“Oh, young Kasim,” he heard the Pilarese Haidren call after him, “I’m counting on it.”

TWENTY-SIX

Luscia

   As a woman under the immense scrutiny of her personal guard, Luscia found it mildly depressing that she was to spend her only hour of freedom at the behest of an ill-tempered Darakaian. With a slight twitch of her finger, she signaled Aksel, her sole confidant in all matters treacherous, to follow her descent down a grand, plunging staircase. In an abandoned training room floors below, Kasim awaited her, no doubt brooding over things he didn’t understand and never would.

She’d argued to Marek, rather tersely, that her station warranted the right to some privacy, be it a mere walk during waking hours in the company of her own thoughts and restless wolx. As such a walk encapsulated the miniscule hour of solitude left at her disposal, she hoped one day the entire House of Darakai would appreciate the sacrifices made to hone their meddlesome al’Haidren into a decent excuse for a warrior.

In Marek’s lingering anger, the evidence of which balanced on the hard set of his shoulders, they’d quarreled at Luscia’s exit, his words both detached and taciturn. The captaen of her guard still refused to look her in the eye after the profound bite of Alora’s rebuke, for though the weight of their Haidren’s disappointment fell on Luscia, her criticism had settled on the men as well, casting a net of shame far beyond herself.

Lost in thought, Luscia passed under a narrow arch and entered a less occupied corridor with her head hung low. She wished she could have explained the events of that evening to her aunt, but even more to her guard. Disagree as they may, Alora was right in her assessment of the Najjan and their sacrifice. They’d traded their own lives for Luscia’s, in more ways than one. It was the call of the five, just as it was hers as future Haidren for their people.

That very call, in methodology rather than ideology, had splintered Luscia from her predecessor. Like Alora, she too hoped to submit herself for the sake of Boreal, but not by way of surrender to the will of the Peerage or the prydes. They had no right to speak for the maligned and forgotten, the trafficked and sold, the innocent and the unascended. There wasn’t room for Alora’s passivity in a city where people’s lives held less value than the political entanglements of men unburdened by the death of Boreal’s children.

Even still, her convictions didn’t change the fact that Luscia was not Haidren to Boreal yet, and it had been wrong to elevate herself in such high esteem. In that, Alora had spoken the truth twice over. Luscia had become blind. Because of her pride and therefore disloyalty, Aurynth would sing of her unworthiness; a melody Luscia, like the five, could never unhear.

And yet…

Out in the world, there was a cross-caste boy, both frail and frightened, who had lived to see a new morning. Bittersweetly, the corner of Luscia’s mouth curled, though the smile quickly retreated.

A muffled, mouse-like whimper tickled her ear when she stepped onto a lower landing. Frowning at Bastiion’s fondness for public trysts, she looked to the lycran and remarked sarcastically, “And here I thought Unitarians couldn’t function this early.”

Her excuse for a smirk fell at the low growl from Aksel’s underbelly. Changing course, she entered a narrow, shadowed corridor to the east of the landing, the highlander wolx several paces ahead. What at first had resembled a stifled moan rolled into a shuddered sob, and Luscia hastened after Askel, following him around the bend into an even darker hall dotted by a dozen cutouts built into the stone archways along either side. A silver tray and its fine contents laid strewn across the marble floor near the farthest alcove.

Without hesitation, Luscia sprinted down the hall in search of its owner. Inside the alcove, a lady’s maid was pressed against stone wall, buried under the heaviness of a tall nobleman.

“Niit, heh’ta!” Luscia shouted as she slammed into his body. Gripping the folds of his velvet waistcoat, she used her weight to reel him off the maid. Halting her momentum when the Unitarian’s back hit the wall, Luscia released the catch of Phalen’s radials with each thumb. Furiously, she anchored her left blade against his gut and her right beneath his chin.

The dark-haired maid slumped in the corner. Torn fragments of her dress slipped off her slight shoulders as they lifted around her crumpled form, hiding herself as she wept.

“I know you…” The yancy’s throat bobbed carefully against the edge of the radial as he glanced down. “We don’t have to keep meeting like this. Bastiion houses better places meant for your kind.”

“Lord Ambrose.” Luscia spat the name when she recognized him as the same nobleman she’d seen with the Haidren to Pilar, in another dark corridor weeks before. In the softer light of the snug alcove, his complexion was wanner than expected, lacking the warm radiance attributed to Unitarian blood.

“You will never touch another lady in this palace again,” she instructed, pushing the radial through the outer layers of costly material around his waist.

“That y’siti mutt is no more a lady than you are, dirty highlander witch.” Ambrose sneered as Luscia realized he was referring to the young woman crying on the floor, not the snarling beast at her heels.

“Mark my Boreali witch-tongue, Ambrose. If you touch one of them again, I will gladly spill your entrails and serve you at a Mworran feast.” Luscia dropped her left radial from his navel and slid it below his belt. Ambrose shuddered as a bead of sweat dripped from his walnut waves and past his protruding brow. “Or…I might just serve them another local delicacy.”

Felix Ambrose stared at Luscia, locking on her Tiergan eye, and twitched in a manner she took for a nod. Backing away, she shielded the maid and ordered Aksel to let the yancy pass.

Stopping under the archway, Ambrose paused and licked his lips. “You smell delicious when you’re angry, Lady al’Haidren.”

Luscia stomach roiled as she took a deep breath and instantly regretted it. “And you smell like carrion. Leave us!” Aksel snapped at his ankles, yipping as he urged the noble further down the hall.

“M-my l-lady.” A familiar, delicate hand touched Luscia’s leg.

“Mila!” Luscia fell to the marble to aid her lady’s maid. “Meh fyreon, I didn’t even realize it was you!” Her hands went to assess the state of the girl, but slowed, remembering it was best not to touch right away. “Are you injured? Can you walk?”

Shakily, Mila guided herself upright and wrapped her arms around her chest, shaking her head. “He…you were in time, my lady.”

A blossom of indigo was already spreading across Mila’s jaw.

“Not soon enough,” Luscia remarked angrily. “Come with me. I’m getting you out of this place.”

Removing her outer sparring tunic, she wrapped the garment around her young friend and guided her to the safety of the Boreali suites.