I pushed Yanices' hand down, but not too firmly, because that'd just give her something to get bitchy about. Being gentle with servants was a good way to keep them unsure. Were you timid, were you kind, were they not being bitchy enough.
I'd grown up among servants. If there was one thing I knew, it was how dangerous a servant could be. And how useful even a wicked one could be. Yanice knew what she was doing, and she wanted to prove it everyone else. Deliah just did what Yanice told her to do.
"No," I told her. "Don't hide my scars."
"You shouldn't show them in public," she said.
"I'm not ashamed of them."
Her expression pinched. "The other guests will be uncomfortable seeing a woman with your flaws. They will wonder what misfortune befell you."
"Your silks do not hide the ones on your back either," Deliah added softly.
"Please consider wearing one of the other outfits you have," Yanice urged.
I debated it one final time, then shook my head. If I was Lady Theia because the Hippocamp said so, then my first public party as Lady Theia was going to be in Hippocamp attire. People could think whatever they wanted about it.
My choices were to either wear the gowns that had been given to me when I'd been a pet, or the items Ormiss had brought with him because I was (technically) Lady-Consort of the Hippocamp, or to go wearing not much at all. Of the three choices, wearing Hippocamp finery seemed the least worst option.
Yanice didn't hide her disgust as she presented me with a delicate silver chain. Deliah moved to lift my silks. I waved off the chain. "I'm not going to be adorned."
"We have had--"
"No," I cut her off. "I'm not being adorned for anyone tonight. I'm no one's pet."
She pursed her lips. "Be practical. The Lord-Regent isn't going to stay in Haven forever. Everyone is only going to humor you as Lady for as long as he's around to make them, and at best, they humor the Hippocamp to be polite. Not because anyone actually cares what they do under the waves."
I bristled.
But if she noticed, she didn't care. "Titles don't mean much when you don't have wealth and influence. It seems the Ambassadors are still well-disposed towards you, but your ambition is going to be your undoing. They are being diplomatic having Deliah and I here to suit Ormiss, while you have left their protection to flatter Ormiss. When Ormiss is gone--and he will be very far away and nearly impossible to contact--what allies will you have? Wear the chain. It will be expected should you need to be...strategic."
She was right, even if she was being a bitch about it: if I didn't go back to my consorts, I'd be vulnerable once Ormiss left. And Ormiss would leave. He'd have to, one day, because he'd have to go be King. If I refused to take back the others, without Ormiss and this masquerade of Lady Theia, I'd be exactly what Yanice said: a noble with a title and nothing else.
King without a Queen. Could he even ascend to the throne without me? Would his aunt let him?
I chewed on my lower lip. But the chain around my hips sounded so... like I was for sale. Or I'd been purchased.
But I was not taking my silks off so nobody would have to know I wasn't chained up like some cow led to sale. "No."
"Take it away," Yanice told Deliah. Then Yanice pursed her lips at me once more. "Don't get too high-headed, Lady Theia. You haven't escaped your past. Fairytales might tell you that the handsome lord falls in love with you and all is well, happily ever after, but it's not true. You are a low-born foundling nothing, and the only thing keeping you from being nothing again is men. I've seen many young maids get big heads because they were the flavor of fashion for a few months, but it always ended and never well. It will happen to you too when you overstay your welcome, or the next pretty thing comes along."
Like you? "I've seen plenty of maids get discarded. I know how it works."
"And you were never discarded?" she asked sweetly. "Or were you simply never chosen?"
Fuck this cow. One day, I was going to stab her between her shoulders with those words. I'd been discarded. Maybe. Once. If Tynne had ever been real. But he'd felt real to me, and the sting of him betraying me like he had... I still felt stupid falling for it. Even more stupid because it might have all been some set-up by whoever had put me in that pocket realm.
Yanice smirked. "Wear the chain."
"No," I said through clenched teeth. It would be tempting to put this bitch in her place, but it had to wait. She could just keep digging the hole while I watched.
"Have it your way then. Don't say I didn't warn you." She folded her hands in front of herself.
Lord-Raven Soir sent an escort (not himself) to accompany me to the party. It was three ravens in house livery, and not lowly servants either.
"The Lord-Raven bids us make certain you arrive at his party comfortably," the lead Raven told me pleasantly, swooping low in a bow while their hair fluttered and drifted in the shadows of the summer evening. They were hard to see, all shadowy like that, and my skin prickled uncomfortably, like it remembered something I couldn't.
