In The Lair of the Draca (Book 2)

In The Lair of the Draca (Book 2) Chapter 52: Alterior Motives

"Is she gone?"

"Is who gone?"

Waru rolled her eyes, flipping her corn-colored curls away from her brow in vexation. "You know who." She sat on her mother's fine, padded stool in front of the looking glass with a bird-bone comb (the finest) in one hand. She had not once lifted it to run the prongs through her hair. "The so-called 'execution' was yesterday morning...or don't you and Malaraq remember?" Waru stared dumbly at her reflection.

"What do you mean, 'so-called'?" Amiechek asked sharply from her sleeping bench. "And what is this business about Malaraq and I?"

Waru did not bother to conceal the dripping condescension in her voice. "Yes, what is this business, Mother? Would you care to tell your only child?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Amiechek dryly.

"Mmmm-hmmm." Waru's grey, almond-shell eyes narrowed as she carelessly tossed the bird comb onto her own sleeping bench and snatched up a pot of her mother's pink lip shine, prepared from the crushed carapaces of fine beetles.

"That's mine!"

"And?" Waru pooched out her lips, swiped her index finger into the pot, and dabbed.

"So keep your selfish hands on your own things!" Despite her corpulence, Amiechek was able to launch herself quickly off of the bench and subsequently rescued her lip shine. "And in anwer to your question: yes, the Star-Child who troubled us so dearly is finally gone. Dead, now a denizen of the Afterworld."

"How do you know this?" In preparation for morning lessons, Waru was wearing the standard blue romper with its starched white apron and conservative collar. The buttons were made of saltwater pearl, which should have completed a nicely studious look. Waru, however, was not to be categorized. Rather than wearing the school-house issued sandals, she simply left them at home and went barefoot, with a thin chain of blue daisies hooked around one ankle. And whereas the other girls attended with their hair twisted into a simple bun-- or, more elaborately, into a no-mess loop above each ear-- Waru wore hers just as she slept in it: loose, long, and flowing. With Ziuta out of the way, she could now return to being the non conventional class-mate that boys salivated after...and the one of whom mothers secretly disapproved, although the daughters of these mothers smiled and joked the widest and the loudest, in hopes of pleasing the Matron and perhaps lending in a good word when the time came for marriage (for the Matron was known for her extravagant wedding gifts).

"It is not just I who knows. Ziuta's captors returned last evening and immediately requested a meeting with Malaraq and Gormaq. The deed was done, and we can all rest assured that Sashek's meddling shan't be the death of us. I don't think she will be bringing any more stray rats home to Looks Thrice. Now get ready for school, already!" Amiechek, cupping the pot of lip shine delicately in both hands, cradled it reverently to her bosom until she reached a shiny wooden armoire in the east corner of her lodge. With the utmost care, she placed it in the top drawer.

Waru was undaunted. She was also more suspicious than she cared to let on; for instance, Ziuta's captors had numbered six, and last evening when the grating sound of the palisade doors opening had interrupted her sleep, she had tip-toed to Zee's open window and observed that only three men, shivering and with figurative tails tucked between their legs like scrawny curs, had slipped back into the courtyard. Now, who could explain that? Not to mention that whenever a captive was to be drowned in the creek, the returning guardsmen would bring with them both sets of manacles as proof that the breath of life had left their victim.

Not one of the three returning men had grasped a set of manacles.

But there were other ways to take jabs at her mother, whom she despised these days more than she loved.