I didn’t want to wear my dirty clothes, and I was sure I would blend in better wearing their ensemble than a pair of shortened pants.
“You should come to the festival with me!” the woman said excitedly while I accepted the clothes and slipped them on. I didn’t know whether I should be out in the city, but I really wanted to see the festival.
“Okay.” I smiled. I was here for the rest of the day; I might as well enjoy it. I walked back to the inn with the feeling that men were going to start propositioning me for carnal acts. Never had I worn such little clothes, and it felt as if my grandmother was going to pop out around the corner and scold me. But nobody paid me any mind; the women buzzed by with their baskets of laundry and the children squealed as they ran by me.
The woman had said she would come by the inn later, and I decided to take a nap before. The bed was so soft against my newly smooth skin that I was out within minutes of lying down.
I woke to the clank of chains. A slave girl was setting down a tray of food on the table next to the bed, and I thanked her before she left. The sun was beginning to set when I heard a soft knock on the door. The woman from the baths came in as though this had been her room her entire life.
“I realized I never told you my name before. You can call me Rosa,” she said.
“Calamity,” I replied, waiting for confusion to cloud her face, but she only smiled as she seemed to be thinking for a moment.
“I shall call you Amity, okay?”
I smiled and nodded. Some of the neighborhood girls had called me that, while others called me Cal. Calamity was a mouthful, so I hadn’t complained.
“Amity, do you have a lover?”
I almost choked on my food, not expecting the personal question. It was appropriate to talk openly about lovers here? Or to even have them?
“No,” I said, but it came out like a question.
“Is that a definite no?” she asked.
I nodded, and she let a long piece of leather drop out of her closed fist. “When a woman attends a Sylvian festival, she must show whether she is available. A taken woman will wear a piece of leather on her ring finger that ties around her wrist. A woman who is . . . accessible wears the leather around her upper arm.”
“Why the upper arm?” I asked while she began to tie it around mine.
“Because it’s easy to grab hold of,” she stated.
I blinked. “What?”
“It’s tied leaving a loop so that it would be easy for a man to grab it . . . and pull you in.” She smiled.
I frowned. “I don’t want men pulling me in.”
“Relax, Amity. They won’t unless you want them to.”
“You really shouldn’t tie that on my arm because I’m not available.”
“You are taken then?” she asked while she continued to tie the leather in an interesting way. She smelled like lemons and patchouli, herbs my grandmother used often.
“Well no . . . but I’m not available right now.”
“You are either taken or available; there is no in between.”
I sighed and let her finish. I didn’t need the attention of men right now, especially them pulling me in, whatever that was supposed to mean. No man would have wanted to follow me across the country and get involved with my problems.
A smile tugged at my lips as I realized one already was. I hadn’t seen Weston since he took off after he had gotten us rooms. A part of me was worried that he was just going to leave me somewhere. The other part didn’t think he was the type of man to run off. If I was wrong and he did strand me somewhere, then I would have made it work. I might have been a total mess in the mountains, but I wasn’t a total weakling.
I could handle myself.
I liked to think.
CHAPTER TEN
UNWILLING OMEN
The festival was in the heart of the city. We walked down the maze-like dirt streets for a long while until we entered a large open square. Wooden tables covered the area, and people milled around, stopping at all the vendors and booths set up. The dark night was lit by the moon’s light and the surrounding torches. The Star of Truth was as bright as the night I left Alger. It was a comfort only to look up and be able to find my way home.
A dancer ran past us with a baton, both ends on fire. I watched as more joined, and a beautiful dance made of fire began. At the end of the performance, the dancers threw their batons up in the air, and I jumped at the small explosion. Fire that spelled, ‘Sylvia,’ was the only thing left as the orange flickers drifted away and diminished.
A couple of men walked past me, and one stopped in his tracks. I swore that he sniffed the air.
In a flash, the situation with the soap came back to me. I expected the man to grimace and walk away, but instead he walked towards me and introduced himself.
I had to extradite myself from the conversation, as he didn’t seem as though he was going to leave anytime soon. Rosa smiled and helped me get away. I tried to ask her about the soap, but she cut me off and pointed at some vendor’s stand while prattling on about what she wanted to buy. As we walked around and looked at the wares, I noticed more strange reactions. Some men did grimace and walk away.
Just when I would begin to feel self-conscious, a man would crowd my space and it was a painful experience to escape his attention.
I tried to push my irritation at the awkward situation aside, and when Rosa offered me the traditional Sylvian brew, I didn’t hesitate to accept. I blamed the old lady in the bathhouse; she had driven me to drink. I hoped I ran into her so that I could coax an answer from her about the soap, but wasn’t too hopeful with her sneaky ways.
When I wasn’t having to dodge men who seemed too interested in me or having to weave past men who seemed less than interested, we talked and drank. I watched a dance of women who all had leather on their upper arms while the men stood in a straight line.
“If you are interested in finding a man, you should go dance,” Rosa said over the music and revelry. I shook my head at her and watched the dance. It seemed similar to Alger dances where the women weaved around the men, their left leather-clad arm towards them. I watched as a man slipped his hand around the leather on one woman’s arm, the dance slowed for a moment before the woman nodded her head, and then with the man’s hand around the leather, they left together.
