Venus City 1

by Tabitha Vale

The West Wing was deserted. The halls were empty, and once she separated from her guide, Braya realized Julian hadn't told her which room it was that Leraphone lived in.

  It turned out not to matter. After walking down a couple corridors past the staircase, she found a door with the name 'Leraphone Vacelind' embossed on the wall beside it.

  She was about to knock on it when the door suddenly swooshed open. A figure loomed in the door frame, and Braya shrank back into the hall. She expected Leraphone to emerge, but the person who appeared instead made Braya gasp out loud.

  Sir Channing.

  He noticed her clinging to the wall opposite Leraphone's door, and his casual magenta eyes studied her face for a prolonged moment before he gave her one of his tight-lipped grins and stalked away. She watched his retreating figure before it disappeared around a corner, silently cursing him. What was he doing here? Trying to make her life even more of a hellish void than it already was? Never mind that he hadn't even been part of the decision to make her a Bride, but he'd been there, hadn't he?

  Leraphone stepped through the door after him. It took her a few moments to notice Braya, and when she did she let out small sound of surprise.

  “Goodness, child, what are you doing here?” She asked. Her voice retained its wispy nature even in surprise, and it reminded Braya of wind-swept willow tree.

  Up close her appearance was more peculiar than the first time she'd seen her during the Orientation. Her hair was just as blue and frizzy as before, and it hung around her like a cloud rather than flowing down the length of her back. She still wore the same pink headband with the wings protruding on the sides, and her dress was a glossy green color with designs of large circles trapped in squares. She was surprised to see that the woman was wearing glasses—had she worn them during Orientation?—that magnified the size of her green eyes.

  “What was that man doing here?” She demanded, slightly distracted by the odd collection of color that made up this woman. Her eyes were like those of bugs behind her glasses and it was almost humorous to see her blink.

  “Oh, Sir Channing?” Leraphone frowned, as if she were baffled. “You need not worry about him. Tell me, do you need some directions? I can't imagine why you would have become so lost as to end up at my doorstep, but these things can be amended.”

  “No, no,” Braya insisted. “I wanted to speak to you. It's rather important. Can we go inside?”

  “Oh, whatever could it be that we cannot discuss it in this empty hallway?” Leraphone smiled. Her bug eyes were staring intently at Braya in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. There was something about her expression—Braya couldn't identify it, though—that made it seem like Leraphone could see straight through her.

  “Please, can we just—”

  “Are you feeling all right, child? Goodness your cheeks are aflame and you can't form one coherent sentence!” She exhaled. “Come along. I'll escort you to the sickroom we have on the second floor.”

  “I'm not sick,” Braya nearly yelled, brushing away the woman's hand. “I just want to speak to you about something important.”

  Leraphone stared at her. “All right, child, but I only take appointments.”

  Braya highly doubted that, since no one ever came down this corridor to know where the woman was in the first place. But she played along.

  “When can I come back?”

  Leraphone pursed her lips. “In three weeks' time, return here at the same hour and we'll chat.”

  “What?” Braya exclaimed in disbelief. “But—I don't have that much time to wait. It's extremely important. Can't it be sooner?” She implored.

  Leraphone lifted her shoulders in a delicate shrug. “I'm sorry, child. I'm busy.” At Braya's look of defiance, she added, “Your situation has three weeks to wait, I'm sure.”

  She was backing into her door, but Braya lunged forward to stop her, to grip her arm.

  “Miss Leraphone,” she said in her most desperate tone, “You know my brother, Aspen Vace. He said I could trust you with this matter. That you could help.”

  She considered Braya for a moment with those unnerving eyes. “Indeed. While I still find this time to be rather inappropriate, I think I may have something to tide you over with until our next meeting.” She grabbed the handle of her door, and was almost through it when she turned back with a wry smile. “We are referring to your sister's condition, am I right?”

  Braya nodded apprehensively. She glanced down the corridor while Leraphone disappeared into her room. She really didn't like the careless manner in which this woman spoke of Bellamine's disease.

