Cinder Bound

10 - Clipped Claws: Eleos

It was the second night of the games, the first night real blood was shed, and Eleos was on dish duty.

The colours of the kitchen—the whoosh of fire, the glint of fish, the red of wine—was too bright. They spun like kids with streamers. Like someone had pulled a plug in the room and everything swirled like paint down the drain.

So she was in a foul mood even before the panther showed up.

"Heard you'd be back here." His voice was slick like a warm-water eel.

Eleos' shoulders cinched closer together. "Whoever told you that should be looking for another position. Snitches don't belong in the Kana House."

The panther laughed and leaned his back against the sink to smile at her. "As I heard with Nim. He'll pay double for any Kana services for the rest of his days, hey?"

Eleos reached around him for the next dish: a bowl glittering with the shaved scales of fish. She shoved it in the hot water. "You shouldn't be back here."

"So cold, tigress." The panther crossed his arms, arranging his smooth skin and lithe muscles like a permanent fixture of art in her kitchen. "The entire Claw is here. Waiting for the Kana's triumphant return."

Eleos' hand stilled in the water. The suds swirled like a rainbow of smoke on its surface. Small bowls of moonfish and potted succulents guarded the windowsill; the light caught in floating fish scales like a shattered mirror.

The panther kept on, "The tournament tops a glass we've been waiting to see tip. A tide we've known would turn. All along we've said peace was a weak choice."

Eleos looked up then. His skin was dark and perfect, more gold-tan than red-black, but smooth. His easy smile and neatly oiled hair made him every bit as handsome as she'd been promised.

"There is nothing weak about taking blows without retaliation."

He smiled indulgently for her. "Says the still-skin tigress."

"Did you come all this way to mock me?" Eleos overturned the soaked bowl with a rush of water. Her hands were red with the scrubbing. "The Claw offers better company, I can assure you."

He grinned like her sharpness tickled him. "Just came to see if the gossip were true. The Kana keeping their little revolutionary from dragon claws."

"Glad I could confirm the rumours."

She moved on to the chopping block, smearing her sponge over the bar of soap kept in a ceramic lion maw by the faucet.

He considered her.

His eyes felt like a touch. Over her hands as she scrubbed, the pink of hot water up her forearms; the sweat clammy on her neck and the long braid down her back. The layers she cut in her hair melted from its plat in disarray, sticking to her neck and shoulders. His gaze left fever-chills; made the simple cotton band over her chest and low-rise trousers feel like poorly patched armour.

"So much ink for so little a person," he commented softly, hooking a finger under one of the strands of hair to better see the twist of tattoos down her back. The way he leaned in cut the dish sink off from the rest of the kitchen. The bustle of servers, the cook's fires and the rolling wine barrels from the storeroom suddenly seemed too far. "I dare say, you're a bit prettier in this light."

Then Ylize, a server, dumped a tray of dishes to the panther's right, splashing a spurt of water, wine and dirty suds down his shirt.

Eleos smiled at his recoil. "So are you," she said and returned to her dishes, wiping the hair from her mouth with her shoulder. "Compliments will get you nowhere, panther. I am no company tonight."