The Alchemists of Loom (Loom Saga #1)(20)
Every muscle in his body held him frozen with tension. Arianna was challenging his dominance, trying to overwhelm him, to stay in control of the unorthodox relationship they were forming. She was under his skin. In her he suddenly saw Petra in the most wonderful and heartbreaking way. He loathed it. He loved it.
“Well, now that that’s settled…” Florence summoned both of their attentions once more, snapping them back to reality. She had an amused little glint to her eyes, as though they were more delightful than frightening to watch.
The woman eased away from him, and her magic with her. The powder kegs around them stacked taller, but for now remained dry and cool. Eventually, the only way out would be to forfeit everything they were and strike flint.
“Obviously I didn’t have a chance to go shopping, but I still have the dunca.”
“We have enough supplies here to get to Ter.5.2.,” Arianna muttered. She seemed to look anywhere but him for the first few seconds following their confrontation.
“We’re not going home, are we?” The girl seemed more intrigued than disappointed by the idea.
“Not until we’ve unsaddled ourselves from this one.” Arianna’s particular breed of tact had returned as she motioned rudely to him. “Speaking of…” She resumed rummaging through things, tossing rags in the shape of clothing his way. “You should change.”
“You don’t honestly expect me to wear this, do you?” He poked at the fabric with his toe as though the offending plain trousers were likely to attack him.
“We can’t have you strolling around like a giant blueberry,” Arianna drawled.
“My clothes are quite fashionable,” he defended before he could stop himself. No doubt he’d just given her extra ammunition to attack him with later.
“I fail to see how that—” Ari stole his inflection on the word as she raked him up and down with her eyes, “could be construed as fashionable by anyone in their right mind.”
The desire to rip out her throat was certainly more natural than whatever had been happening earlier.
“Come now, we don’t have all day.” She waved him on as though he were a lowly unranked. “We have a train to catch.”
Cvareh scooped up the clothes along with the remnants of his pride. He waited for them to avert their eyes. “Are you going to turn around?”
“Oh he’s modest,” Arianna quipped to Florence. “Who knew? I didn’t think anyone who could wear something so gaudy and revealing could have real modesty.”
He was right. She had used the knowledge of his love of fashion against him at the first opportunity. But the two women finally obliged.
“If you think you can attack me while my back is turned, I’ll—”
“I know, you’ll cut me,” he finished dryly.
Cvareh begrudgingly pulled the clothes from his frame, dressing instead in the dull rags that had been forced upon him. This was going to be a long trip to the Alchemists’ Guild hall. A very, very long trip.
7. Leona
Incense hung heavy in the air. Perfumed tendrils of smoke curled through beams of light like the tentacles of a hungry octopus. The windows were shades of blue, folded against splashes of gold and curves of iron. No two were alike. The stone arched over them like waves against a boat and cut each into a slightly different shape. Between them, mosaic was laid in abstract patches of color that had always reminded Leona of fish scales.
“Petra Xin’Oji To will arrive within the hour, Yveun Dono,” a little man reported from her side of a large, circular screen. Wood the same shade as the floor outlined it, a base mirrored at the top and bottom creating the imagery of a sun rising through the clouds.
“See her to the red room,” the Dragon King answered from the other side.
“Understood.” The man gave a low bow before walking briskly from the room.
Leona narrowed her eyes to slits at the man’s back, cautiously regarding him as he left. His skin was the standard jade of House Tam. They were loyal to the King—and generally smart enough not to challenge the fact. But she was always on alert when anyone was around her sovereign. It had been two decades since the last duel against the Yveun Dono, and she would see it to a third.
“Leona.” The King’s strong voice echoed across the space to her. Every time it formed her name, the muscles around Leona’s pointed ears tensed, ever so slightly.
“Yveun Dono?” She bowed at the waist, holding the low pose of respect as he rounded the screen.
“Ease, Leona.”
She stood straight at his command, retracting the claws that had been out on alert the entire time the man had been in her King’s presence.
“Have you any word from your sister?”
She shook her head, a long strand of hair that extended past her bound breast clinking softly as the beads shifted.
“How many hours has it been?” The King walked over to the windows, near where she stood. Near enough that she could smell his skin as much as his magic. Near enough that he could strike her if he so chose.
“Since the theft it has been six, Dono.” Leona stripped all emotion from her voice. She would betray no favoritism, no concern. She had been trained better. She had fought and killed and clawed her way up for twenty of her forty-six years to be the King’s personal guard, and she would not let anything separate her from her lord for the remaining eighty her life should hold.