Fairy Queens: Books 5-7 Read online

  “Remember what we spoke about, Cinder,” Zura called to her.

  Once in the hallway, Cinder took the lead, steering Darsam to the only empty room in the clannish sector. She wasn’t surprised to find it had been freshened up for her. It had false plaster walls, and beams of wood covering a false ceiling, as if she was some sort of exotic bird and this was her cage. Cinder hated it immediately.

  She counted to ten, watching as Darsam gently set the gold box on the table. He was back to being quiet and gentle again. “What do you want from me?” she whispered softly so the walls wouldn’t hear.

  In answer, he stood close and pressed something into her grasp. She opened her fingers enough to catch a glimpse of the object—the ruby earring! Cinder quickly closed her fist again, relief coursing through her. “I’ll find a way to take care of this.”

  “No,” he said in a low whisper. “That’s not what I meant.” He took the ruby earring from Cinder and slipped it into his pocket. Then he stepped closer still, so close there was only the barest slip of air between them. “I promised I would help you. I’ve paid for your first few nights.”

  “How is that helping me?” Cinder asked through gritted teeth.

  Darsam shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Because I won’t take anything from you.” He cradled her cheek in his hand. “Except maybe a kiss. Because I know as well as you do that she is watching us right now.”

  Did he really mean it? Would he truly grant Cinder this reprieve? She glanced at the walls, certain Zura was watching. Then Cinder tipped forward and kissed Darsam. It was her first real kiss. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she’d seen enough in the House of Night to figure out the basics.

  His mouth was soft and sweet, his arms pulling her close. She could feel the hard planes of his body against hers, the stubble of his face scratching at her chin. He released her long enough to blow out the lamps and close the drapes, immersing them in darkness. And then his arms were around her again.

  “If she’s looking for a show, we have to give it to her,” Darsam said quietly. “But I swear I won’t take advantage of you.”

  Cinder began to tremble, the fear coming out of her in little sobs.

  “Fire and burning, Cinder, I promise I’m not going to hurt you.” He led her to the bed and pulled her under the silken sheets, then wrapped his strong arms around her and held her tight.

  “I wish I could believe you,” she said in a shaky voice.

  “Then let me prove it,” Darsam replied.

  Cinder curled into a ball and cried silently, her body shuddering with the pain of losing all her of dreams, knowing Darsam couldn’t shield her from her fate forever.

  Cinder lay in the bed beside Darsam, with his arms wrapped around her, his breath tickling the back of her neck. She counted four seconds for each inhalation and exhalation, steady and even. His arm felt heavy on her side. She hadn’t meant to sleep, but she had—deeply and uninterrupted for the first time in days. From the bright light seeping through the drapes, she knew it was morning. She felt lighter somehow. She wasn’t free, but her burden didn’t seem as heavy as before.

  Still wearing the red gown she’d made, she eased from the bed, wincing as the dress tinkled and rustled. Once in the privy, she struggled with the six clasps. She let out a breath of relief when the gown released her. Cinder dropped it to the floor and kicked it into the corner, swearing she’d never wear it again. Then she looked down at her body and traced the lines left by the fitted fabric. Sighing, she pulled on a fine robe and trousers. She tiptoed into the anteroom. She hadn’t taken the time to inspect it, but it wasn’t so different from her mother’s and grandmother’s rooms.

  Cinder went to the cabinet and opened the drawers, but she couldn’t seem to find the pack of wedlock weed. She wasn’t even sure why she was looking—it wasn’t as if she needed it yet. But that was always the first thing her mother had done whenever she had a patron in her bedroom.

  The door slipped open behind Cinder, and she turned to see her grandmother carrying a tray of food. Storm took one look at her, set the tray down, dipped the corner of her apron in a bowl of warm water in the washroom, and hurried over. She wiped under her granddaughter’s eyes—Cinder had forgotten about the makeup. “There are things no one can ever take from you,” Cinder’s grandmother told her firmly. “Memories and emotions are yours, and yours alone. Return to them when you have nowhere else to go.”