I nodded, unable to speak, but this didn't bother them, and they simply escorted me through the network of high streets to the Ravens' estate, which I'd been to before. This time it was illuminated with multi-colored lights and lanterns that drifted in the air, and more Ravens in raven-form danced in the air as performers, each one wearing a little necklace that had an illuminated pendant on it so that even if you couldn't see the birds, the lights themselves danced as the evening grew danger.
Somewhere, musicians played and lively music matched the dance of the lights, and the air smelled of flowers--even if under it all was the smell of the harbor and the creeping smell of rot.
I longed for the smell of clean, pure water and a sudden thirst hit me.
The party was already crowded and seemed to have started earlier than when Soir had told me to arrive. The Ravens led me down a lantern-lit path towards the main house, which was gently illuminated in more colorful lights, while servants carried trays of glasses filled with liquids dyed bright colors, and served little cakes iced in bright colors, and ribbons and festoons of bright colors draped everything.
"Lady Theia," Soir's voice came over the crowd just as I entered the main room.
Everyone stopped. Everyone looked.
Bathed in a rainbow of color, Korr stood out in the sea of people.
Our eyes met. My soul twisted. I felt the prick of a trinket I no longer wore.
Sliding through the multi-colored shadows, Itek's tawny glory revealed itself from behind Korr.
Of course they'd be here, but I hadn't been steeled to see them. Idiot me.
"Welcome, welcome," Soir was saying as he approached, gesturing to the hushed crowd. His attire was a writhing mass of silken purple-black that still reflected all the shades of color being thrown about. How much had he spent to have his attire enchanted to do that? What was he even wearing? A veil? A dress? A robe? It was too difficult to tell and the magic oozing off of it reached even my dead senses. His smile seemed genuine and pleased. "I was afraid you wouldn't come after all."
"I told you I would, Lord-Raven." I tore my eyes away from Korr and Itek and forced myself to not look around for the others. This meant I had to stare right at Soir. He gracefully lifted a drink off a passing tray and ascended the stairs towards me. The drink he'd chosen was a glacial ice blue. He pressed it into my hand, his eyes noting every small motion of my throat and chest and eyes.
"Ah, a woman who is true to her word." He pressed the glass into one hand, then lifted my other to close my fingers around it. I shuddered at the touch of his skin and the delicate rake of his long, dark-tinted nails. "I appreciate that. But I was hoping you would flatter me with something about you could not wait to enjoy my hospitality once again?"
The party had gone quiet except for the music. Thank the gods the colors dancing around the room hid how pale and flushed I'd gotten. My head spun, and I floundered for something to say while my scars tried to crawl off my shoulders and melt down my face. "What women have you been spending time with you're shocked when one of us keeps her word?"
A musician missed a note.
Soir's dark eyes twinkled and behind him, Korr's multi-colored facade winced. Itek visibly sighed. Ug, diplomat I was not. I'd just insulted every woman who had ever broken a promise, and in this company? Safe to say I'd just insulted everyone present and they all would just think of me exactly what Yanice thought of me: a low-bred maid who had gotten into some high-bred pants and thought herself fancy now.
Hah. Couldn't get much farther from the truth. I did not think myself fancy, and I was too close to being the next Queen of the Hippocamp for comfort.
I stared at Soir. He could figure out what to say next. I'd fallen in the trap, but maybe I could force him to crawl down after me.
"I think you just took a shot at my hospitality, Lady Theia," he said.
Of course he'd deftly sidestep and dodge at the same time. "I think you just took a shot at the value of my word, Lord-Raven."
"Such a delicately placed knife right between my ribs." He clutched one hand over his ribs. "I see you've been spending time with Lord-Ambassadors Korr and Itek. One does not enter their roost without being well-armed, hmm? I will take it as a compliment that you came to my party at my invitation, and declined your numerous potential escorts."
And of course he figured out how to flatter himself and take a shot at the dragons and gryphons and hippocamp at the same time. Fuck, I was so screwed. The instant I fucked up with any of these people I'd get pecked to death, gnawed on, or gobbled up. "I know my own mind, Lord-Raven."
