Eona - Alison Goodman [94]
“That was Ido?” Dela whispered.
Momo nodded. “When he was seventeen. I turned my back on him,” she said. “Never make that mistake, Lady Eona. He will strike as fast as a scorpion and with just as much venom.”
“Why did he do it?” I asked.
“Because he could,” Momo said. “It is his nature.”
Yet she had not seen the remorse that shook Ido’s body after I had healed him, nor witnessed the terrible pain he had suffered to hold back the ten dragons from tearing me apart. Surely it was possible his nature had changed. Why else would he put himself in such danger?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TWELVE GIRLS; AN auspicious number. As we gathered at the Gate of Good Service, I scanned the faces around me in the twilight. Some of the women were tense—no doubt the three bodies in the canal were playing on their minds—while others had the glazed eyes of dragon chasers, the drug loosening their minds as well as their bodies. Momo had told us to stay well away from those girls; they had no sense of their own safety or anyone else’s, she’d said. The warmth of the day still held, and the smell of sweat was barely masked by the clash of perfumes on the bodies around me. We were corralled between the men who were our “protectors” and the soldiers who manned the gate. I shifted my sweaty grip on the neck of my lute and leaned over to Vida. She was standing, feet apart, arms crossed.
“You look like you are on guard duty,” I whispered.
She unwound her arms and pressed her hands together. “What is the delay?”
A woman sidled up to us. “I didn’t know there was going to be a Peony,” she said loudly, directing the attention of all the other women to me. She was dressed in a gown similar to Vida’s, although considerably more skin showed, and when she smiled, I saw her teeth had been dyed black, the custom marking her as a married woman from the far southeast coast. How had she got so far from her home and husband? “We’ll have music,” she added. “We can dance.”
“What? Are you trying to be an Orchid?” another Safflower scoffed.
The two women began a soft exchange of insults, pulling the focus of the others away from me. I looked back at Yuso; the stern commander I knew was hidden beneath a ratty beard and worn clothes and a slouch. He yawned, affecting boredom, but his eyes met mine in swift reassurance. Dela stood beside him, absently scratching the stubble on her face. She hawked and spat.
I rocked forward on my toes and watched two of the gate soldiers search a dragon chaser. The girl giggled and draped herself against them until they finally pushed her face-first and limp against the raw boards of the new gate. Only twelve days ago, Ryko and I had followed a battering ram through that gate, fighting our way into the courtyard on the back of a horse. I shivered, remembering our beast trampling a soldier, the man’s chest caving under its hooves. Was Ryko also remembering that same desperate night? His face held only impatience as he lounged beside a Trang Dein man, the two of them a wall of islander muscle.
“Little Sister Peony, please give me your lute.” I jumped as a very young, pock-marked soldier held out his hand. The oldfashioned courtesy matched his shy smile. “I will be careful with it.”
I passed him the instrument. He gently shook it and peered into the exquisitely carved sound holes, then handed it back.
“I am sorry, Little Sister, but I will have to search you.” The pits on his face stood out white against the vivid scarlet of his blush. “Orders.”
I bit the inside of my cheek as I felt his hesitant hands pat my chest and waist, then around my hips. Beside me, Vida was getting the same treatment from another guard, but with far less deference.
My young soldier ducked his head. “You can go in now.”
I tried a Peony smile—slow and mysterious, as Moon Orchid had taught me—and saw him flush again.
Vida fell in beside me, and we walked through the gate into the courtyard that ran alongside the huge kitchens. I circled my hand around my wrist and felt the shape of Kygo’s ring, hidden under the leather thong that was