  A couple minutes later Leraphone emerged with a small glass vial full of translucent blue liquid.

  “Just give her a swallow of this every morning and every night,” she said, gingerly placing the delicate item into Braya's open hand. “And don't forget to return here in three weeks, child. There is something I've been yearning to speak to you about.”

  Braya didn't have a chance to ask exactly what it was the woman wanted to speak to her about before the door slammed shut. The sound echoed through the corridor.

  The vial in her hand was cool, and after staring at it for a long moment Braya decided to take it home immediately, class or no class.

  ****

  Aspen wasn't at home when Braya stopped by an hour later, so she had to spend ten minutes searching the house for Harmony. She was loath to see the woman again so soon after she'd screamed at her, but Braya had no choice. It was imperative that she didn't miss classes any more than necessary—they were oddly strict about it—and since Aspen was still at his academy, Harmony was the only one she could trust with the blue vial.

  “What is it, Braya?” Harmony asked worriedly. She was in the middle of dusting the drapes in one of the guest rooms. She placed her duster down and rushed over to meet Braya at the door.

  “Please, have Bellamine take this,” she thrust the vial into Harmony's hand. “Once every morning and every night before she sleeps.”

  Harmony stared at the vial in bewilderment. “But, Miss Braya, what is this exactly?”

  “It's—” She faltered. Leraphone hadn't been specific, but she assumed it wasn't the cure. Judging by what the woman had said about tiding her over for the next three weeks, she assumed it was medicine.

  “Medicine.”

  She left the room without acknowledging Harmony's goodbye and rushed back downstairs to hop into the car idling for her on the drive. Braya stumbled over her own feet, however, when she noticed her mother perched mid-way down the left staircase of the foyer. She was staring at Braya with unreadable blue eyes—so much darker and solid than Asher's—and she reminded Braya of a shadow cloaked in all the black that she was.

  “M-Mother,” she stammered.

  “Braya,” her voice was a deep drawl, “why is it you're here in the middle of the day?”

  The urge to ask her the same question rose up in her, but Braya pushed it back. “I...I had to get something. I forgot my shoes for the ball this evening.”

  A smirk curled over her features, and it made Braya anxious. “And you had to do this task yourself? Does it not fit the job of a servant to bring them to you?”

  “Well, I—I just—”

  “You're already becoming so like those Finches and Mud-scums you spend your days with,” she said in clear disdain. “My, how far the apple has fallen from the tree.”

  “Mother, I'm sorry,” Braya's voice trembled. She didn't know what to say.

  “Do not grovel in front of me. Go along. Go play Bride,” she said casually, her hand waving her toward the door.

  The way Mother kept brushing Braya aside—it didn’t bode well. Mother never spent time on anything she didn’t find worthy of her attention. Braya had witnessed her snubbing many people in the Court before, and had even seen her relinquish interests in hobbies such as gardening, piano, painting, and other trivial pursuits, as she liked to call them. Not to mention lately she’d taken to locking herself in her study or
spending more hours at the Court. If she no longer had time for Braya, did that mean she’d given up on her in addition to all those other things?

  ****

  Braya's bad mood had returned for her afternoon classes. She'd missed lunch, got scolded for missing her first afternoon class, Maydessa had been shooting her hand up in the air every five seconds to answer all the questions the teacher asked—she'd even hit Braya over the head on accident with her crazy hand-raising impulse—and she'd only made matters worse with her mother.

  When dinner time came, Brielle approached her and asked if she'd stay at Heartland to eat with them. Braya pretended to consider it, opened her mouth to say no, but was interrupted by a voice at her ear. “Say no.”

  She flinched in surprise.

  “No,” she told Brielle. Her small face crumpled into a frown, and she looked down at her shoes.

  “Oh, that's all right, Miss Braya. But you're always welcome to join us. Have a nice night.”

