by L. R. W. Lee
“How did you…?”
I buried my face in Bliss’s shoulder. “Please don’t ask.”
“And that’s the kind of reading material you plan to bring them?”
“They asked me to. The next time I came.”
Kovis roared, and I couldn’t hold back my merriment.
He held his middle and moaned in pain before he could stop laughing. At length he panted, “We best get to work locating these masterworks if that’s the case.” He cleared his throat. “And where do you propose we go to locate something of this nature?” He snorted. “Do you suppose your sisters…?”
I yipped, and my eyes bulged. “No! And not my brother’s or Mema and Grandfather’s place either!” I’d be mortified if I was ever found looking for something like this. And I certainly couldn’t ever tell anyone about my aunts. Ever.
Kovis grinned.
“I think we should go into Sand City. They have several book shops.” Thank the gods I didn’t look like my old self. With any luck, no one would recognize me. I’d wanted to show Kovis City Center, but not with this objective.
“Then Sand City it is,” he said.
We’d begged off breakfast and flown to City Center accompanied by two guards who I’d asked to dress in nondescript clothes, like my siblings and I always did when we went, so we blended in.
Kovis and I ate a bite at the Salty Seahorse as dusk settled in, then made our way to the first of a handful of book shops I knew of. It was just opening, and the bell clanged behind us as the door closed. Kovis was bolder than me, and he smiled as he asked one of the proprietors where the books we sought were shelved. My cheeks warmed as the male kept glancing between us, then at my ring. He winked at me and rustled his wings as he finally pointed to a shelf against the far wall. I felt his eyes boring into me until I ducked behind a tall bookshelf.
The apprentice or proprietor of each book shop we stopped in behaved similarly, and I was never so happy that we succeeded in our mission within a relatively short time. We’d found no less than ten books that fit our requirements—who would have thought books like these were so readily available.
I was exhausted and wanted to go home, to bed, once we finished, but Kovis’s curiosity to experience the city won out, and rightly so. I’d always loved the warmth of City Center at night. Lights shining from the myriad of small shops lining either side of the streets, lavished their treasures on shoppers and revelers passing by. The effect was a warm and inviting atmosphere that always made me, and so many others, want to linger.
It definitely rubbed off on Kovis, who whistled as we walked, and not just any whistle but one resembling a rooster crowing as he carried the stack of books. I kept slapping his arm.
The farmers’ market was brimming with activity this time of night, and the smells of cooking foods wafting about, oh be still my heart. Street musicians ambled between vendor’s stalls, and we stopped to listen to several between our stops to taste samples. One place we paused had a green-and-white-striped, fabric awning and offered cheese and meat samples, which we gratefully accepted.
The owner of another stall, with an amber awning, beckoned us approach with her animated gestures and toothy grin. She promised an exotic array of fish—abtu, a sacred fish; samebito, an inky-black fish with emerald green eyes; isonade, a fish that glowed orange; and more—and she delivered. Kovis was enthralled with the diversity that he’d never conceived of and insisted we bring some back to the palace as a gift to Mema.
“What amazing fodder for my writing,” he commented at one point.
I, for one, couldn’t wait to see what stories he created from inspiration my home gave him.
At length, my feet hurt and my energy sagged. It had been a very full sun, and I could no longer beat back my exhaustion. So we headed home and went straight to bed.
I needed to leash my temper, but Velma made it increasingly difficult. I counted to ten, then to one hundred where I stood just inside the cave mouth. My eldest hadn’t yet submitted to the lesson of being less, and she’d become increasingly obstinate, according to my soldiers. Alfreda had again found her courage as a result and was following her sister’s example. It was time to put a stop to this. And I had just the news to do it. When my soldier had first reported to me, I’d known his news would bear fruit at some point. And I was about to test that theory.
I returned my soldiers’ salutes and stopped just before the archway so I could see Velma’s expression when I told her—Alfreda would hear too.