Ah, so that was being pulled in. A lot tamer than I had assumed.
“Where are they going?” I asked Rosa.
“To get to know each other,” she replied.
A song played, and I could feel the emotion within it as the rhythm sped up and slowed down. The feeling of sadness from happiness to passion was a jarring effect. I didn’t feel anger, and I assumed that would have probably put a damper on the crowd.
We were walking by all the different booths of crafts and food when someone grabbed my hand.
“Would you like your fortune told?” an old woman in a robe asked as she tried to pull me towards a booth.
“No, sorry. I don’t.” The only money I had was what I was supposed to pay Weston. I had taken a few coins out before I left for the festival. He wouldn’t notice, right? Besides, I didn’t want to know my future. It was mine to find out on my own.
A mournful expression appeared on the old woman’s face. “Enjoy the festival, enjoy the time you have left.” She dropped my hand while I stared at her with wide eyes. She disappeared into the crowd as I tried to comprehend that she had just told me I would die soon.
Why would she say that when I had been clear on the fact that I didn’t want my fortune told? My ears were hot with irritation. I tried to tell myself that she was just an old, addled woman. But the irrational feeling that something would fall from the sky and land on my head flashed through my mind. I had a grossly overactive imagination.
I tried to forget her words with another cup of brew.
When I realized the effect the drink had taken, I also lost Rosa. The thought that I had no idea how to get back to the inn alone sent
prickles of anxiety through my body. When I looked up and saw the Star of Truth, I let out a breath of relief.
Hopefully, it would work, and if it didn’t, then Grandmother had officially gone senile, and this whole trip was a pointless endeavor. I didn’t care if men were after me and I could remove prisoners from magical rocks.
I looked into my empty cup. What would another harm? I got a refill and then told the Star of Truth to take me back to the inn. It took me a moment to realize I had said it out loud.
The streets were full as I followed the star. It didn’t move in the sky, but every time I would look up from my clumsy feet, I would need to turn, or I would have run into a wall. I didn’t know whether it was that I was in my cups or if the land was moving for the star. I was too drunk to care.
I finished my cup by the time I got back to the inn, and realized I shouldn’t have. My face was hot, my head was light, and I stumbled some going up the stairs. The inn door banged shut, and I glanced behind me and saw Weston walk in.
I frowned. Where had he been all day? I watched him sniff the air and scowl. Not again. I grimaced and finished my trek up the stairs. I tensed as I heard his heavy steps following behind me.
When I got to my room, I slammed the door, but Weston blocked it with a boot and shoved himself in. “What do you want?” I sighed.
He stood in the doorway with a frown on his lips, his gaze clouded with confusion. He didn’t answer my question as he just stood there, still. Tension permeated the air, and I swallowed. When the haze over his eyes turned into something smoldering and terrifying, he walked towards me.
My heart drummed, and I backed up a step but stopped myself. The drink had made me brave, and I wasn’t going to be intimidated by him anymore.
He froze, turned around and raked his hands through his hair. He positioned himself in the corner of the room, the furthest he could have gotten from me. I couldn’t help but think he was only breathing through his mouth. Did I really stink that bad?
His body was tense, his fists clenched. “What game are you playing?”
My heartbeat sped up at his tone. “I don’t play games,” I retorted.
Most of the time . . .
He grimaced. “Why do you stink like a Sylvian bride?”
“I don’t stink,” I lied. I was certainly being unreasonable, but I didn’t feel like being reasonable. I felt dizzy and tired.
“You do, and you will go wash it off. Right. Now,” he ordered.
Demands. Demands. Demands. I’m getting really damn sick of them.
“No, I don’t think I will,” I said.
The muscle in his jaw ticked while he stared at me with a murderous look on his too handsome face. Which was just not right for an assassin to have. “You will go wash it off, or I will do it for you,” he said calmly, but with an undertone of menace that gave me the chills.
I found it odd that he wasn’t moving from his spot in the corner. Why was he even so angry? So what if I smelled like something rotten? He couldn’t possibly be able to smell me from his room. Defiantly, I turned around to crawl into bed. My body tensed and rebelled against the idea of having my back to him, but I was too tired to take a bath.
When a rough hand wrapped around my arm and spun me around, my stomach dropped, and I was sure I was his next victim. Someone had found me and paid him to kill me. Or he had just gotten sick of me.
But he didn’t kill me—he threw me over his shoulder. The impact of his shoulder in my stomach almost made me throw up alone. The motion of him walking as I hung upside down didn’t help. My stomach revolted at each step he took down the stairs, and I focused on keeping my dinner down.
“Put me down!” I demanded as he carried me through the streets. I heard a couple of whistles as if they thought we were lovers and that made my vision redder than it already was.
“I’m going to kill you!” I snarled, but he wouldn’t loosen his grip around my thighs, not even when I pounded on his back with my fists.
I was in the air for a moment, before I landed in a pool of water. I came up sputtering, wiping the hair off my face. He tossed a bar of soap into the water while I made to get out of the baths.