  Even though she was just a Finch, Brielle was the only who'd been nice to her so far and Braya found she felt a smidge guilty for rejecting her so quickly. It was Asher's fault.

  Once Brielle had walked away in the direction of the Great Hall, Braya muttered out of the corner of her mouth, “Impeccable timing, as usual.”

  He snickered. “I got here a couple hours ago, actually. I made my own carrot cake during your class, too.”

  “You're still stalking me,” she hissed.

  “Believe it or not, following you around this place is a whole lot better than perishing underground with the rest of the Locers.”

  “I had rather thought sulking underground suited you,” she said sarcastically. There were a few other Brides passing her in the corridor, and Braya didn't want any of them to think her mental for talking to herself. “Can we go somewhere else to talk?”

  “All right. Let's go to the courtyard,” he agreed.

  “Where's that?”

  “It's where they hold all the weddings,” Asher answered. His voice moved from behind her, and she presumed he was standing somewhere in front of her. Then he materialized out of thin air, and Braya's eyes widened at the sight of him.

  “What if someone sees you?”

  “Your concern is touching. But don't worry your beautiful hair over it. Everyone's in the Great Hall right now,” Asher smirked. “Follow me.”

  Ignoring the hair comment, Braya followed him down to the ground floor and through several corridors. They were heading to the heart of the manor, she could tell.

  The corridor opened up to an outdoor hallway. Straight ahead, Braya could see the courtyard gleaming in the soft tones of sunset. The open-air hallway surrounded the courtyard with pillars of great stone covered in tangled vines. It reminded her a little of a park, if parks were tucked into a neat open rectangle in the middle of a castle manor. There was a fountain in the center, just like the one outside of the Bride and Groom, though much smaller. A few benches sat around the fountain, and Asher directed her to one.

  The length of the courtyard was long, and reminded her of the chapel with the skeletons sitting on the pews. Tall, elegant trees with thin trunks stretched up nearly thirty feet on both sides of the court. There was a low-hanging platform anchored above their heads, narrow like an aisle. The trees were far taller than the platform, so circles had been cut along the outer edges in order for the tress could poke through. Braya imagined if she were up on the platform—it was probably level with the second-floor—the trees wouldn't look so tall.

  Since the platform sheltered most of the courtyard where Braya and Asher sat, it was somewhat shadowy. The sun must be setting fast.

  “How did you know where this was?” Braya asked.

  “Did some exploring,” he said simply. “Here,” he thrust a small box into her hands, “this is for you. Use them tonight. Ness is already in fits because we haven't even begun the de-hazing.” He sounded bitter when he spoke of Ness, and it reminded her of last time he'd spoken of his captain. She got the feeling Asher didn't like him.

  Braya opened the box carefully. There were boosters inside.

  “What are these for?” She recognized the magenta seal of Venus City—a female warrior, her skirt flaring around her ankles, her hair wild above her head, a sword clutched in her hand—emblazoned on the corner of each paper, authenticating them. The boosters were of different colors and different designs, but they were all about as small as a coin. She'd never had one before—being primarily used to enhance performances in careers and rarely sold commercially—but she'd heard a lot about them.

  “You know how to put them on, right?” Asher asked. “You need those to keep up with the de-hazing. It's physically straining. And don't ask me where I got them. A master never has to reveal his secrets.”

  Braya rolled her eyes. “I've never used them before, but I heard it's just like pressing a fake tattoo on. When do we start?”

  “Eager?” He smirked. “Tomorrow night.”

  “And how long do I have to do this? Be your slave and dupe my own city, I mean.”

  “For as long as it takes,” Asher shrugged his shoulders. He'd been staring at the fountain, which had been maddening for reasons she didn't know, but now that he flicked his eyes over to meet hers, she wished he'd go back to observing the fountain. “Ness hopes we'll be done in a few weeks.”

  “Your tone suggests you think otherwise?”

  He snorted. “Of course it'll be longer than that.”

  “How long?”