  Cinder gave a tremulous smile. “He was kind to me.” She dare not tell Storm anything more, in case Zura or one of her spies was listening.

  “If he wasn’t, I would kill him,” Storm growled. “Not like I have many more years in this world anyway. Might as well use the last of them up all at once.”

  Panic flooded Cinder’s chest “Grandmother, you can’t say such things.”

  Storm cast the walls a challenging smile. “Let her come for me. Let her do her worst.” Cinder grabbed her arm, her eyes begging her grandmother to be careful.

  “Well then, clean yourself up before you wake him. We’re always supposed to be beautiful, after all,” her grandmother said bitterly.

  Cinder went back to the makeup table and cleaned her face. She counted the strokes as she combed through her hair with a beautiful silver comb, while Storm arranged the food—fruit, and flatbread topped with goat cheese and preserves—on the small table.

  “Naiba?” Cinder choked on the name.

  “She spent the night with us in the servants’ house and rose to clean and bring around the trays. As far as I can tell, she’ll be taking your place.”

  “And I’ll be taking hers.” Cinder closed her eyes as the reality of her new life tore through her. “I’m not sorry, though.”

  “You will be,” Storm replied, her voice cracking. “Valor only holds you up so long.”

  Cinder winced. “Why would you say that to me?”

  Grimacing, Storm leaned against the table. “I made the brave choice once, the selfless choice. My brother, my people—they all survived because of it. But none of them ever came for me. Now my daughter and granddaughter are paying for my selflessness.” She met Cinder’s gaze. “No more. Do you understand? You will not suffer anymore because of my decisions.”

  Breathing hard, Cinder stared at the walls. “Please stop. You’ll be punished.” Seeing the mulish look her on grandmother’s face, Cinder knew she wouldn’t. She rooted around for something to distract Storm. “What about the wedlock weed? I can’t find any.”

  Storm wouldn’t look at her. Cinder suddenly realized she didn’t need to hear the answer. She already knew. “Zura wants me to get pregnant,” she gasped. The child of a lord’s son would have value in and of itself. “So soon?”

  “You’ll still be able to perform up to delivery and then a couple days after. Having a baby will only put you out of bedroom work for three, maybe four months. And only for a select number of clients. Many won’t care.”

  Cinder curled her arms protectively around her stomach, tears building in her eyes. “And if I don’t get pregnant?”

  “If you behave, she’ll probably wait until the right patron comes along.”

  If she behaved. Zura used the children of her companions to keep them in line. Tears slipped from Cinder’s eyes as fast as she could wipe them. She determined to find a way into the city to secure her own supply of wedlock weed.

  The door behind them flew open. Farush and Farood marched inside and took hold of Storm’s arms. Obviously, a spy had reported her. As they dragged her out, she held her up head defiantly, but she didn’t fight them.

  Zura stood in the doorway, giving Cinder a you’d-better-behave look. Then the mistress left the room and shut the door. Knowing her grandmother would be viciously caned, Cinder counted doubles to distract herself. When she heard sounds coming from the other room, she steeled herself and went into the bedroom. Darsam was pulling on his boots.

  “There is breakfast,” she said.

  “So, numbers . . . that’s h
ow you deal with things?”

  Cinder winced; she hadn’t realized she’d been doing doubles out loud. She felt ashamed. “Numbers never lie. They are . . . always the same. Always right.”

  Darsam nodded. “You don’t belong in a brothel, Cinder. You belong in a university.”

  “Zura wants me to get pregnant with your child,” she whispered.

  He froze in the act of tugging on his vest. “Good thing that won’t be a possibility.” He followed Cinder into the anteroom, then bent down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ve paid enough money to have you to myself for two days. Before that is over, I’ll get you out of here. I swear it.”

  Ash’s bedroom smelled like a mixture of medicine and makeup as Cinder entered with a tray bearing a bowl of warm water infused with witch hazel. Her grandmother lay on the bed. Her mother sat before the makeup dresser.

  “We need to do your makeup,” Ash reminded Cinder softly.

