by Alyse Zaftig
"I know." When she called in a favor, it tended to be huge. I didn't have a lot of other choices, though. I didn't want to go to Agatha's tea alone. "I'll pick you up in the levi-car."
"I'll get dressed." She turned off the call. I gathered my things before I went into the levi-car that I kept. It was an exorbitant expense that my father kept around as a status symbol.
Serena was waiting outside when I got to her place. She climbed in, then we both went to Agatha's tea.
"At least it's in a place that it's interesting." Serena looked around at the gorgeous explosion of flowers around us. "I've never seen so many different orchids together like this."
"It's lovely." I got out. She followed me down.
We must have been a minute early, because Agatha and her pets arrived just after us. I sighed internally. Agatha's over-priced get together was just a gossip session. I wanted it to be over with. If Agatha weren't related to me on my mom’s side, we wouldn't even have to be here. She despised me because I refused to be her lackey. I despised her because she only thought about herself.
"Arienne, darling!" Agatha came over to air-kiss me on both cheeks like we loved each other. "What a pleasure! And you've brought a little friend, too. Charmed." She air-kissed Serena, who was practically growling. Serena had very little patience for insincerity, which was unfortunate since Agatha was very rarely sincere.
"I have a room reserved." Agatha floated into the gardens, her puppies at her heels. They looked up to her since she was so wealthy and, if I were being honest, truly beautiful. Too bad we'd never gotten along.
There were teapots in three different colors waiting on the table.
"Pour for yourselves. We're not formal here."
I barely stopped myself from rolling my eyes, because she just didn't want to do her hostess duties and pour for the rest of us. But her friends started passing the teapots around. I watched the steam rise gently into the air. We all passed around the sandwich platter. Serena and I were the only ones who wanted food, apparently. The puppies were fashionably thin, with Agatha as the thinnest of them.
"How did you enjoy that little soiree that Lord Georgius had last night?"
"It was fine. I spent most of it with the dowagers."
Agatha smiled. "I heard that you're interested in Yore fabric. Blood tells."
She couldn't stop herself from trying to insult my mixed blood. I wasn't embarrassed that I was half Yore, though. "That's right, it does."
"Did you enjoy Lord Georgius' company?" Agatha sipped her tea.
"He's very handsome." Two could play at this game. "What, are you interested?"
"No, but I heard that he's been sending bouquets to your house. Your mother told mine that she's expecting a formal inquiry any day now."
I felt like she had punched me in the gut. I knew about the flowers, of course, but if the rest of the Draka nobility learned about it, my fate would be sealed. My mother would never let me jilt Lord Georgius.
"You're so lucky." One of Agatha's puppies batted her eyelashes. "So gorgeous. So charming."
I almost gagged. I could not believe that we were talking about the same person, because he was so slimy underneath the noble polish.
"I have no idea why he's interested in me."
"You're pretty enough, I guess." Agatha looked at my face. "You look like your grandmother. She was supposed to be a legendary beauty. Pity that your skin is...dark."
I bit my tongue before I said something unwise. "You're so much more beautiful than me that it's hard to believe that we're distant cousins." There. A compliment might divert her.
She preened as all of her puppies agreed with me. Serena's eyes were laughing as she got busy pouring herself more tea.
"Regardless, Lord Georgius is the only one who has shown any interest in you. You should be happy."
"Even though his first two wives got divorces?" Serena apparently couldn't hold herself back anymore.
"Vile lies." Agatha drank more tea, her pinky extended. "My father says that it was just his wives trying to get more in the divorce settlements. Their stories were truly preposterous."
"Are you trying to convince Arienne to marry Lord Georgius?"
"She's not going to be able to do any better. Look at her! Her skin is darker than mine."
"Only because you stay away from sunlight," Serena growled. "You're cousins and look alike."
"Except her skin is brown." Agatha threw her hair over her shoulder. I had the dark hair that you'd expect from a Yore. Agatha was pureblood Draka, lighter in most ways.
"Anyways," I broke in, trying to stop them from fighting, "I'm sure he has a lot of options."
"Those former wives of his have poisoned the rest of the nobility against him. But your mother is a sensible woman. She knows that he's not going to get another offer."
I shivered, thinking of the look in Lord Georgius' wife’s eyes when I'd seen her at a small dinner at her parents' home. I didn't think that she had lied about the whole experience. I didn't want to live in a nightmare.
"What did he offer you to encourage Arienne to marry him?" Serena's eyebrows were raised.
"What makes you think that I can be bought?" Agatha tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.
"You're wearing five new bracelets on your left wrist. Jewelry? You're cheap."
Agatha's puppies sputtered at the insult. Agatha just raised one eyebrow, like she was far above Serena's insults. "You may think that now, but he's offered more. But I can only get it if Arienne tells her mother that she is excited about the match. The jewelry is just a down payment."
"Over my dead body," I said. "If my mother asks me, I'll tell her the truth."