He held up the hand that had been on his ribs towards me. I wracked my brain for a way to avoid it--what did the Raven want with me? Korr and Itek watched, but didn't offer any help or clues, and I didn't see my other three consorts, so I was all alone with this raven, basically.
Oh well. Nobody said getting secrets involving unicorns was going to be safe. Or easy. Or pretty.
I grit my teeth and put my hand in his.
His fingers closed over mine and a jolt shocked my skin and through all my scars and down my spine. My fingers clenched reactively while my nerves momentarily fried from the jolt and my brain raced backwards in time and slammed into a wall beyond which there was nothing.
My heart raced and my skin trembled but it didn't feel like my body doing it. It felt like I was inside someone else's body while it shook and trembled and my heart raced but the body's heart didn't, and every scar on my body etched itself into me, but it didn't hurt. Except it did, but it wasn't happening to me, it was happening to the body, not me.
My brain said it was happening. But it wasn't.
And then everything sucked back together and I was in that party with Soir and the noise had picked back up.
How long had that been? A few seconds, it seemed like.
Blankly, I looked for Korr and Itek, who were still watching me. Korr's beautiful face was bent into a frown, his pale eyes reflecting dark colors. I couldn't see Itek's tawny gold in the shadows and swirling mass of colors. Where were the others? Were they not here?
Had I done something awful just now? They had to know I didn't want Soir!
Soir led me through the crowds, presented me with a drink off a table, and seemed unware that my skin was crawling and I could barely breathe. He introduced me to some other Ravens I had never met, then some Humans--quite a few--and even a few Demon-touched who were charming and polite but tainted in a way I shouldn't be able to detect, because only Humans could detect the Demon-touched. Shifters couldn't.
But I, apparently, was a shifter that could.
Out of the multi-colored swirling festivities, Ormiss' obsidian-and-garnet form emerged.
He was here. My heart leapt and hammered against my ribs. Soir gave me a quick look.
I had never seen Ormiss in land-dweller attire. I stared shamelessly. I'd chosen to wear my Hippocamp silks, and he was dressed in a sweeping coat gathered at the small of his back, his long hair braided in an intricate arrangement and decorated with pearls and small shells and clips adorned with the shining shells of fish and gemstones. He had on pants, of all things, tailored to his strong legs, and tall boots made in the land-dwelling fashion but clearly made of sharkskin, and the adornments on his long coat were not brocade but more sharkskin and exotic embroidery done in sea silk, and his arrangement of long necklaces had been replaced with an chain made of sea gems and silver draped across his shoulders. The gems glowed with the deep magenta of his magic, and periodically lightening crackled across the metal.
What was more impressive... how he looked, or the fact he'd done his hair by himself?
I knew what he could do with those fingers.
"Lord-Regent," Soir said with a graceful gesture of his cup-bearing hand, "so lovely to have you on the surface again. A weather-mage is always welcome in Haven. But could you do something about the storms of late? It is interfering with shipping."
"Lady Theia," Ormiss greeted me first with a proud dip of his upper body and gesture with one arm. As he bowed, the collar of his coat shifted, exposing two familiar leather thongs. "Lord-Regent."
He was wearing both our trinkets under his clothes.
"Lord-Regent." My throat was dry and my voice almost failed. My heart churned and ached. He looked so handsome, and so haunted--there were hollows in his cheeks, and circles under his eyes, and the crackle of his magic didn't feel the same for all his poised dignity.
Ormiss' expression washed to a chill and magic crackled across his necklace. "Lord-Raven. I would appreciate it if you obeyed custom and acknowledged Theia's presence to me before discussing matters of trade and state.."
"Would that be protocol, Lord-Regent?" Soir sipped his drink and gestured with one manicured hand, the points of his dark-etched nails looking particularly sharp. "I wasn't aware she outranked you."
Ormiss barely twitched a brow. "In the company of Hippocamp, the female is always presented or acknowledged ahead of a male. And considering Theia has been accepted into the Court of the Queen, our ranks are not so disparate that I ask for much. You disrespected her. She is not your accessory."
"I am so glad we are able to continue our conversations on Hippocamp etiquette," the Lord-Raven said. "She declined to tell me how a land-dweller earned the favor of the Hippocamp Court. Some matter involving the dragons? I could have told you she is not your cousin returned in some glamoured form."
