“That’s plain barbarism.”
“Don’t say that too loud, Catiri, or you might incur my father’s wrath.”
“And if you keep calling me Catiri, you’ll incur my wrath.”
A smile broke over his face, chasing away the shadows that had roamed over it since the day I’d ended things between us. “Your wrath amuses me.”
Even though my veins were devoid of fire, I felt warm and light. But then the noise of the marketplace crashed into me like water released from a dam. I remembered we weren’t alone…that others, like Gregor, were watching, so I schooled my features into a blank, bland expression. “You never did take me seriously. Then again, you never take anything seriously. Life’s just one great joke to you.”
Ace’s entire face pleated.
Unable to stand his disappointment, I lowered my eyes and traipsed ahead of him, making my own way into the shadowy, boisterous marketplace. Selfishly, I wanted him not to give up on me, not to leave, but he left.
And it hurt so damn much.
39
The Earrings
Gregor took Ace’s place at my side. Although his feet didn’t touch the ground, he hovered beside me.
As I approached the first slab of stone on which were laid out twinkling jewels, I asked, “What sort of money do you use here? Beside sunshine and mallow.”
Gregor peered down at me. “Copper coins.”
“And how can I procure myself copper coins?”
Gregor whistled, and a lucionaga approached.
The golden-eyed man inclined his head. Silky strands of brown hair escaped the leather cord he’d used to tie back his shoulder-length hair. For some reason, he looked familiar. “Wariff.” I’d definitely heard him speak before.
“Cruz’s bride desires a bag of coins. Get her one.” When the lucionaga flew away, Gregor said, “Now that you and Cruz are engaged, you have access to his wealth, and from what Lyoh tells me, his father left him everything he owned. Which is a consequential amount.”
A blush warmed my cheeks and nose. “I’d rather not use his money.”
“Do you have copper coins of your own?”
“No.”
“Mallow?”
I shook my head.
“And you can’t fly, so if you want to purchase anything here, you don’t have much of a choice.”
“I don’t really need anything,” I whispered.
“Caligosupra rarely need anything.”
“Is there really no other way to buy something?”
He cocked his head to the side. “Until you become pregnant with your husband’s child, you can’t offer your body for a price. So no, there is no way for you to make a quick buck, as they say in your world.”
I recoiled, mouth twisting in disgust. Had he really suggested prostitution?
“Don’t look so revolted. I know for a fact humans sell their bodies, too. I’ve bought my fair share.”
The little hairs on the nape of my neck rose. “Just because some women are okay with that doesn’t mean I am.”
“I give you a couple years before you change your mind.”
“Never.”
Gregor smiled ruefully. “Would you like to bet on that? That’s another way you can make money around here.”
Someone touched my hand then, whisking my attention from Gregor’s leering face. A small woman stood next to me, hunched over a gnarled branch she used as a walking stick. She pressed a pair of carved red earrings inside my hand.
I blinked as a lucionaga seized her shoulders and yanked her away. He growled words to her that made her cower behind the long slab of stone, then tossed her the walking stick that had tumbled from her hands. It struck her raised arm.
Still clutching the earrings, I stared at the brute, who was barking orders at the other sellers. He was probably telling them not to approach me.
“How much does she want for these?”
Eyes shiny with shock—or was it hope?—the old woman spoke up, but her Faeli words didn’t register with me.
Gregor scoffed.
“How much did she ask for?”
“Ten copper coins. A full month’s wage.” He shook his head, a disdainful sneer curling his upper lip. “They’re surely not worth more than a single mallow leaf.”
“How much is a mallow leaf worth?”
He slid his hazel gaze to me. “If a copper coin is worth a hundred dollars, a mallow leaf is worth one.”
The lucionaga with the ponytail had returned, brandishing a velvet pouch filled with coins. He handed it to me, and although I felt using Cruz’s money was wrong, not helping the people around me was downright criminal.
I drew the pouch open and selected a coin. “Are they all worth the same thing?”