Agatha shrugged as if it didn't matter, but I could see the tension in her shoulders. Whatever he'd offered was enough for her to try something dirty with her own blood. We didn't like each other much, but we were related. She picked up a teapot to pour herself more tea.
At that moment, a blaring siren, the kind that went off when there was an asteroid alert, made all of us jump. Agatha spilled tea everywhere. Tea dripped off of the tablecloth and into her lap. As she screamed from the scorching heat and her puppies leapt to her rescue, Serena grabbed my hand and towed me out the door, making the most of the opportunity.
Outside, the sound was even louder than it had been in the little room. I covered my ears as we climbed into my levi-car and we took off. We couldn't talk, but we went to Serena's house first. She waved and mouthed, "You owe me," before I sent my levi-car home.
6
Maze
Arienne
Later that evening, I was on my third glass of wine until a nice buzz settled over me. The maze event was always fun. I ran it every year since I'd started elementary school, like every Draka. It was one of the few fun events that my mother let me go to. I wished that I had some comparable memory, some Yore tradition from my other side. I had a hard time remembering some of the things that I knew Yore did.
My mother had warned all my paternal family away from me. They wouldn't talk to me. I don't know what she had threatened them with, but they wouldn't tell me about my roots or acknowledge me when we met. They were going to keep it a secret until the end of time at this rate. Whatever they didn't want to tell me about my formerly royal Yore family was a big mystery.
The gun went off as all of us started running through the maze. It was big enough to accommodate all of us. The first person who got to the other side won a piece of gold from the old world. Running was about the joy of running, though, not getting a shiny piece of metal.
I broke away from the crowd. I didn't know the course, but I figured that I might be able to find other paths away from other people. It might be an advantage or make me end up in some dead-ends, but I was willing to take the risk. I ran around a corner, looking over my shoulder to see if anybody had followed me, when I slammed into someone's body.
When I looked up, the man I'd run into was yesterday's host: Lord Georgius.
My heart was thumping hard from the exercise and a sudden spike of fear that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
His smile put ice in my veins. "You're a challenge to pin down on your own. But there are some Draka who are strong enough to stop your running."
Then he was walking past me towards the entrance of the maze. My heart was still pounding away. I started jogging forward, thinking about him.
I was the fiftieth person to make it to the other side. Agatha and her crew had beat me and were smirking at me from a corner. Agatha had the gold piece on a necklace around her neck. I missed all the little treasures inside of the maze, too.
I would have another chance next time, I consoled myself. I wanted to go home, clean up, and not think about Lord Georgius stalking me inside of the maze. Something was off, because I felt a tingle between my shoulder blades. Someone was following me.
I went to the marketplace to try to shake them. I went inside of a Yore shop, smelling the scents of everything there.
The staff there ignored me. I could see Lord Georgius on the street behind me, heading straight into the shop.
I had to get out. I ran past the cashier and straight out the back, going to another shop. They didn't stop me. I guessed that they didn't want to be involved in whatever was going on here. I landed in some sort of antiquity shop. I was looking at a piece of Yore jade, ignoring the fierce frown of the guy behind the counter. He didn't say anything, but I knew he didn't want me in his store for whatever reason.
A Yore came up to me. He was friendly and very handsome. He had a heavy build, like he was a space dockworker or something.
"Are you interested in buying some jade?"
"I'm afraid I don't know much about jade." I put the piece back down and tilted my face up to look at him.
"Then you have no business in a jade store." The man behind the counter snorted. "You shouldn't be in this area of town."
I didn't want to be in a shop where I was openly despised. "I was just leaving."
7
Translating
Xuan
It was impossible to concentrate on translating the old chu nom words on the ancient and corroded bronze Yore artifact that I'd picked up today. I couldn't stop thinking about the young Draka lady who had come into the shop. She must be part Yore, because her skin was a little darker than usual. The way that she walked meant that she was nobility of some sort, maybe even royalty like my brothers-in-law and now my sister and her children. She had that proud stance that Draka had with a face that haunted me. She was so quiet and unobtrusive, even though everything about her stuck around.
I got smacked in the face by a wet bubble.
"Twins!" It was half of a curse and half a laugh. Served me right for not looking at the babies. I was watching them while their parents had some alone time, which I wasn't going to think about. My sister was grown up, but it was hard for me to let go of her.
They giggled and began to run around the room, throwing themselves at the walls and then catching themselves before hurtling in the opposite direction. They had boundless energy.
Now they were heading for the sink.
"No!" I lunged for them, but they'd already turned the faucet by stacking one of them on top of the other so that they could reach it. They didn't have fine motor control of their telepathy, but that didn't stop them from getting into things that they shouldn't touch.
"Water!"
I was resigned when I watched a jet of water coming out of the sink and head straight for me, soaking me from head to toes.
The top twin jumped down and giggled like crazy, throwing himself on his back as he looked at me from the floor. His feet and fists flailed with the force of his laughter. The other twin stayed standing but was laughing as hard as his brother.
