“Let me go!” The prisoner—Princess Nakia Lysand of Phyllida—yanked at her chains. The soldier—a stout lad—didn’t move.
Nakia was dressed in her native garb. It looked heavy. Nakia had to be hot. That probably added to her irritability. Of course, there was always the chance she was always like this, which would be interesting. Ashni couldn’t wait to see which it was.
“Well, a spirited filly, isn’t she?” Ashni cackled. Furious green eyes locked onto her. The green seemed to go on forever, like the grasses of the West.
Nakia dared to spit in her direction. The audience gasped. Ashni couldn’t help grinning. Oh, she’s got fire! Fire like the belly of Hell and the Great Eagle combined! Before Ashni could say anything, Layla snarled leaped into the fray.
“Hey, you can’t do that…,” Layla said.
Nakia looked Layla directly in the eye and dismissed her. “I don’t take orders from filthy wretches.” Nakia sucked her teeth.
The room grew so quiet Ashni thought she could hear the carpet fibers shift as Layla launched herself from the throne, jumping several feet from the dais, to stand in front of their hostage. Layla stared Nakia down and Nakia, to her credit, stood toe-to-toe with Layla.
Layla and Nakia were the same height. Ashni had seen Layla cow men twice her size with nothing more than a look. Nakia didn’t flinch. Maybe her attitude was more than the heat and the fact that she was a prisoner. There might be a lion lurking in the petite foreigner.
“Why don’t you say it to my face?” Layla demanded.
“I especially don’t take orders from filthy wretches like you,” Nakia said.
Ashni could see where this was headed and had little desire for Layla to stain her good rug with fresh blood. Layla’s hand twitched in the direction of her sword. Nakia wouldn’t know what hit her and then there would be a different sort of mess.
“Princess,” Ashni called out, causing them both to look at her. Oh, right. Can two princesses exist in the same space at the same time? It didn’t seem possible, but she needed to make it work. “Layla, back away.”
Layla growled and eyed Nakia a moment longer before turning around. She returned to her seat by Ashni, wiggling on the throne enough to hit Ashni with her knee. Ashni stayed focused on Nakia. A ghost of a smile floated across Ashni’s face.
“You are a little hellcat, aren’t you? There’s lava in your blood. You’re lucky, you know? The only person to get a rise out of Layla like that and live is…well, me.” Ashni puffed out her chest. And Adira.
“Barbarians afflicting barbarians,” Nakia snapped.
Ashni made a fluttering motion with her fingers. “You certainly think highly of yourself for someone whose own father felt she was expendable.”
Nakia winced and frowned, eyes on the floor for a moment. Her weakness wasn’t hard to find, but she turned back to Ashni with as much defiance in her eyes as before. There was so much fire there, and it burned so bright it seemed like it could shine with the sun itself and even dance with Ashni’s lightning. Despite it all, Nakia seemed sure of herself.
“What am I going to do with you, Nakia?” Ashni tapped her chin, as if she needed to consider it.
“Princess Nakia,” Nakia hissed like a viper.
Ashni tapped her chin again. “Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I already have a princess and she’s typically more trouble than she’s worth.” She glanced to her right.
Layla’s nostrils flared. “You dare put me in the same sentence as this wench?” The two princesses glared at each other.
“Who do you think you’re calling a wench?” Nakia demanded.
“The wench in the room, of course. Who do you think you are, commanding the Queen, as if you matter?” Layla said.
Nakia shot right back. “I matter enough to be worth my weight in gold. What could be gotten for you beyond stale bread and manure?”
“If I were you, I’d watch my tongue lest someone cut it out.” Layla flipped a dagger in the air.
It was time to step in once more. Ashni snatched the dagger and gave Layla a hard look. No one wanted to deal with Layla saying, “Oops, my hand slipped” and it costing them tons of gold.
Ashni turned her attention back to their guest. “Princess Nakia, what should I do with you?”