Gregor nodded.
They weren’t round, but they were shiny and heavy. A W like the one that graced my hand was engraved on one side, a wreath on the other. I dug out two more coins.
“Don’t.” Gregor’s voice was low, almost menacing.
“Don’t what?”
“Overpay for a piece of glass. It sends the wrong impression.”
“And what impression would that be?”
“That you are a dupe and a fool.”
I smiled brazenly and walked over to the crippled woman. I placed the three coins in front of her. A hush fell over the merchants nearest the woman. Their wide eyes followed my hands as they speared the earrings through my lobes.
I found their heavy weight incredibly pleasing. Especially when I noticed all the wrinkled noses of the faeries perched in their runas.
“Perhaps I was wrong about you,” Gregor said, hovering beside me as I walked deeper into the marketplace. “You probably won’t sell your body; you’ll end up giving it away for free.”
Biting retorts flickered through my mind. I counted to three to settle my rising nerves. And then I counted to three again. By my third time counting, I said, “Good thing I’m part hunter, isn’t it? Who in their right mind would want to bed their worst enemy?”
Besides Cruz…
Not that he wanted to bed me, though. I hoped.
“We destroyed our worst enemies long ago.”
I frowned. It hadn’t been the answer I was expecting.
“You are merely a mutt with an alluring face.”
Classy. Not that I expected more from him. “If the Unseelie aren’t your worst enemies, then who are?”
“You mean, who were?” The corners of Gregor’s lips curled upward. There was so much of Faith in him. How did he not know she was his daughter? Had he truly never found out? “The Daneelies, but we wiped that species out years ago. Has Cruz blessed you with their scales yet? It would do your frigid body wonders.”
The desire to slap him made me curl my toes into the cold wet earth. “Thank you for the unwanted advice.” For the rest of the market visit, I neither spoke to Gregor nor bought anything else. I simply meandered through the aisles, barely noticing what the poor calidum were trying to sell me.
Somebody touched my shoulder, and I jumped.
I spun around and met a blushing, freckled face.
40
The Glades
Dawson’s gaze vaulted between Gregor and me. “Did I come too early to pick you up?”
Not early enough… “Am I free to leave, Gregor?”
“Do you see cupola bars around you?”
“No.”
“Then you are free.” He whistled, and a lucionaga—the one with the ponytail—appeared at his side. “Silas, you will accompany Catori and Dawson on their trek through our land.”
Silas… The lucionaga I’d met on the beach the night Alice was killed.
Linus’s runa parked above me. “Leaving so soon, Catori?”
I had no idea how long I’d been there, but surely it had been a while. My feet were numb with cold and my ears buzzed from the noise.
Linus’s fiery-blond hair fluttered in the soft breeze gusting through the marketplace, which was rife with the scent of musky
bodies and wet greenery. “Will you join us for supper?”
If I could help it, I wouldn’t see the royal family until the night of my nuptials, but did I have a choice? I tipped my face up. “If I’m not too drained from my day, Massin, I’ll join you.”
“Don’t overexert yourself then, my dear. We haven’t had much time to speak, and I have oh so many questions for you.”
My heartbeats turned to ragged thuds. I gave him a tight nod, then asked, “Must your guard really accompany us?”
Linus glanced at Gregor, and something passed between them. Thumbing his smooth chin, Linus said, “Silas is strong and will keep you safe from the animals roaming our land. Plus, he’s extremely discreet. You won’t even notice he’s there.”
Silas’s gold eyes gleamed suspiciously underneath the dusky canopy. Yeah. Sighing, I walked ahead of Dawson through the rows of vendors. I looked for the old woman on my way out and found her surrounded by other green-clad sellers. Through the huddled bodies, her eyes met mine, and her face creased with an almost toothless smile.
The others around her twirled to stare. I self-consciously twisted my hair in a rope over my shoulder, and kept twisting it until I was out of the marketplace. Although the light was muted by the heavy cloud of mist, stepping outside felt like stepping into the brightest sunshine. I filled my lungs with the air that tasted so pure and vibrant I couldn’t lap it in fast enough.
