by Dani Smith
He spoke the magical word—”Devarim!”—and the Jade shivered in his hands, then blazed alight and rose slowly into the air with a ringing of invisible chimes.
Drake’s bedroom flashed into view, tinted slightly green in the Jade’s illumination. He saw Iona sitting at the vanity, wearing a frothy off-the-shoulder number of white velvet and purple silk, her copper hair twining rapidly in the skilled hands of the satyr handmaid standing behind her. Omnia paced the room anxiously, her long white fingers twining. He could hear them talking, their tones hushed. He leaned in, straining to hear, but the Jade’s damned chiming was so bloody loud—
“Ashe!”
Ashe jerked, and the Jade winked out, falling into his lap with an unceremonious plop. Snow’s voice echoed down the corridor outside his cell, which had remained half-empty since returning from the Yellowseed genocide, Quinn having lost himself in the depths of Shale City, ignoring his guilt with women and wine. Ashe stuffed the silent bauble into his pack before shoving the bag under his pallet. He quickly stood at attention as Snow swung the cell door open, peering in, his antlered shadow a bizarre profile in the doorway.
“I’m here, Snow,” Ashe said.
Snow strolled in, the smile on his face eerily knowing. His weird blue eyes scanned the room, seeming to flicker over every inch before coming to rest on Ashe. His knifelike smirk deepened, his eyes narrowing.
“Drake wants you in the library,” he said, drawing his pocketknife and beginning to clean his nails, something Ashe knew he did when he was thinking deeply. He nodded and walked brusquely past his superior, his head lowered, one hand fingering the hilt of his kukri.
“Oh, Ashe,” Snow called over his shoulder, “one more thing.”
Ashe turned, gazing at the strange deer man with a petulant glare. Snow pocketed his knife and reached into his vest, producing another glass syringe of Aura’s weird purple fluid.
“You may as well shoot up, little brother,” he said as he handed Ashe the instrument. “We expect to have that treasure in our hands very soon.”
Ashe slowly took the syringe, pocketing it in his own vest. Snow smirked like a knife; his gaze unflinching from the faun’s.
“Better safe than sorry when around such an item, don’t you think?”
Ashe gazed at Snow steadily.
“Do you mind?”
Snow smirked. “Mind what?”
“My room. Close the door, if it does suit you. Even a servant guard is due his privacy.”
Snow’s mouth twisted at the indignant comment. “It suits me, Ashe. Come, to the library.”
They walked side by side through the compound halls, unspeaking. Ashe kept his eyes trained forward, his head held high. He refused to look at Snow until they reached the heavy carved double doors.
“What is this, Snow?” Ashe asked quietly.
“I guess you’ll have to see, won’t you, Goat Boy?” Snow chuckled as he strolled off down the hall.
Ashe reached the library and knocked briefly before slowly opening one side of the double doors. “You sent for me, Drake?” His voice echoed into the musty space.
The first thing he saw was Drake kissing Iona. Drake pulled away, finishing their kiss with a satisfied smack! Iona stepped abruptly away from her husband and stared at Ashe. He stared back at her, withering jealousy and hurt uncoiling at his center.
“Goat boy!” Drake bellowed. Ashe looked to Drake, hating him silently.
“Snow advised that you called for me,” he repeated.
“Yes, so I did,” Drake said. “I wanted to inform you, little brother, that things are going to be different around here. I have gifted my favorite wife here this library, and the gardens, and she is permitted to explore as she wishes. It remains your duty to accompany her when she requests it, for her protection when I’m not here.”
Ashe swallowed hard at the phrase favorite wife, his Adam’s apple bobbing, but his face remained as hard as stone. From the corner of his eye he saw Iona step forward slightly, but he refused to look at her. His eyes remained focused entirely on Drake.
“Understood,” he said, tersely, his face a composed mask.
“Does this mean I get to see the city?” Iona asked quickly.
Drake grinned and bowed slightly in her direction. He reached out, lifting her chin once more so that her aurora borealis eyes rose to his.
“Yes, my little queen,” he said. “My gift to you. Enjoy this library, our gardens. Make yourself at home. Should you wish to see the city, you only need ask my little brother here. He will cater to and protect you in my absence.”