  Cinder nodded as she set down the tray and replaced the dried-out rags on her grandmother’s back with fresh ones. She counted the welts again. Fifty of them. She handed her grandmother a cup of willow-bark-and-arnica tea. Storm quickly drank the bitter concoction and then collapsed back against the bed. “Did you manage to get anything stronger?”

  Cinder placed the bowl of witch hazel on the nightstand so her grandmother could reach it. “No. Zura has everything locked down tight.”

  Her grandmother gestured to her robes. “Will you please get Holla’s carving?”

  Cinder pulled out the simple carving, which was dark brown from being touched for so many years. It was a beaver, something Cinder had never seen in real life, cut perfectly in half. Holla had carried it with her everywhere. Cinder remembered the story—how Storm and Holla’s brother, Otec, had carved it for her aunt. Holla had taken it with her from the clanlands when she was kidnapped. Taunting her slurred speech, one of her captors had cut the carving in half.

  Holla had left the other piece, certain her brother would find it. Then they would both have a piece.

  “Do you think he ever found it—the other half of the carving?” Cinder asked.

  Storm tucked the little carving into the palm of her hand. “I don’t know.” Her gaze was distant. “Otec had a chance to save us. He had chased us halfway across the clanlands. But he had to make a choice—save the captives or save the clanlands. Trying to be brave, I told him to save the clanlands. He listened to me. Why did he listen to me?”

  Storm broke down in sobs. Cinder had rarely seen her grandmother cry. “I would tell him that I will never forgive him,” Storm said, answering her own question. “That he should have built an army himself and come to free us. But he never did. He left us here to rot.”

  Cinder felt her mother’s hand on her shoulders. “Come, we’ll get ready in your rooms.”

  Knowing how much her grandmother hated for anyone to see her cry, Cinder squeezed her grandmother’s hand and followed her mother into her rooms.

  Ash scooted over so Cinder could sit by her on the bench. Her mother taught her how to apply the makeup. Before they finished, Zura made the rounds with the jewelry. Magian chose a sapphire headdress and bangles that attached to a ring by a slim chain to go with Cinder’s royal-blue dress, which lacked the faceted glass of the last dress, though it was made after the same fashion. She wore the gold sandals she’d made, covered in sparkling bits of cut glass.

  Then it was time to perform the dances. On the stage with the other eleven clannish women, under the golden lights of the lamps, Cinder felt her anger rising. She didn’t want to be here, on display for these men. Then her gaze caught on Darsam’s face. He gave her a solemn nod and she realized maybe she could dance for him.

  So she danced with the other companions, counting out the beats of the music. It was an Idaran dance, with movement in the wrists, hips, and shoulders. It was playful and light, meant to wash the men’s cares away. When Cinder finished, she and Darsam went back to her small dining room. He settled on the large cushions while she brought them a tray filled with all the foods she’d always longed to try, but never been allowed to. They ate for a time, while he told her about his day—mindless things to bore anyone who might be listening.

  When Cinder had eaten until she thought her stomach might burst, Darsam leaned in and asked. “Is there somewhere safe to talk?”

  He followed her to her pivot door, and they slipped outside. She led him to Holla’s flowers, where she knelt carefully and began to pull at the weeds that had managed to spring up. “My aunt is buried here. Her name was Holla. She came over with my grandmother from the clanlands. She was the one who raised me. She never learned to speak Idaran very well. But she could clean and she worked hard.” Here, with the moonlight and the smell of the soil all around her, Cinder almost felt like her aunt might be here, watching over them.

  “How did she die?”

  Cinder sighed. “In her sleep. She was . . . different. Things that are easy for other people were hard for her, but that just meant she worked harder than anyone else I knew. Some things that were hard for other people were easy for her—things like happiness and kindness.”

  Darsam knelt beside Cinder. “Is it safe to talk here?”

  “We never know. That’s one of the things that gives Zura so much power.”