“So”—Dawson pushed his unruly blond hair out of his baby blue eyes—“you want me to carry you?”
“Nope. But any chance I could get my shoes back?”
“Your shoes?”
“I had shoes when Cruz brought me to Neverra. They’re at the apartment.”
“Sure. I can do that.” He zipped upward, cutting through the mist like a knife through butter, leaving me alone with a glowering Silas.
He folded his large arms over his overinflated chest. “Is it true that you asked Cruz to marry you?”
“Maybe.”
His thick eyebrows slanted deeper over his honey-colored eyes. “Why?”
“It’s none of your business.”
He flew closer to me, his feet inches off the ground. Unlike caligosupra, he wore black leather boots that matched his all-black outfit of pants and T-shirt. If it weren’t for his metallic eyes, he could pass for a secret service agent. “We protect our kingdom, so it is my business to understand the intent of our visitors. Especially visitors with Unseelie blood.”
“Don’t get your boxers in a twist. I’m not here to murder your king.”
“Are you here to murder anyone else?”
I smiled sweetly. “Depends how rude you plan on being to me.”
A whoosh of air lifted the ends of my hair as a body thumped next to me. Dawson’s freckles glowed like red pepper flakes as he dangled my sneakers in front of me. Never had I been so happy to see a pair of sneakers. I took them from him, sat on a twisted root as wide as a carved bench, and holding my fur cape closed with one hand, I wiped the soles of my feet with my palms until Dawson crouched in front of me.
“I have a better way to get rid of mud.”
“Let me guess…fire?”
He grinned. Blue flames flickered over his palms and burned away the muck that had hardened to clay. The fire not only cleaned, but warmed.
Once Dawson was done, I slid my feet inside my shoes. “How do people survive without fire around here?”
“They rely heavily on sky-dwellers.” He rose, but didn’t take flight.
“Is it always this cold?”
“Not when the sun shines,” Silas said.
So ninety-eight percent of the time it was cold, which wouldn’t bother those with fire in their veins. Finding no point in raging against the injustice of it all, I asked, “How big is Neverra?”
“Big,” Dawson said. “But not as big as Earth.”
“How long would it take me to see it all?”
“Days. I had a friend who mapped it, so he walked, and it took him an entire week before he made it back to his starting point. If you flew, it would only take a day.”
But I didn’t fly. I could run fast, though. My thighs and calves zinged in anticipation. Would Dawson find it strange that I liked to run? Borgo had, back when we’d crossed paths in Manistee forest. Marsh-dwellers seemed so intent on surviving, exercise was surely the furthest preoccupation from their mind.
“So where do you want to go?” Dawson asked.
I stood up, grabbed one of my feet, stretched the back of my thighs, then repeated the movement on my other side. “Where’s the Hareni?”
Suspicion fired across Silas’s bronzed skin. “You are not to approach the Hareni.”
“Why not? Isn’t it one of the sights to see in Neverra?” I didn’t think it wise to needle a burly faerie guard, but couldn’t help it. I didn’t like to be told what to do.
Dawson had gone very rigid next to me. “It’s not a good idea, Catori.”
“Why can’t I see where my relatives live? It’s not as though they have a way out of there, do they?”
Dawson shoved a hand through his shaggy hair, freckles so red they looked like frozen computer pixels.
“You’re not going there on my watch,” Silas said. “There are plenty of other places to see. Pick another.”
It had been worth a try. “I miss the lake by my house. You have any bodies of water in Neverra?”
Dawson’s hands finally came away from his body. “We have glades in the east. That’s where the Daneelie used to live, but they’re all dead, so it’s safe now.”
Anticipation scampered over my skin, lifting it in goosebumps. “Can we go there?” I did my best to hammer down my excitement. “Or is it a no-fly zone for people like me?”