Nakia mustered a sneer, as if she was in control of the whole situation. “You should make me Queen since I’m the only one around here with any semblance of civility and a measure of wit.”
For a moment, the court was silent, everyone watching Ashni. They were all too aware that if her sense of humor failed her, King Dorian would never see his daughter again, except in the form of ashes Ashni would certainly send to him.
Ashni let out a howling laugh. The crowd laughed, too. Nakia turned around, glaring at everyone.
“You, my little hellcat, are something else. And you obviously like my attention, so to be close to me and gain whatever of it you can, you shall bear cups for me for your stay,” Ashni said.
Rather than sighs of relief, Ashni’s words caused some murmuring among the hundreds of people there. She couldn’t care less about that. She was in charge and what she said went. She had made her decision.
“Now, let us celebrate the return of our Great General.” She beamed at Adira.
Adira shook her head with a sigh before a smile worked its way onto her face. “We all know this is an excuse to open the dozen casks of foreign wine.”
Ashni smiled back. “We all know you won’t object.”
Chapter Four
THE BARBARIAN CELEBRATION WAS different from than anything Nakia had experienced in her eighteen years of life. She had been to many celebrations and parties back home, but nothing like this. This seemed to be more out of control than anything she had ever attended, the very definition of a bacchanal. Voices mixed with the strange music that had too many drums and not enough flutes and created an awful din to her sensitive ears.
Dancers moved to the beat of the drums. Both men and women were barely covered and wore bells on their wrists and ankles. It didn’t seem like the guests paid them any mind, but every now and then someone would snatch one of the dancers for more personal entertainment. The guests touched them, held them, tickled them, and more. It didn’t seem right for a royal celebration.
There were no couches in the dining hall, only large pillows of all colors for the guests to rest on. The pillows easily fit three people, but there were only one or two people on most of them. If there were two people on a pillow, there was a guarantee they were carrying on despite having an audience. Most people didn’t seem to pay it any mind.
The tables were short, shorter than the ones from home. The food was odd to her. The cooks overdid it on the hot spices and strange sauces. Fruit and vegetables were served with everything. She wasn’t used to seeing fruit with evening meals. She especially wasn’t used to seeing fruits with dipping sauces. Her stomach turned several times and it was a struggle not to vomit.
The smell of dinner mixed with whatever the barbarians were smoking in short pipes. They passed the pipes around, sharing them readily. Even the so-called Queen smoked when a pipe came her way.
The Queen’s overall behavior was not royal, but what Nakia would expect of a savage. She looked like a child playing dress up in fancy clothes, draped in shades of teal, gold, and light blue. Odd, wide-legged trousers with golden trim covered her legs. Golden bangles with charms hung from her ankles and wrists, chiming every time she moved, which was often, especially when motioning to Nakia for wine.
Nakia, having never poured anything in her life, was careful not to spill a drop from the pitcher she held as she filled the Queen’s cup. Nakia didn’t want to ruin her tunic since she had a limited number of them and she didn’t know how long she’d be stuck in this foreign land. Her father claimed it’d only be a short time, but she knew better than to trust him.
The thought of her father made a shot of hot lava burn in Nakia’s stomach. It distracted her just enough to sw
ish the wine jug. She righted it before she made a mistake. Though, she considered if she spilled the drink in the smoky room full of loud, drunken monkeys, they’d probably just lap it up off the floor. It wouldn’t be far from what they were doing right now, shoving their faces with food, gulping wine, and groping any supple body near them.
Savages just like Father said. But, her father had freely given her to these people, so what did that say about him? Suddenly, there was a boisterous cackle behind her, much too close, and she jumped out of her skin.
“Hey! Watch it over there. You knock over my little cupbearer and spill my wine, we’re gonna have us another war on our hands.” The Queen shook her fist at the large man behind Nakia.
“You don’t give me my split of that loot and, yeah, we will.” The man let out another barking laugh.