As I expected, Velma leveled a cold stare at me from where she sat on her moss mattress. She looked feisty and in better health. Her stumps were healing. Good.
I locked eyes with her as I said, “I thought you both would enjoy knowing that Alissandra has returned to Dream.”
Velma tried to hide her surprise but wasn’t quick enough.
Alfreda gasped in the other room.
I grinned. “And she brought her human.”
“No… oh no,” Alfreda whimpered.
“All your work for naught, daughter.” I shook my head. “And you’ve lost your wings as a result. Such a shame. You’ll be less… for nothing…” I let my words linger.
Velma’s mind whirled, I could see it in her eyes, but it just wasn’t in her to back down. So like me. “What do you mean, she’s returned?”
I chuckled. “I mean returned, as in come back. She’s seen the error of her ways and has come to repent and beg my forgiveness.”
“She said that?”
I smiled. “How much plainer must I be?”
Her breathing grew labored as I let the news settle.
“Abandon your little cause and join me. We can give humans better lives as they dream of only good things all their days.”
Velma didn’t reply.
Satisfied with the result of my statement, I ducked under the archway. Alfreda sat on her moss bed with a hand over her mouth, shaking her head. She looked up when I stopped a pace away and met my eyes with a blank expression.
“As for your charge—”
“No, please. Don’t hurt him anymore. He can’t help you anymore anyway.”
“Alfreda,” Velma cautioned from the other room.
Alfreda pressed on, so committed to protecting the human. “His people found him.” She looked up with venom in her eyes. “He was practically frozen. He’d collapsed in the snow. If it wasn’t for those horses drawing their attention, he might well have perished. You shattered his mind with all your demands. He was delirious and kept mumbling, telling them about the gods punishing him, begging them to wake him, confessing his undying love for Ali to them. They think he’s mad!”
I kept my expression even. They’d found him. That was news to me… good news, really. They would revive him and make him fit again, ready to do my bidding.
“So you want me to break my hold on your connection with him?” I asked.
Those sand people I controlled had been doing my bidding with their charges in Wake for some time, but I’d seen the limitations of my earliest advances—manually applying an adhesive to the human’s thought thread—in that I could only control one human at a time. I’d had to resort to leveraging general dissent to mobilize humans in any great numbers, and I disliked being dependent on human whims—they weren’t stable enough to build a new kingdom on, that was for sure. And so I’d sought for a better way, a way to control multiple humans simultaneously.
I’d tested my new methodology on Alissandra and her human first. I’d started with the basics, having her get him to move his arms and such. But my research had blossomed with Alfreda and her charge despite her protests. She could control virtually all her human’s movements as well as his dreams, just like other sand people. But I could now simultaneously hold the thought threads of multiple humans at once, not just one, and have them all move as I instructed. I’d done it with three at once so far, and I didn’t see why I couldn’t add more. Time would tell.
“Please. He’s sick and he can’t
go anywhere even if I tried to make him.” Alfreda’s tone was pleading.
She had a point. I could be reasonable. I had other subjects to continue experiments with. And appeasing her might make her, as well as her sister, less combative.
“Very well.” I wouldn’t tell her I had no intention of allowing this to be a permanent situation. No need to spoil my good will.
I closed my eyes and latched onto her mind. I easily located the connection we held with her charge—this one in addition to the permanent seed I’d planted in him earlier. She still knew nothing of it. I’d forged this connection before planting that seed, melding a connection of my own to hers, then fusing our jointure with her human’s thread—it had taken me little effort but had caused her significant pain.
I didn’t need this one anymore anyway, so I wouldn’t deny her. With just a thought, I separated my connection with her. She clenched her fists and moaned.
“Let no one say I am unreasonable. Loose your charge’s thought thread as you please.”
“Thank you,” she panted.
“Get some rest,” I said in parting, ducking back under the arch.
But before I could instruct my soldiers to allow Alfreda ease, Velma snarled, “What specifically did Ali say when you spoke with her?”
