Liana raises an eyebrow. “Do you like it?”
I blink. “Yes. It just feels… strange.”
She smiles. “The Fuegorra in your chest is giving you a sensitivity to the stones. It’s a good thing.”
I don’t respond, still flicking my fingers together at the odd, tingly sensation. When both of the women step away from me, I look in the mirror once more.
The person staring back at me is a stranger.
“Are you ready to go?” Arlet asks.
My heart starts to gallop in my chest, and I take a deep breath to steady it. “Yes.”
“You skipped going yesterday, so you both need to visit the Ardorflame temple before the feast,” Liana says. “You’ll feel better after, Estela,” she urges.
I groan. “It was a mistake to let you help,” I mutter.
Liana smiles as she opens the door. “I will see you soon.”
Arlet leads me down the endless steps and past the mushroom garden. We don’t speak much. In fact, she is busy smiling at every Enduar we come across, much to my horror. I shrink back, staring at the hammers and knives hanging from their decoratively bejeweled belts.None of them are quite as friendly as she is, but they all seem pleased to see us.
Liana is one thing, but these Enduares are too big, too sharp around the edges to be comfortable.
The palace walls fade away as Arlet and I move to the center section of the under mountain. Pulsing red veins glow across the temple, highlighted by the large blue crystal secured by ropes to the pillars outside the palace gate. Red, orange, and blue crystals of all kinds illuminate the impossibly high ceiling, and small orbs, ranging from the size of melons to flecks of dust, float in the air around me, combining with the gigantic mushrooms with glowing caps to provide soft light.
People are everywhere, carrying dishes and blankets to the same place we are headed. There is one Enduar with a few missing fingers and stern face—the one who had hung onto the king’s hip during the viewing—who looks at Arlet and scowls. She doesn’t try to say hello either, and I regard him with suspicion. She had mentioned that not everyone was friendly.
He’s gone quickly, and all the other passing Enduares smile at my friend. Then, they peer at me with guardedly curious expressions. It's as if they know that I am the only one not allowed to leave. I suppose that in a court as small as theirs, it would be a great source of gossip. The woman separated from her family, forced to stay behind. The one almost killed. The Butcher’s whore. The one who ran away.
I think of my vision of Mikal and push away all other thoughts. That is until we reach one of the large bridges crossing over one of the three crevasses separating the different sections of the city.
I peer over the side and see some traces of glowing rock far below, and my fear of heights takes full effect. All air is sucked from my lungs while I freeze. My breaths rush in and out of my body faster than ever, and it burns a familiar path down my esophagus.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “It’s this damn dress.”
Arlet is nothing but understanding as we move.
Was that the lava they used to kill thousands?Oh gods, what have I agreed to?
Arlet pats my hand and pulls me along. From the first step on the gilded stone, my heart is in my throat. One slow step at a time, we make it across.
I am presented with dozens of circular homes, all clustered together in a randomized matter. I blink as I look at the gears. Small machines move around each house, doing god knows what, and hammers or weapons are lined up outside, hanging from the walls—no doubt ready to be used for work the following day. There is a quotidian beauty in the architecture, and everything is advanced. Functional. It's both elevated and comfortable.
My hands and feet are still numb, and there’s a zinging sensation in my teeth. In no time, we are walking into a large pavilion with a proper feast lining all of the sides. My senses are assaulted by the loud, joyful atmosphere. Children are running around, men and women cooking and sharing meat, others sitting, some holding hands, and others...
Por los dioses.1
I look away quickly after spotting the couple kissing in the open. The Enduar has his hand up the Enduar woman's shirt, clearly palming her breast while they tease each other lips.
I make a disgusted sound. Arlet chuckles beside me, clearly amused by my reaction. I shoot her a dirty look, but she smirks and drags me towards a group of women who are laughing and chatting. “Peace, my friend. It’s not as if they would make love in the open. Their affections are more open."
For some reason, that makes my chest hurt. I’m still watching when the couple comes up for air because it forces me to think of the slaves and my contract with the king. The romanticism of whatever that couple feels was once as foreign and inconceivable to me as a body without scars. But there’s a magnetism to the king I’ve agreed to marry. For the first time… I’m starting to wonder about the molten liquid in my lower belly when he is near.
“Ready to keep going?” Arlet asks. “We need to go to the front of the pavilion to wait for the king.
I hum my response. Arlet smiles brightly, and I wonder what goes through her head while watching that. She comes from a relationship where her partner utterly rejected her.
Back in the Zlosa, most women were sent to the breeding pens at the age of twenty. The princes made sure I never went, but Arlet was assigned four times. The last time, they assumed she was pregnant she came back—with Daniel. Families were given their own dens for a period of time, and our whole little quarter celebrated the slave marriage ceremony. Jumping over a broom. After a few months, when it became clear there had never been a child, he cast her out. She begged him to take her back, pleaded. I dragged her to live with us.