The Queen made a rather undignified face, sticking out her tongue and cocking her head to the side. “What makes you think I won’t give it all to your son? He did twice as much as you did.”
“And I did twice as much as you, so what does that say about either of us?”
The Queen guffawed. “You raised a better warrior than you are, but my father raised a god. Don’t forget it.”
The man waved her off and went on his way, chuckling as he went. The Queen snickered and flopped back on her pillow. Her cheeks were flushed red from the wine and she didn’t seem to care.
Nakia didn’t understand how this inelegant creature was anything more than a buffoon. The Queen tossed back the giant golden chalice that sat by her side, downing nearly half the cup in one gulp, and went back to playing dice. Dice, of all things.
In the city of Phyllida, and the entire area of Kairon, dice was the game of miscreants and fools because it involved no skill. People who frequented brothels and drank until they passed out in their own vomit played dice. Yet, here it was the sport of kings.
“Aw, c’mon!” The Queen threw her hands up. “Princess, throw the bones for me and win back my coins.”
For a moment, Nakia thought the Queen addressed her, but then she remembered there was another princess here. The hothead—Layla, if Nakia remembered correctly—sat across from the Queen. She shared a large pillow with a man who was around their age. He was curled close with a hand around Layla’s slender shoulders and eating almost everything on the table in front of them. Jewels chimed between them and it was hard to tell where one outfit began and the other ended since they were dressed in the same robes and trousers. Do men and women wear the same clothing even among the nobles or was it just them? Glancing around, it wasn’t just them. Are all of these people backward monkeys?
“What do I get for winning back your coins?” Layla asked with a smug tilt of her chin.
“You get to breathe another day.” The Queen shook her fist at Layla.
Layla snorted like a horse. “You need me on campaign. We all know you can’t kill me.”
“Yet.”
Layla scoffed. “Then when? The world is grand and you’ll always need me for that.”
The Queen made a sour face and Layla giggled. Layla shifted her body, moved to the edge of her pillow, and collected the dice. She let them fly and there were cheers. When the Queen gathered the coins, Nakia assumed Layla had won. Layla took control of the dice and again there were more cheers. The Queen collected once again.
Dragging her eyes from the lowbrow game, Nakia turned her attention to the rest of the party. She had never attended a party with hundreds of people before. Her father only allowed her to attend intimate banquets. She sneaked into some of his wilder affairs, but still this was probably the most people she had ever seen in one room, not counting the throne room earlier.
The barely clad dancers of both sexes caught Nakia’s eye once more. Nakia wasn’t sure what to make of them. Dancers were supposed to be women, but these backwards barbarians couldn’t even get that right.
Her eyes drifted to the guest of honor, the General who brought her to the court and had paraded her around like some slave. When they first met, the General had confused her by being a woman with the highest military rank, which didn’t make any sense, but this made even less sense. The General was curled up on a pillow with what appeared to be a blonde woman. Nakia guessed she was a slave because the woman fed the General several bits of fruit, but then she leaned in and kissed the General right on the mouth. The General hadn’t initiated the contact and didn’t get upset over it, as she should have if the woman was a slave taking liberties. Nakia almost fell over at the sight, sloshing the contents of the wine jar.
“Aw, damn it!” The Queen leaped to her feet, covered in wine. She let out an animalistic, ghastly snarl.
The banquet hall became deathly quiet. Even the music halted. The Queen locked eyes on Nakia. Nakia’s heart pounded and she felt as though her soul fled her body as amber, cat-like eyes pinned her. Nakia couldn’t think as she watched the Queen’s fist flex.
And, then light-hearted laughter filled the air. “She got you good.” Layla cackled and pointed at the Queen.
“Hey! No laughing at your big sister.” The Queen focused on Layla, shaking her fist at the giggling mess of a girl.
“I am you. You can’t be bigger than me.” Layla said, chuckling as if this was the funniest thing of all time.
