Scared.
Rounding a corner, I step onto the stairwell’s bottom landing, chased by a parchment lark that flutters so close I’m surprised it doesn’t nudge at me to pluck it from the air.
As I twirl the thin iron ring on my middle finger, my gaze climbs the heavily armored guard blocking the gloomy tunnel ahead—arms crossed, his shaved head almost brushing the curved ceiling, a flock of parchment larks nuzzling the door at his back. He’s twice my size, boasting a scowl that appears to have permanently dented his face.
His disapproving leer comes to rest on the nick sliced into my left ear, up near the tapered tip. Like somebody with a tiny mouth bit a chunk from the outer shell.
My clip.
“No token, no entry,” he grinds out, immediately dismissing me as a lesser. A null. Someone who doesn’t hear any of the four elemental songs.
I reach into my pocket, retrieving the stone token embossed on both sides with the prestigious club’s insignia—a maw of stalactites biting in from all angles. Forging the slightest tremble, I hand it over, feeling the male’s probing perusal cut me up and down as he flips the token, his blue armor clanking with the motion.
I’m curious to know why he lets the larks flock the door rather than allow them straight in, but Raeve is the outspoken one, and I’m not Raeve right now.
“I’m Kemori Daphidone,” I say, tone soft and submissive. “Traveling bard.”
“From where?”
“Orig.”
A wall settlement I’ve never been to, not that it’ll stop me from rattling on about it if he asks for specifics.
Preparation is my armor. Don it or die.
He inspects the token, handing it back with a gruff “No veils.”
I glance up at him from beneath a blaze of feather-tipped lashes. “Part of my act. I’m part of the scheduled entertainment.” I retrieve a roll of parchment from my pocket and nudge it toward him. “I was warned about the no veil rule, which is why I’ve only covered the bottom half of my face.”
Scowling, he unravels the scroll, his beady leer raking over my letter of hire so painfully slow I start to get a crick in my neck, impatience gnawing at me.
Finally, his eyes widen with recognition. “Oh, you’re the standin!”
I offer a shy, demure nod when all I really want to do is bang his head against the wall.
Hard.
He rerolls my scroll and hands it back, stepping aside to open the door. “Third level. Mind the waif. It’s always extra hungry this late in the aurora cycle.”
My shiver is far from fake.
I move into the Hungry Hollow’s warm, smoky embrace, attacked by a rush of dense musk and the undertow of sulfur, the door banging shut behind me and the flock of dispersing parchment larks. Through a dark tunnel, I emerge at the pinched mouth of a vast, lofty cavern the shape of a stony lung.
A swoop of steps leads me onto one of the many paths that web through a cluster of luminous springs, steam rising from their turquoise depths. Folk are draped against their steps, heads tipped while they languish in the lapping warmth. A pretty paradise for those who wield enough power or political sway to keep themselves on the cushioned side of The Crown.
I huff out a bitter laugh.
Here, it’s easy to pretend our colorful kingdom isn’t nesting on a bed of bones.
A freestanding staircase leads to the second floor supported by mossy pillars. I head for it, weaving along the labyrinth of paths when a waft of steam congeals into a pale, lanky creature with eyes like ebony jewels.
“Shit,” I mutter, pausing.
Head swiveling unnaturally, the waif looks right at me, sniffs the air, then releases a gluttonous gasp. “Well, well, well … isn’t your soul a plump, juicy thing?”
Ahh.
“How kind of you to say. I’ll just be on my wa—”
“There are screaming spirits desperate to speak with you. How about a small suckle of your soul?” the creature asks, and I swear it sounds like it’s salivating. “Then you can hear everything they have to say.”
No fucking thank you.
“I’ll pass.”
Heartily.
Seeming to ignore my objection, it flits forward, gathering wafts of steam it uses to stretch in my direction, vaporous fingers reaching.
I spin on my heel and hurry down another path, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. Looking over my shoulder, I spot the creature, now hunched over a male lazing against a spring’s edge, sucking something shadowed from between his parted lips.
A shiver nettles my skin.
I quietly thank the Creators that waifs are rare, haunting only drapes of mist where they nibble souls in exchange for messages from obliging dead.
Can’t think of anything worse. I’m certain the spirits so desperate to speak with me have nothing nice to say.
Not that I can blame them.
Thankfully, the creepy soul-nibblers are easily distracted.
I dash up a staircase, rising well above the reaching fingers of steam. The sounds of laughter and clinking glasses come to me as I emerge onto the second level scattered with Skripi tables.
Folk are gathered about, puffing smoke sticks, drinking sparkly spirits, game shards fanned close to their chests. Dice scatter, piles of dragon bloodstone shoved from hand to hand.
I cast my furtive gaze over their attire, some garbed in colorful, gem-encrusted gowns. Others wear finely tailored coats, feathered shapes barbered into shorn hairstyles, elemental beads hanging from their lobes. A boastful token of their ability to hear the different elemental songs:
Red for Ignos.
Blue for Rayne.
Brown for Bulder.
Clear for Clode.
Beads aside, you can usually pick a high-ranking Fade elemental from the other side of a room: those who boast more than ten colors on a single outfit, as if it’ll make them mighty like the vibrant dragons that lord this kingdom’s skies.
The great Moltenmaws.
Funny, since they’d be the first to bleed the beasts if the bloodstone mine ever ran dry.
I’m halfway up a thin staircase chipped into the back wall when somebody tall, broad, and cloaked charges down from above.
I pause, unable to see much of his face bar his strong jaw brushed in a dark, well-shaped beard, his cloak’s hood casting everything else in shadow.
He doesn’t slow. Just keeps stalking down the stairs despite the fact that I’m dressed in a bold, bright-red gown impossible to miss.
I almost grit my teeth, remembering the metal cap coating my back molar just in time to avoid an impromptu activation of my secret weapon.
He barely fits on the staircase himself, meaning moving past each other is going to be a tight shuffle.
Lovely.
Typical elemental bullshit, only thinking about themselves.
Sighing, I curl my shoulders further forward and step to the side, reminding myself that I’m Kemori Daphidone, traveling bard from Orig. I’m trodden. Scared. And I’m absolutely not here to accidentally trip this male and watch him tumble down the stairs.
Absolutely not.
Back pressed to the wall, I keep my eyes down and wait for him to squeeze past, his heavy steps growing closer. So close I’m struck with a smoky musk pinched with the smell of freshly split stone, softened with notes of something buttery.
My breath catches, then shudders free, as if unwilling to part with the dense, luscious scent that might just be one of the best smells I’ve ever inhaled …
He steps to the side, edging past.
Pauses.
I’m caught in his shadow like a flame in the dark, my heart pumping hard and fast. Nudging up my throat with each lengthy second that ticks by.
Why isn’t he moving?
I sidestep farther up the stairs, edging free of his atmosphere. “Excuse me.”
Places to be, hands to sever.
A dense, grated sound crumbles out of him, like it wrestled loose.
The air shifts.
I shift with it.
Whipping around, I snatch his wrist with the speed of a lightning strike. Tension clogs the air, my gaze dropping to his large, heavily scarred hand—outstretched, paused midmotion, as if he were just about to grab my veil and rip it free.