Ormiss' jaw shifted. " Of course she is not my cousin. The Ambassadors were in search of the Pantere Priestess of Dreams. They met with misadventure, as most who try to traverse the southern ocean do. I would normally not care about what sinks beneath the waves, but dragons are somewhat large and would attract squid, and I was not going to leave a female to perish. I offered to save her, but she prevailed on me that letting the ambassadors of two species drown would perhaps not be diplomatic."
So Ormiss was going with some version of what had actually happened. Bold choice. Wonder what Korr had to say about that and if they'd ironed all this out before now.
"And this earned distinction among the Hippocamp?" Soir inquired. There wasn't anything sarcastic about it, more like he was genuinely curious. Probably so he could do the same thing.
"That and other things, like defending a small child from a squid and other matters of considerable courage at her own peril," Ormiss gestured dismissively. "Let us leave it at she distinguished herself at the Hippocamp court. And my aunt tolerates her."
His unspoken which is more than I can say for you made the Lord-Raven's expression chill very slightly, but Soir also seemed amused at the barb. "Should I be insulted that she has had the honor of meeting the Queen when I have not?"
"Lord-Raven, if I or my Aunt intended to insult you, we would do so quite plainly. So you'd have a chance to respond."
Soir chuckled, practically preening with amusement. "You know Ravens quite well, Hippocamp."
"I would walk away now, Lord-Raven, but I won't abandon Lady Theia to your pecking." Ormiss stared at our entwined hands.
Soir's inscrutable smile lingered on his face. "Then I will walk away. Lady Theia, there's someone else I'd like you to meet, given you already know the Lord-Regent so well. This way."
Ormiss' magic crackled. I got cold all over--what did I do? Did I tell the Lord-Raven to shove it, or did I let him take me away from Ormiss?
Ormiss, under the wash of colors, looked like he was going to die, his face sinking into deeper shadows. My scars seared deeper into me like a hot iron. My brain tried to race back... somewhere... but it ran into that wall. There wasn't even a wall. There was just nothing. It raced back to the edge of the world.
My fingers twitched and I unintentionally gripped Soir's hand tighter.
I needed to know. I needed to understand. If I wanted to do low-grade spycraft and figure out what the Ravens (or anyone else) knew about my past, then I was going to have to play along, even if the thought of... ug... flirting with Soir and entertaining whatever he was about made me feel sick.
He, of course, noted my reaction, but it didn't seem like he felt any particular way about it, instead he just said like a firty imp, "I promise to be on my best behavior."
Ormiss snarled, "You best be, bird."
"No need to be insulting, Ormiss." Soir said in a lilting tone that revealed he must have had an exquisite singing voice, and the magic behind it ran up and down my skin.
Ormiss' magic crackled across his medallions.
"So temperamental," Soir said in that lilting tone once again and I couldn't breathe.
"Stop singing for her," Ormiss snarled.
"This is not singing. If I sang for her, you would know, weather-mage. Now perhaps you could go charm storms farther out to sea while enjoying my party. Perhaps you will find the other bearer of your trinket, if she has not already caught a glimpse of you from a distance and fled to some hole where you will never find her."
Ormiss did not hide how gutted that single stab of Soir's beak made him. I tried to yank free of Soir, but my arm wouldn't obey me and I was so gobsmacked I felt like I couldn't move.
Quickly, Ormiss slid beside me as if he were leaving, and said, "Don't make a scene."
"But--" I whispered, my arm not actually feeling like it was mine, but my soul and brain were, and Soir was an asshole.
"Don't defend me," he whispered. Then the smoldering anguish of his obsidian and garnet gaze. "Lady Theia, a pleasure, as always."
He moved off with a rustle of the elaborate folds and ruffles of his coat.
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PEEPS:
How is everyone? I got swamped with stuff last week but don't worry: I have some HAWT updates for Trinket. HAWT. SIZZLING. NAUGHTY.
I like that word. "Naughty". It's just one of those words that sounds like what it means, and conjures all kinds of hilarious mental pictures. "Yak" is another one.
To the folks who have asked if those balls of yarn in my TikTok background (that I use sometimes but will be using more now that I have a better set-up) are actually things I use... yeah, LOL. I have knit since I was like... 5. And crochet. And I can even do some needlework too. Don't spin. I've always wanted to learn to spin. Anyone spin? I have no room for a wheel but maybe spindle spinning?
~ Merry
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