Drake turned to Ashe, cocking his big horns slightly in his guard’s direction.
“Are we in agreement, little brother?”
Ashe nodded slightly. “If it pleases you and the queen.”
Drake grinned. “It pleases me.” He reached out and touched a big finger to Iona’s lips. “It pleases me greatly.”
Chapter 15
“He kissed her!”
Quinn looked up blearily as Ashe burst into the pub, face torqued with poisonous jealousy. He took another swig of beer and belched loudly, leaning back from the bar. Around them, mohawked Horned drank, shouted, cackled, and behaved in a generally ruckus knot of tattooed and pierced flesh, leather, and spikes. Faerie, faun, and satyr tramps flitted among the patrons; one paused to poke at Ashe, batting her eyelashes sensuously.
“Ashy boy, it’s been forever!” she tinkled, as Ashe shoved past her, his tail twitching, horns lowered. She shot him a sour look before moving on to more interested customers.
“Whoa,” Quinn drawled. “What’s all this about, now, little brother?”
“Don’t call me that,” Ashe growled as he sat down hard on the stool next to him. “Don’t ever call me that again.”
Quinn nodded to the bartender, Burl, a marvelously fat satyr who spent his days and nights hauling himself back and forth behind the bar. Burl nodded back, winking, and thunked a beer and a whiskey down in front of the sulking faun guard.
“The perfect cure for a broken heart,” Burl laughed jovially, his triple chin jiggling merrily beneath his copious grin before strolling away to tend to other customers.
Ashe sucked the hard liquor down as if it meant his sanity. It burned his throat and gullet, knocking back a bit of the poison that had collected around his heart.
“Who kissed who?” Quinn asked, taking another swig of his brew.
“Drake,” Ashe muttered. “He kissed Iona. He called her his ‘little queen.’”
Quinn shrugged. “So? She’s his property, isn’t she? Not sure what you are going on about there, Ashy—”
“A library,” Ashe said, staring hard into his beer glass. “He gave her the Bargsea library. You should have seen him … hands on her shoulders … pearls around her neck—”
“I am sure his hands have been a few other places on her, as well,” quipped Quinn. “Again, you’re spouting nonsense. I would almost swear that you were jealous.”
Ashe squinted at him; his eyes narrowed. “I’m not jealous. I’m her handler.”
“Yes!” Quinn shot back drunkenly. “Her handler. What Drake does to his property is no affair of yours, Ashe. Let it go and enjoy some of the fine ass that you see around you!”
He called for one more whiskey, knocked it back, and tossed a few stivers onto the bar. “And,” he added as he rose from his stool, “you are jealous. You need to be careful, Goat Boy. She belongs to our boss, the most powerful Horned in these parts. You have no business messing with something that could get you both killed, and me along with you!”
Ashe’s eyes flashed. “And what do you care, Ass?” he growled. “You helped to slaughter her entire village, after all! Did you nail their tails to some whore’s crib wall—”
Quinn spun on him; his hazel eyes sharp.
“Don’t you say a word about what happened back there!” he snarled. “I was dragged there by a master who spared my family in exchange for my freedom! I had no cho
ice. I’m just as much of a slave as those queens are!”
Ashe stood up, his tail lashing. “Our families are dead, Quinn! Drake lied his ass off to get us to follow him! And here you are, comparing yourself to the queens? I doubt that Drake is bending you over every night—”
Quinn’s fist came fast and hard, despite the cloud of alcohol surrounding him. It connected squarely with Ashe’s jaw; spittle and droplets of blood fanned as Ashe’s lips mashed against his teeth. He was knocked back into a throng of satyrs who jovially shoved him forward and back toward Quinn who had drawn his nail-rimed wooden bat from its cloth sling. He kissed it and wagged it at his friend, head lowered, his long donkey ears twitching agitatedly.
“Back off, little brother,” Quinn snarled, using Drake’s hated term. “Back off now, or I swear—”
Ashe tore his kukri from its sheath at his hip, a motion that sent everyone around him dispersing. A bat or a chunk of brick was one thing; a weapon of steel was entirely another. Women scattered, squealing.
