Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
The eparch straightens himself and takes me in. He’s not wearing his uniform; his fine but dark attire had made him difficult to see.
“Ah, Prince Nicostratus’s friend. No harm, no harm.”
Behind him, a few dozen yards away, is a spectacularly decorated house brimming with laughter. Men in various states of drunkenness mill outside, ornately dressed ladies fawning over them and encouraging them in. Hinsard’s infamous dance house.
Eparch Valerius notices my glance, lifts a pouch from his waist, and laughs. “They’re more generous when they’re drunk. Anything for donations.” He laughs and clamps a hand on my shoulder. “Have you received your invitation to the drakopagon match? Soldiers against the nobles. I’ve shamelessly asked Prince Nicostratus to play alongside me.”
“You’re playing yourself? Against soldiers? Would that be much of a game to watch?”
He smiles. “Don’t underestimate us on a pitch. We’re born playing the sport.”
Fair. The nobles I saw play in the royal city had been rather ruthless . . . “When is it?”
“Two days, midday, in the outpost training fields.” He starts to move on and only then my brain catches up with me.
“Just a moment.”
He turns with a pleasant smile and an expectant expression.
“Thinking Hall has a library, may I have permission to visit it?”
“Your soldad will give you access to any library.”
My soldad. Currently in Quin’s hands—swinging from his belt as if to taunt me. I grimace and thank him. He turns away, throwing over his shoulder a reminder that I can use my soldad to join the Medicus Contest if I find a team to join.
While contemplating how best to ask Quin for the soldad back, I catch sight of a white lace robe. My senses prickle, and I pivot towards the lights and heavily perfumed women. Is it her white robe that I always see? If so, why was she at the outpost? Why again was she at the sanctuary?
A silk scarf flutters around my neck and I’m swept deep into the house on a wave of perfume and giggles. It’s a fight to scan the rooms as I pass. No white.
I’m led into a curtained nook and steered to a table. A jar of wine lands in front of me, and whispers fill my ears. Haven’t met such beauty in years. Your bright blue eyes! That blonde hair! Flawless skin, so soft!
I resist a pair of lips heading towards my cheek and gently push the dancer back, tucking a coin into her hand, and then the others’. “I’m not here for company.”
Three women giggle behind fans, and one of them calls for ‘Sparkles’.
“Sparkles?” I ask.
“Ariadne Aureliana. You’ll understand when you see—there she is.”
An elegant woman in a sparkling dress and sparkling earrings and a sparkling headpiece sweeps into our nook and takes me in with a sparkly smile. “Another one after information? What do you want to know?”
I shake my head. “I—” The curtain stirs and I glimpse two figures walking past the nook. Commander Thalassios, and the other—my figure in white lace. Her face turns in my direction; half is covered by a delicate mask. My figure in white lace is the mysterious Eparchess Juliana.
“You’re curious about something,” Sparkles says.
I down three shots of startlingly strong wine. Should I follow further? Or find Quin and share my suspicions?
I slide past Sparkles and the others and down the hall; it takes only a few moments before I spy the commander and Juliana entering a room upstairs. Finding Quin will take too much time. They might’ve left by then.
My hoard of dolled-up entertainers tug my sleeves, halting me at the bottom of the stairs. “Only important guests and performers can enter that room.”
“Is there any other way in?”
“Pay an exorbitant fee to the lady of the house. Or . . .”
I eye the dazzling group, and Sparkles the leader. “Or?”
Sparkles gestures to the women. They laugh and pull me into their dressing room where I’m stuffed into skirts, my hair pinned up with sparkling ornaments, my skin powdered and perfumed. Delicate silk cloth veils my face from the nose down. “Adds an air of mystique.”
Also veils the less feminine angles of my jaw.
The women sigh and gush, and shake their heads. “Unfair. That he’s a man.”
I give Sparkles the rest of my money. “That’s all I have. Don’t know how else to repay you.”
Sparkles smiles and lends me a performer’s token.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” another says. “Sparkles is more about giving back than she is taking. Why else do you help the eparch with all his donations?”
Sparkles flushes and there’s a special sparkle in her eye. The sparkle of someone infatuated. “You’re paying me in entertainment,” she says. “I don’t often get to play dress-up with men. Let’s get you a prop.”
My prop is a tray of wine. Balancing it, I quietly sneak upstairs. Hushed tones drift from an adjacent room. I set the wine on the table, and their words fall heavily on my ears.