  “I don't know. We came to Venus City five months ago and we'd only planned on staying for one,” he admitted. “Every time we plan on leaving, another problem arises.”

  “Five months?” She sputtered. “What have you possibly been doing for five months?” And how had no one in her city caught them?

  “Like I said, Brays,” he smirked, “a master never has to reveal his secrets.”

  “So you have secrets,” she pointed out. “There's more to this than you've told me. Well, I want to know about it. I deserve it since you're forcing me to be a part of this.”

  “What's there to tell?” His eyes glowed as the last ray of sunlight vanished. “You told me last night that you don't believe what I said, so what's the point in telling you more?”

  “I did,” she gritted her teeth. “But that doesn't mean I don't want to know what you're keeping from me. I know there's more to this than a friendly warning about an upcoming war.”

  He laughed. “Brays,” he murmured, turning so that he was facing her properly, “You can doubt it all you want, but what can you do about it? The master-friend link we've got prevents you from telling anyone about us.”

  Ignoring his mocking tone, she forged on. “I could do something about it, instead of playing along like some mindless puppet.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Why? Your patriotic spirit is burning inside you, and you want to take revenge on the bastards fooling around in your city? You really don't seem like that type.”

  She huffed. “I have my reasons and they're none of your business.”

  He folded his arms with a smirk, his eyes a dashing shade of blue as they appraised her. “I could say the same to you. None of this is your business.”

  “You've made it my business by involving me,” she snapped. Braya didn't know what possessed her to ask all of these questions. Hadn't she resolved earlier to sit back and find her own way out, regardless of their plans?

  His face scrunched up as he considered this. “Not really, no,” he shook his head. “Now, if we had approached you and asked you to join us willingly, that would be a whole different story. However, we quite forced this onto you, didn't we? You're a tool, and nothing more.”

  “Is that how you consider all of your friends?” She asked, her voice acid. He'd been the idiot to change the name from master-slave to master-friend—not that it mattered a bit to her—and then he went and called her a tool?

  “Gracious, no. I thought that would be obvious. You n
ever really warmed up to being friends with me, did you? I don't really have any friends these days. There is no such thing in Ephraim. No such thing as much of anything, at least recently. War has torn my homeland apart.”

  “War?” Her eyes widened. She didn't know why, but all of his talking about war and she'd never considered it had touched his home, too. It shouldn't matter to her, though.

  “Yes, war,” he said icily. Her eyes caught his, and they matched his tone. Splintered, like the surface of cracked ice. “It's ruined everyone's lives.”

  She frowned. “So you think it's fair to bring that here?”

  “It's nothing of the sort,” he sighed in exasperation. “I'm tired of repeating the same thing over and over!”

  Braya decided it was time to shift the subject again. He wasn't looking at her anymore, or the fountain for that matter, and there was something about the way his shoulders were tensed that made her feel like she'd broken something inside of him, set loose his personal demons. She'd never even thought him capable of having personal demons until she saw him seized in terse silence the way he was.

  She floundered for another question. Would her next comment offset him again?

  When he finally made eye contact with her, she knew instantly what she wanted to ask. She'd never thought of it before, and in the grand scope of things it didn't matter, but the desire to know took root deep inside her and she blurted out the question.

  “What about your family? Do they have the same blue eyes as you?”

  He was stunned, she could tell. “There's nothing to say about my family,” he answered coldly. She shouldn't be surprised by that—he'd just confessed his country had been ravaged by war. What if that meant his family, too? But she dismissed that, and pressed on.

  “Don't you miss them?”

  “Stop it!” He roared. “Stop asking me about my damn family and that's an order!”

  “But—”

  “I said stop!” His expression was furious and his eyes had smoldered into an alarming, dark shade. His right eye, however, was lightening at a rapid speed, and it was only a moment later that the entire iris changed color. Washed away like snow, the blue color was gone and a bright amber gold shined brightly in its wake. “Do you want me to ask you about your family? Would that make you happy? Come on, then, Bray. Tell me about your family.”