“Don’t call me that!” he roared, sweeping the big blade upward. It sliced cleanly into the flesh of Quinn’s face, carving a long shallow slice through his right cheek and across the bridge of his nose. Blood sprayed thickly. Quinn howled, dropping his bat and clutching at his wounded face with both hands.
“FUUUUUCK!” he screamed. “Bloody hell, my face! You cut my bloody face, Ashe!!”
Ashe stepped back; his face suffused in horror at what his jealousy had driven him to do. He watched the blood seep from between Quinn’s fingers, dripping onto the rough bar floor in thick pattering drops.
All present who had not run stood staring, stricken into astonished silence. One of the whores shrieked thinly, the sound piercing the shocked atmosphere of the pub.
“What the ever-loving hell, Ashe?!” Burl shouted as he hauled himself from behind the bar.
Shit.
Ashe turned and ran.
He leapt onto his bike outside the sweating, over-packed pub, fleeing the shouts that swelled up behind him. Gunning the steel and iron monster to life, he spun it about, scattering mud behind the back tire, and blasted off into the night.
The wind buffeted him, tears and blood and spit streaking from his face as he fled, he knew not where.
I’m sorry, Quinn. I’m sorry.
Chapter 16
Iona began her first night of mock-freedom on the balcony outside the bedroom that she was now allowed to leave. She sat in the cooling sunset air, watching the gaslight and neon flicker of the lights of the city wink on below, and listened to the distant ruckus of the pubs, bars, and brothels, the groans and shrieks of the factories while the airships floated in the late evening light like great fat tumors over the towers of brick and stone.
She was leaning back in her seat, gazing as stars winked like jewels in the neon-black satin of the sky above when she heard the sound of someone pulling himself fluidly up the side of the balcony. She bowed her head to the needlework in her lap, pretending that she didn’t hear, a small smile touching her lips.
“Lovely night to watch the city, isn’t it?”
The visitor hopped fluidly over the balcony edge and sat down beside her. She tried to ignore him, but he leaned in, repeating quietly, “Isn’t it?”
Iona jerked her gaze in his direction and found herself staring into those gold-ringed eyes that haunted her dreams, flanked by a cocked eyebrow. There was blood on his lips, a little runnel of it leaking from his nose.
“Well, hello there, faun boy,” she said. “What in the name of the All Mother happened to you?”
He cleared his throat roughly. “Bar fight.”
She nodded. “I see. Come, follow me. Let’s clean you up.”
She rose from her seat and walked into the bedroom, her nightgown swishing around her hips. She could practically feel his eyes on her, and she secretly relished it.
“So, a bar fight … And you come straight to me?” She chuckled as she poured water into a basin.
“I’m supposed to be guarding you, remember?”
She giggled. “Oh, yes, how could I forget. Go, sit on the bed.”
He obeyed, and she knelt before him, daubing the blood from his lips and his nose.
“You were lucky,” she said. “Whoever hit you loved you a little, too. One of your gilly-girls?”
He shook his head, his eyes averted. “Quinn.”
Iona sat back, staring at him in shock. ”From what Omnia has told me, Quinn is your closest friend.”
Ashe ducked his head slightly, and she glanced sideways at his profile, admiring the proud crest of his mohawk, the way his dark lashes brushed his strong, high cheekbones.
“You despise me then, my lady?” he asked quietly.
She cocked her head in his direction, tucking an errant strand of hair behind one perked fox ear, smiling.
“I wouldn’t say that, my good man. Why the fight between friends?”
His eyes rose slowly to hers. “I’m a fool.”
“Why?”
“Drake kissed you. And it angered me.”
She drew back slightly, her perfectly arched brows furrowing. He looked at her, his eyes scanning her hair, her face, slipping down to the swell of her breasts under her cloak, and she relished that questing gaze.
Iona silently finished cleaning his face then sat down on the bed next to him, looking beyond the open balcony window and to the city lights beyond. They sat side by side quietly, the night wind gently rustling the window drapes.
Finally, Iona asked, “Are you bound to follow me where I please?”
He glanced at her, a small, shy smile returning. “Anywhere your heart desires it.”
She smiled back, her eyes sparkling. “Then come with me.”