Dawson cocked a brow at Silas, seeking his approval. The faerie guard grunted something in Faeli that made Dawson give me a thumbs up.
“It’s pretty far, though. Want me to call for a runa?”
“I’ll run.”
“I don’t know if—”
“Ventors run as fast as we fly.” All of Silas was still, except for the tendons shifting in his broad neck.
“Really?” Dawson’s eyes widened.
I nodded. “But in no way do I run as fast as you fly. I’m not a hunter.”
“Yet you have wita underneath your skin,” the guard said.
“Because my blood contains a lot of iron.”
Although the guard’s unsettlingly shiny gaze was taped to me, he spoke to Dawson. “She killed Borgo Lief with her blood.”
I became as stiff as the tree trunk next to me. “I didn’t kill him. He used my blood to commit suicide.”
Silas snorted.
I was about to insist that he had, but instead, said, “You knew Borgo, Silas?” The guard’s name came out of my mouth like the smack of a fin against a boat deck.
“The castrated outcast? Yeah, I knew him.”
I would’ve snarled at him if I’d been the type to snarl. I turned toward Dawson instead, unhooking my heavy earrings and tucking them safely inside a fold in my pants. “In which direction are we heading?”
Dawson gestured to the right.
“Lead the way.”
I took off behind him into the calimbor forest, trampling the spongy earth, hopping over gnarled roots. The heady mix of adrenaline and cool air seeped into my muscles and uncoiled my lingering tension.
At some point, Silas morphed into a firefly. Although he kept close to me—too close for comfort—he was so puny, I could almost pretend he wasn’t there, or at least pretend he was a real bug instead of a shifter.
We loped through the forest of giant trees for miles. Crossed paths with a pack of wild dogs with fur as white as the cape Dawson offered to carry after I’d peeled it off my heaving shoulders.
All around me, life bustled. Unlike the animals that were clean and colorful, the marsh-dwellers were cloaked in the same green as the mucky moss splattered against my turquoise outfit and wore their wariness like
a mask.
Most calidum stopped to stare at the strange sight of me running alongside a lightning bug and a flying faerie. I didn’t stop to stare back, but I did look around. At the base of almost each trunk, there were openings. Some had words carved above them; others bore a symbol.
“Where do they lead?” I asked Dawson.
He spun midair to see what I was pointing at. “They’re inns or shops. Calidum inns and shops. Sometimes sky-dwellers visit them, but they have their own places to eat and shop near the top of the calimbors.
“Will you take me sometime?”
“I can’t because I’m not allowed inside caligosupra—”
“I don’t mean the ones on top, Dawson.”
“You’d want to go to one of ours?”
“Will they allow me inside?”
“We don’t refuse anyone.”
“Then I’d like to go. Maybe on our way back?”
Dawson must’ve been momentarily stunned by my request, because it took him a moment to catch up with me. “Okay.”
We ran in companionable silence for another long stretch of time. When the forest finally gave way to a new landscape, I slowed. Ahead of me, a clearing glimmered. Swaying green stems, as tall as wheat stalks, were topped with what looked like fresh jewels. In fact, they were petals. Glassflowers. That’s what I’d nicknamed the flower Borgo had turned into. Last night, while perusing the book about native Neverrian plants, I’d learned its true name was adamans. The breeze combed through the translucent purple petals that tinkled like my mother’s wind chime.
I approached the field, but a hand held me back.
“You can’t walk through adamans, Catori.” Shadows pinpricked Dawson’s clear eyes.
“Why not?”
“Because a lot of animals roam there. Animals that would get mighty angry if they were trodden on.”
“Like what?”
“Like venomous diles and slithering mikos. They’ve got quills as sharp as needles. Besides, Catori, if I let you walk through it, A—” He shut his mouth and his cheeks flooded with heat.
“A?”
“A person,” he said, insisting so much on the preposition, I cocked an eyebrow. “Likely many, will turn me into a pile of dirt. Please let me or Silas carry you over it.”
Rising Silver Mist Page 23