“That’s a private matter.”
Argumentative, she rose. “I asked what Ali said. Specifically.”
I frowned.
“That’s because you never talked to her, did you?”
“As I’ve told you, Alissandra has indeed returned.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. But she never begged your forgiveness. She’d never do that. You’re lying to me.”
I laughed. “Believe what you will. I have no time for this.”
I gave my soldiers new instructions and strode out. Velma had seen through my ruse. Well, it was time to have that conversation with Alissandra. She would beg my forgiveness once she stood before me, I had no doubt. I held back a growl. I’d thought for sure that when she’d reappeared in Dream that she had come to her senses and she would seek me out. I could conceive of no other plausible explanation for her risking the transition—she’d had no idea what it might do to her coming back, but she’d done it anyway. Inconceivable, foolhardy, and rash as well.
I shook my head and bit back a snarl. She’d been back three suns already and had been to see her sisters as well as Selova, but not me. Why was everyone else more important than her own father? It was time to put things straight.
Thanks to more horrific dreams, I woke as the sun cast its first rays through the window that stretched floor to ceiling to the left of my bed. Wynnfrith’s bed stood on the opposing side. Kovis roused shortly thereafter.
“I’m keen to read a few of those books.” He flicked his brows, looking at the stack on the nightstand. “And try a few new things.” He reached over and rubbed one of my special spots. His tattoo shown red across his muscled chest—he’d gotten to keep Kennan’s artwork, but how I missed his thrum.
A shiver raced from between my legs. How I longed to as well, but I stilled his hand. “Aunt Dite will be here for dinner soon. We need to get ready.”
“You’re no fun.” He pecked my nose.
I took my time running a palm across his chest, fully enjoying the firmness of it. “You can read some before we head to my aunts. Maybe we’ll even experiment.” I flicked my brows.
That brought a smile to his face. “Are we going this sun?”
“I hope to. We’ll know after dinner.”
“I hope I don’t think about… their proclivities… when I see them.” He chuckled.
I snickered as he brought his forehead to mine.
“We’ll find them.” His tone was calm and filled with confidence.
“I know. I love you, my Dreambeam.” My hand ran down his prickly, morning jaw.
“And I love you.” He met my lips with a gentle kiss.
We lingered, but eventually I pushed myself up and out of bed. Dite awaited, and who knew what that might mean? I prayed it was less dramatic than what her reputation touted, she was the goddess of love after all. I’d seen her only a few times before, and Mema had hustled we maidens out every one of those times.
Please don’t let my fabled aunts pale in comparison to Dite. I wasn’t sure who I pleaded with. Anyone who might listen, probably. I reminded myself that we’d invited Dite here to help us stop Father. Wake’s future depended on our success. I’d endure whatever her price required.
Kovis donned a tailored, shadow-gray, casual shirt and black slacks that complemented his wings. He’d shaved, and one of our stewards had trimmed his hair and combed his wings. He smelled male in all the best ways and got my heart pumping.
I’d borrowed a pastel aqua-mint dress that extended to my knees, from Wasila. It gathered on one side of the bodice, had a boat neckline, and I loved how its fitted sleeves extended into flowing cuffs. It was pretty, but modest. Exactly what I’d intended. I felt feminine.
“Are you ready?” Kovis asked, nuzzling my neck after I finished brushing my hair and braiding some of my locks horizontally across the back of my head. I let the rest fall freely down my back. “You look beautiful.”
I forced a smile. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Kovis extended his elbow, and I placed my hand on his arm.
I counted every one of the one hundred and four steps between my bedroom and our dining room. I’d never done that before, but it helped calm me. Good thing because when we reached it, Aunt Dite was already there.
To say I sensed sexual tension in the air when I stepped through the doorway would have been an understatement. Aunt Dite radiated it. But her sensuality was more than her long dress—calling the two widths of black fabric that began as a straight across, low-cut neckline, and fell to the floor, a dress, was a stretch. Two handbreadths of her onyx skin shown where the laces holding the front and back together ran up and down her sides. She announced to everyone that she wore absolutely nothing underneath.