  Cinder tipped her head to the side and touched his thick hair. “I’ve never known men who didn’t shave their scalps.” His hair was thick and soft, with a slight wave. Then she touched his clean-shaven cheek and gave a little smile. “And you shave your face."

  “Clanmen shave neither.”

  She studied him. “Which Darsam is the real one—the cocky spoiled son of the lord, or the gentle, quiet man?”

  “Don’t you know?” he said sadly.

  Whenever he was on display, he was loud and cocky. But with her . . . “I don’t think I like the Darsam who cares more about his chariot team and his reputation.”

  “What about the one you see right now?”

  She pressed her hand over his heart, which thrummed steadily beneath her hand. “That man, I think I could respect.” It was the most she could give.

  Darsam reached out to run his fingers down her hair and then along her cheek. “Skin is skin,” he murmured. He placed his hand over hers, which still rested on his chest. “Your heart beats the same as mine.”

  Cinder looked into his eyes, wondering what he was trying to tell her.

  “If we’re so much alike, why am I a lord’s son and you a slave?”

  “Because the law says so,” she replied.

  “My father is trying to change that law. Has been for years. We’ve managed to put most of the slavers and brothels out of business. Zura is one of the last holding out, but she’s badly in debt to Jatar. The little game she played last night was her last-ditch attempt to get out of it.”

  Cinder had suspected as much. She looked into Darsam’s eyes. “And you . . . you help your father?”

  “While we wait for his legal maneuvers to pay off, my men and I get as many people out as we can in . . . less legal ways. I play the cad, when I’m really gathering information to help shut down a brothel. If everything is perfectly legal, my tribesmen and I smuggle as many girls out as we can. The ones who don’t have a home to return to we find a place in the Adrack.”

  “And Zura is perfectly legal,” Cinder guessed.

  “I broke into her records during the night,” Darsam said. Cinder hadn’t known that—hadn’t even known he had left her. “She’s meticulous to a fault,” he continued.

  “What does all this have to do with Jatar? What do I have to do with Jatar?”

  For a moment, Darsam looked tired. “We don’t know that yet. We’ve been following Jatar and Durux for months, hoping to catch one of them breaking a law so we could send them to a prison mine and shut their businesses down. Therefore, we took note when Durux started following you—I took note. I watched you, Cinder, moving from one business to the next, day after day, w
eek after week. I’d never seen such dogged determination.

  “So when one of my spies overheard Durux plotting to kill you, I rushed to the glass-maker’s shop to make sure you were safe.” Darsam gave a bitter laugh. “Imagine my surprise when Sadira pushed you in front of my own chariot.”

  Durux had hired Sadira to try to kill Cinder? But why? How would her death benefit the smuggler? Cinder could feel Darsam’s heart pounding beneath her palm. “You knew me before I ever met you,” she said.

  He smiled. “I had to play the spoiled lord’s son when I wanted nothing more than to haul you into my chariot and take you to safety. I should have—fire and burning, I should have. But Durux was sending me a message. He knew we were watching him. And somehow he knew I was interested in you.”

  Cinder’s mind snagged on one word. “Interested?”

  Darsam reached out to touch her hair. “Silver and gold—that’s the first thing I thought of when I saw you. So smart. So determined. I wanted to know you.”

  “If you’re so keen to help me, to know me, why take the earring from my mother?”

  “Too many women back out at the last minute if they don’t have something at stake. It weeds out the ones who aren’t determined. Running a smuggling operation is expensive. I already squandered my inheritance. But there are still people to pay off, supplies to purchase, men who have to eat and need a place to sleep. None of it can be linked back to my father.”

  Cinder rose to her feet and circled the garden. There were tall trees and benches and dozens and dozens of flowers and bushes of vibrant colors, all of them come to life since the rains the night before. She paused beside each one, trailing her fingers along the soft petals.

  “This is Havesh’s flower.” Cinder crossed the paving stones and stood before another flower. “This is Marva’s.” She continued on, pointing out each plant and naming the woman beneath it.

  “Where’s yours?” Darsam asked, clearly not understanding.

  “I don’t have one yet,” Cinder whispered.