“You get out, I will throw you in again. I will do it all fucking night if I have to,” he barked.
I growled at his back while he walked out of the room. I needed a bed, not be thrown into the baths over and over. If I found that sneaky old woman . . .
The room was dark, only lit by the moon through the small window. My movements were choppy and tired as I took off my soaked clothes. They hit the stone floor with a splat, and I searched the dark waters for the soap.
I ran the soap up and down my arms, wanting nothing but to be in bed. I didn’t know what I would wear, considering my clothes were soaked. But clothes seemed a moot point while this far in my cups.
“I’m done!” I shouted. Weston walked back into the room, and I was sure he sniffed the air again.
Weird.
“Do it again. And do it right this time or I’ll scrub you my-fucking-self.”
I scowled. My arm itched to throw the soap at the back of his head as he walked back out. But something stopped me. Self-perseverance, maybe?
I scrubbed up, more than adequately this time, and hollered at him. Apparently it was good enough now, because he noticed my clothes predicament, pulled off his shirt, and threw it at me. I caught it before it could fall in the water and when I looked up, he was gone. I frowned at the linen shirt in my hand. When had he changed? What did he even do when he left?
I didn’t think I wanted to know.
There weren’t any towels, so I wrung out my hair and slipped his shirt on wet. It clung to my body, but covered more than my Sylvian clothes had, and truthfully I was too tired to care. I grabbed my soaked clothes and left the room.
Weston was waiting for me with an unreadable expression, and we walked side by side to the inn. Tense air filled the small space between us, and when I looked up, his eyes were on me. I shivered in his shirt but held eye contact for a moment.
The realization hit me that I was wearing only an assassin’s shirt while I walked down dusty Sylvian streets.
My world had severely changed.
I pulled my gaze away, and he walked me all the way back to my room. I thought it was kind of gentlemanly, but then he shoved me inside and slammed the door.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HANGOVERS AND REALITY CHECKS
I woke from a dead sleep with an ache in my head pounding in sync with my heart. The rising sun sent light in through the cracks in the shutters. I couldn’t get up because if I did, I was afraid I would hurl and I didn’t want to make a slave girl clean it up. I rolled over while the night before came back to me. The omen, the men’s weird behavior, and especially Weston’s actions flooded my mind. There was too much to process, and it gave me a bigger headache than I had before.
The most enticing smell hit my nose, and I looked down and saw I was still wearing Weston’s shirt. No, I changed my mind, the smell was horrible.
I put my nose in it and took a big whiff. I fell back asleep with the smell of cedar, sage, and leather surrounding me.
A deep voice disturbed my dreams. “Get out of bed. We need to get moving.”
I sighed and rolled over. I was too sick to go anywhere right now. “Go away,” I mumbled. A hand grabbed my ankle. “Don—” I started, but Weston pulled me off the bed. I landed with a thud on the floor, the sheets twisted around me.
“Ow!” My voice hurt my head, and I groaned and glared up at Weston. “Was that necessary?” I asked and then winced at the splitting pain in my head.
“Be ready within a quarter of an hour. Or I leave without you,” he warned before he walked out the door. I sighed and scrambled to my feet as I rubbed my butt. The light had shards of pain shooting into my eyes while I moved around the room to get dressed.
My Sylvian clothes were dry, and I slipped them back on before I realized I couldn’t ride a horse
in a skirt. So I took it off and threw it across the room, and then slipped on the shortened pants. I huffed while I went and picked up the skirt, thinking I might need it.
I wasn’t a morning person.
Especially after a night of being in my cups.
I shuffled out of the inn blindly, as the sun was so bright, and met Weston at the stable. He took one look at the leather wrapped around my arm and ripped it off with one tug.
“Ow.” I scowled. “Do you have to manhandle me?” I snapped as I rubbed my arm. I had forgotten the leather was even still on.
His eyes were hard. “I don’t have time to deal with the attention you cause flaunting yourself.”
My head hurt and his words only sent irritation down my spine. “I don’t flaunt myself,” I grumbled.
He scoffed and held up the leather in his fist. “Do you even know what this means?”
“Yes I do, thank you very much,” I sighed.
“So you are flaunting yourself.”
My brain was too foggy to think correctly, and I was confused, but not confused enough to believe I was flaunting myself. “No, I’m not. All women have to wear the leather to the festival.”
He laughed coldly and tossed the leather to the side. “Who told you that?”
I frowned. “Why do you care?”
“The leather means you are actively looking for a new lover.”
I shook my head. “No . . . you’re wrong . . . That isn’t what Rosa said. She said every woman had to wear one.” I thought about the night before, and I couldn’t remember if all the women wore the leather.
“Well, Rosa lied to you.”
I scrunched my forehead in confusion. “Why would she do that?”
I thought about the dance and realized that they had probably been going to do much more than ‘get to know each other.’
“Probably the same reason someone had you wash with olian soap.”
“Why would someone want me to stink? What was the soap?”
A Girl Named Calamity (Alyria Book 1) Page 8