“You might be me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t kick your skinny butt.” The Queen dived at Layla and seized her.
Layla squealed and tried to escape. The Queen gripped the smaller girl and tickled her. Layla cried out louder, doing her best to wiggle away. The music started again, the dancers danced, and conversation continued.
Nakia exhaled loudly, her shoulders slumping. She wasn’t sure how she managed not to fall over or faint. She doubted intoxication would save her twice should she make another mistake. The night couldn’t end soon enough for her.
***
Nakia didn’t get to see her rooms until the sun was high and there was an unnatural heat to the day. She wiped her brow and rubbed her eyes. This land didn’t know it was supposed to be winter. It made sense in the way it didn’t make sense. The barbarian’s weather was as backwards as they were.
The apartments afforded to her were what she expected as a royal guest. They were richly furnished, but not what she was used to. There weren’t any couches, chaises, or chairs. Everything was pillows, rugs, and short tables. Instead of tiled mosaics, there were tapestries on the walls of historical scenes she had no knowledge of.
She wandered through three rooms before she discovered the bedroom. She collapsed in the bed, asleep before she could look around more.
***
Groaning, Ashni rubbed her face as she adjusted her body on the throne. She couldn’t get comfortable, despite being surrounded by pillows. She had a headache beating against the front of her head and couldn’t focus. She enjoyed the party a little too much, as was her habit.
“I really should cut my wine. A little water wouldn’t kill me.” Ashni scratched the bridge of her nose. Drinking uncut wine was another habit of hers and made it hard to do simple things, like keep her eyes open. She needed to get it together before officials filtered into the Grand Hall for appointments.
She looked at her breakfast tray. Everything was as it usually was, but her stomach wasn’t in favor of anything in front of her. She turned away from the food. She needed to eat something, but first she needed her stomach to settle and to soothe her headache. She had already had some tea, which typically did the trick, but she had too much foreign wine last night. It was worth it.
Well, some of it was worth it. The few wines she liked were very sweet and tasted of the ripe fruit. There were others that were too spicy or had an odd mix of herbs. She shook the thought away. Now is not the time to be reminiscing about wine.
“Highness.” A servant walked to the edge of the dais. He held up several scrolls. “The reports on who received what treasure last night and a few reports from captains on the proper split of treasure between their units.”<
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“Oh, good.” Ashni looked for space on her work desk only to find there was none. “Bring another tray, some tea, and my cupbearer.”
“More wine, Highness?”
Ashni delighted at the boldness of the suggestion. “Nothing like last night.”
The servant nodded and rushed off to do her will. Ashni didn’t bother to look up at the activity going on around her. Her outside robe slid off her shoulders as her hot tea was placed at her side. She fixed the robe as best she could, but her shoulders wouldn’t cooperate. It was a bit annoying, but she made sure to keep her attention on work. Nakia appeared before her, so she left the outer robe alone for a moment.
“Highness.” The servant awaited more orders.
Ashni waved him away. She had no need for him and he could go do whatever the hell her servants did when she had no need of them. She imagined they had active social lives considering all of the children who ran around the palace who didn’t belong to her or her inner circle. She didn’t mind. She didn’t need the servants every moment of the day and she didn’t have enough people to occupy even a fraction of the palace.
For a while, things were quiet. She worked and sipped her hot tea, which soothed her headache. Every now and then, she heard Nakia’s clothing sway as she shifted her weight. Whenever she settled, Ashni could feel Nakia eyes on her, staring at her, maybe studying her. She could hear Nakia breathing, which seemed a little rapid. Perhaps she was anxious, which Ashni couldn’t blame her for.
“Why am I here?” Nakia finally huffed, undoubtedly cranky to be awake only a few hours after the celebration ended.
“To whine, apparently. You’re doing an excellent job. Keep it up, kitten,” Ashni said with an affirming nod.
Warrior Class - Sky Cutter Page 6