She gathered her cloak around herself and led him from the bedroom. He followed her down the spiraling staircase leading to the lower quarters of the compound, trailing her as she strode corridor to corridor until they reached the double doors of the library.
She led him in, closing the doors quietly behind them. She cast her cloak off and draped it over a chair, strolling leisurely between the rows of books.
“You still have the Jade?” she asked.
Ashe cleared his throat. “Yes.”
“Good. Thank you for hiding it for me.”
“Forgive me,” Ashe murmured, “for letting you see what happened inside it. There was nothing I could do. All of the others had me outnumbered.”
She nodded minutely. “I know. They would have killed you, too, had you tried to stop it. You’re as bound as I am to Drake, in many ways.”
Iona drew a book from the nearest shelf.
”Drake gave this place to me to gain my favor. I know this acutely,” she stated. “But peace and silence also reign here. And perhaps it can serve as a sanctuary. Perhaps for a little while, I can forget hatred, pain, and all that has befallen me.”
She turned to him and read a few lines out loud from the book in her hand, her voice gaining a new power among the silent marching rows of books.
“Oh, my dear,
the layers we could shed to fall naked into the water
to be born again and shed
our chaos like burning blue stars
six-pointed, assuredly,
and no map
to the place we might find ourselves,
if in fact we did meet ourselves there
new and free of the burden of history,
some piece of peace, or ring of silence,
strung up with lights
save yourself, save me,
Oh, my dear, my dear
watch me shed my layers
see me.”
Ashe chuckled, and she snapped the book shut between her hands.
“You laugh!” she remarked, pressing one hand against her breast in mock hurt. “You’ve cut me to the quick! I assume you don’t read, do you, Ashe?”
He scratched the side of his skull shyly, lowering his eyes. “You speak true.
I’m not much for reading, my lady,” he said. “My grandfather was the reader in our tribe. His library was not as large as this, but it was impressive.”
Iona strode up to him, her skirts rustling. She took his hand and spread it open gently, pressing the little rectangle into his grasp.
“Read this,” she said softly. “And then escort me here nightly to read it with me.”
His dark brows furrowed. “Escort you here?” he murmured.
“Drake said that you are my bodyguard, and that you must accompany me everywhere I go when in his absence.”
She stepped closer to him, pressing her palm against his chest.
“You and Omnia are the only two here who have treated me with kindness. I want to know more of you, and the world you came from.”
“What about all this?” Ashe asked bitterly. “Drake gifting you with all he owns—”
“You and I both know that he is feigning kindness because he wants the Jade. Don’t speak foolishness.”
She slipped her small, warm hand into his and pulled him into a corner, away from the view of the doorway or any of the stained-glass windows. She sat down cross-legged on the floor, her nightdress pooling around her like sea foam, and bid him to do the same across from her.
“There are ways for us to know each other, to learn of all the other has been through,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Here, link your hands with mine.”
Chapter 17
Ashe set the little book down and did as she asked, meeting his hands palm-to-palm with hers. Their fingers twined like lovers as he felt a build-up of pressure in the back of his mind, like a doorway that was suddenly straining to open, or like a river about to burst its banks. He stared into Iona’s eyes, and the colors in them began to shift wildly, hypnotically. He could hear her whispering, see her lips moving, and then the dam burst and the flood came, meeting with Iona’s like two depthless seas sharing the same shore.
Memories from his earliest childhood flooded from his cerebellum: he stared up at his mother, who had died during his toddlerhood, felt the warmth of her breast and the comfort of her rocking embrace. He grew to manhood at an alarming speed, learning the battle cries of his Twinglader brethren, “As above, so below,” weighing the heft of a kukri blade for the first time, then with more skill, until he became its master. He inhaled the scents of oak and pine, of bonfires and flowing brew and the salt of a faun girl’s painted skin. He worshiped the tribe’s sacred Lovers, two trees sprouting from the same trunk, from season to season alongside his tribesmen, watching with wonder how the leaves changed their colors, how flower buds grew plump and unfurled and pollinated and then withered. He saw Drake’s war machines tramp into his village, felt the hot rage and terror build up in his heart once again as he watched the Lovers torn up by their roots.