"Very funny." I turned off the faucet and watched the rest of the water disappear into the drain. "Water is expensive, you know." I sighed. They had no idea what "expensive" meant, and why should they? They'd been born into a life of privilege. They'd never have to pinch pennies. They'd never have to make the sacrifices that their mother and I had made just to survive.
I scooped them up, one on each side. "I'm going to stop translating. It's clear that you guys can't keep yourself out of trouble. We're going to go to the bathtub if you insisted on spraying water. At least you can spray it at yourselves."
We went into a big bathroom with blue tile on the walls. There was no point in undressing them, since it wasn't a bath. I filled the tub halfway before they started splashing each other with telepathically directed water. They didn't have laser control, so tiny tsunamis hit them as they tried to make bigger and bigger splashes. I knew that this bathroom was designated as their splash zone. If they didn't have it, they would turn every room into their splash zone. They still had gotten water all over my workroom, but I'd clean that up later.
After a particularly fierce wave, one twin was levitating. I didn't know that they could fly like their fathers could. They weren't even in dragon shape.
"What are you doing?"
In response, the airborne twin spun in a cartwheel in the air. His twin immediately tried the same trick, except he wasn't in the air. He hit his head on the tub.
I had a half second before he started screaming.
"Come here." I pulled him to the edge of the tub. My clothes were wet anyways, since I was an unwitting victim of their playtime. "Just a bump. You're not really hurt." I drew him close and held him close.
His little arms went around my neck as he kept crying. I knew that the pain would fade given a little time. At worst, he'd have a minor headache for a little bit. He wanted sympathy. I stroked the other side of his head. His body was relaxing into me. His eyes were closing. Apparently crying his heart out and screaming was tiring. The other twin was still hovering, his mouth open. He hadn't meant for anybody to get hurt.
"Come down. I'll have to tell your mother that you can levitate and fly now."
He landed slowly in the tub with a small splash of water.
"I'm going to put your brother to bed. Dry off before I come back." I pointed to the sonic shower in the corner that could dry him off.
I stepped into it, holding the wet and sleeping twin. In a few seconds, we were ready to leave the bathroom. I put the little one to bed in their shared bedroom before I went back down.
Miracle of miracles, the second twin, the one who could fly, was dry and in the sonic shower.
"Am I in trouble?"
"No." I picked him up and ruffled his hair. "You're still a champ. Are you tired? Your fathers say that flying takes up a lot of energy.
"Sleepy." His little head went and rested on my shoulder just as his brother's had. He went limp. I envied his ability to immediately pass out. I put him into his own bed in their shared bedroom. I stayed in the room while they were sleeping. Who knew what they would get up to if I left them alone? They needed constant supervision.
I looked at the little half Yore, half Draka twins who had changed my life. Phuong was happy. These twins were part of her phoenix rebirth. We'd had those implants that had stopped us from being who were. Now she knew who she was.
And I still didn't.
Hoa was not very forthcoming. She wouldn't tell us everything that we needed to know about the Yore, since we were now closely entangled with the Draka royalty. There were some things about Phuong that I wished someone could explain, like the way that when submerged in water, her skin had silver in it. There were so many questions that I didn't even know what to try to find out first.
8
Second Party
Arienne
I swallowed my pride and called Serena again. I explained what I needed: a companion for another party thrown by Lord Georgius. I knew the dangers of going with just my family.
"Another one? You're going to owe me two."
"You have to accompany me. I can't go to Lord Georgius' tower solo."
"Why do I put up with you?"
"Because you love me and I'll pay for every minute twice over."
"Fine, but don't make a habit of dragging me along for boring stuff. You must be desperate if you're willing to call on me more than once."
"Well, I am worried that he's going to put me on the spot somehow and force me into consenting to marrying him. It wouldn't be that hard for him to mesmerize me into saying something that I would regret."
"I won't let that happen, but if there are any attractive men, I'm going to ditch you in a heartbeat."
"I accept your terms. I appreciate what you're offering."
"You better. And I'm not going to do this again, so just think about who else you want to invite next time."
"I'll pick you up soon."
I ended the call. I smoothed my dress, which was a cheerful yellow. It was a lot happier than I actually was, but I hoped that the cheerfulness would rub off some way.
I rubbed the back of my neck. My gut wasn't happy about going to this party and how many he was having in very quick succession. He was going after me with single-minded obsession. I got my levi-car and sent it to Serena's home.
Serena didn't try as hard for this one, and I doubted that she'd been telling the truth when she was talking about ditching me. Her hair wasn't even up. It was just down and loose. Her dress was spectacular, though.
"Is that dress appropriate?"
"I barely wear it. I thought that it should see some sunlight once in a while. Do you care?"
"No." I sat back and closed my eyes.
"Why do you keep going to these parties?"
"My great-aunt has already accepted the invitations."
"So just send your regrets after that."
"Believe me, she'd know. She wants me to marry well."
"Stand up to her. You don't have to keep doing stuff that doesn't interest you."
