from her when you’re not so different from the men who hurt your sister.” Jesstin jumped at the rare opportunity to strike a nerve. “She might even approve of what I did if she knew.”
“You don’t know a damn thing! You never did.”
Two of the Virtues walked by, arm in arm and beaming.
Twins, from the look of it, both with striking blonde hair and crystal-blue eyes that gave him a moment’s pause.
He forced a smile in return. A fellow proprietor had told him once that their memories had been spelled away.
Stolen. It explained their empty-eyed bliss.
Having had his own memories stolen as a child, Jesstin felt there was a special place in the bowels of damnation for anyone who would do that to someone.
“I know she’s traded one nightmare for another. ”
“You suddenly care about someone you don’t even remember?”
Jesstin did remember Elloven, but she hadn’t left an impression then.
He wasn’t sure why she had now, other than that haunted look he recognized all too well.
“Care? I don’t even know her. But I recommended she come here, so I just want to make sure she has the read of the place.
Know where’s safe for her, where isn’t.”
“You really think she’ll come.” Gennady snorted so loud, Jesstin struggled to believe no one else could hear him. “You’ve never been a good liar, Jesstin. The only thing you’re worse at is being a friend.”
Jesstin’s face flamed with heat. Gennady’s charge was massively hypocritical, given what he’d done.
But it had been the last of Jesstin’s childhood shed, his innocence lost. If the chain of events preceding the murder had not occurred, Jesstin never would have found his way, stumbling drunk, to Mythgarde.
Never would have felt the inexplicable sense of being at home among fellow misfits.
Never would have invested his money into the Azure when the prior owner had become insolvent.
“Have I turned into a mirror then? Because I doubt it’s possible to dethrone you. ”
“I know you, Jess. You’re interested in her.”