I instinctively looked for Velma to ground me, before remembering she was one of the reasons we had gathered. Judging by the wide and downcast eyes of my sisters, it seemed they also lacked an anchor in this storm.
The stewards had shortened the normally room-length table that accommodated my entire family, by half, in the large, high-ceilinged dining room. I could only assume the idea of shortening the table had been to make the occasion more intimate. I wasn’t sure if that had been such a good idea. My sisters had formed two groups and mingled to the left of it, but their eyes kept traveling to Dite. Unsurprisingly, several helped themselves to more cocktails as white-gloved stewards passed through their midst.
Mema held a forced smile as she conversed with the goddess who stood tall. But Dite was anything but stiff, not with the way she waved about the hand she held her drink in. How was it even possible to feel that confident? She was a goddess, but still. I wondered if Mema might accidently shatter the flute in her hand with the pressure her grip put it under. She’d dressed in a modest black dress whose collar hugged her throat.
Kovis exhaled heavily beside me. His heart had picked up pace.
As if sensing it, Dite ran a hand slowly through her long black locks and winked at Kovis, then took a sip of wine.
I cleared my throat, and Kovis startled.
It had been a few annums since I'd last seen her, but she still had an exotic look about her. Her face was perfectly symmetrical, her eyes ever changing, magical, and big, her eyebrows the perfect shape, her lips small and feminine. She had a beauty mark on her cheek that somehow added to her overall intrigue. But she lacked wings. Ha.
I rustled mine. I was shorter than her by far, but I had curves. Not as shapely as hers, but still. And I had gold hair, although Kovis had been attracted more to dark-haired women in the past. Would she seduce him? I bit my lip.
You’re perfect to me, Ali. Kovis squeezed the hand I still rested on his arm.
But you—<
br />
She’s a damn goddess, Ali, and the goddess of love at that. She oozes sex.
I snickered. You think?
I’m a bit overwhelmed by her.
I exhaled.
Wynnfrith came over. “Ali. Kovis. Come join us.” She took my hand and led us over to those she’d gathered with—Ailith, Beval, Deor, Farfelee, and Wasila.
I positioned myself where I could keep an eye on Dite as Kovis and I grabbed wild-boar-wrapped sea serpent appetizers when a steward offered. I wasn’t the only one watching her judging by my sisters’ inattentiveness.
“Two words,” Deor said.
My sister was always quick to speak her mind, and I lifted my brows.
“Delcina’s dinner.”
I snorted. The others did too. Who could forget. Even Kovis chuckled. I’d told him.
Mema ushered Dite to one group, thankfully not ours, and introduced her around. My unadventurous sisters Bega, Eolande, Eadu looked completely out of their element. So did Phina, as quiet as she was. But Amelia, ever the nurturer, grabbed her hand in a silent show of support. Mema clearly understood how to play this game because these sisters were definitely a safe move. The goddess chatted as she looked around the circle, but polite as she was, her eyes still wandered over our group and hovered over Kovis’s wings and behind.
Her assured smile, which told me she was calm and at peace with herself, never left her face, even when our eyes connected. Despite myself, I looked away and my stomach clenched. Farfelee grimaced in a show of support. She’d seen. Dite was the exact opposite of the wildlife Farfelee regularly oozed over, a predator more like if she didn’t stop. I made sure she could see the sapphire on my finger.
A steward requested our attention and announced dinner’s readiness not long after.
“As our honored guest, please sit at my right hand,” Mema offered.
Dite batted her curled lashes and walked ever so slowly, seductively, to the proffered position.
Kovis and I were halfway down the table, headed for the opposite end, when the goddess asked, “Didn’t you say Princess Alissandra was the one who suggested inviting me for this occasion?”
