“Believe me when I say this, after the story I’m about to tell you, you will never forget Captain Neenah LeFleur…”
“Where the void you been?” asked the fat bartender, Olaf, as Ashe leaned upon the bartop, forcing her from hearing what story Neenah was about to unleash on her new mark.
Truth told, Ashe should’ve been there hours ago, but she took her time, for she was in no mood to get a stern talking to for her hasty act back at the villa. Olaf’s aura was a cacophony of shaded hues. Greed, anger, annoyance.
TheColosseum was one of the second sector’s larger taverns. It was a squat building with only two floors and was built of timber with a gloss of faded paint. An ever-present scent of sweat and drunkenness permeated through the termite-ridden arches holding up the trussed ceiling. Candles burned in dented sconces upon the walls, though the dim urine-yellow glow from aethecite-powered lamps shone down from the patchy ceiling above.
Olaf was as round as he was tall, but he was a good, honest man, especially loyal to Elian, who ran The Colosseum and the Slag’s End gang. Though quick with a temper, Olaf kept the tavern in adequate condition. “He ain’t happy you’re late, girl.”
“Got hung up by all the bombings.” It had taken her half the nightturn and most of the morn to make her way back to The Colosseum.
“Nasty business, that. This Gutter King’s gon’ bring us all to ruination.”
“Still gossiping like an old hen, Olaf?” Ashe slid a quadran across the bartop and Olaf slung her a perspiring goblet of mead. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of honey. “Whiskey.”
“No can do, girl,” the hefty barkeep said with a grin. “Elian’s word. Mead only.”
“I swear to the Pentax, the bombs held me back.”
“Tell him, not me. And don’t you be takin’ Their names in vain.”
Don’t tempt me, Ashe thought as she took a seat in a nearby booth. A long cloak of brocaded silver on onyx shrouded her shoulders, the hood thrown back, leaving her raven-black hair free. A simple tunic, she wore, with a simple pant. Miner’s clothes. The stola stained with blood long since removed and tossed, her current outfit stolen from a clothesline.
O Zenith she was angry. Angry at Evander. Angry at the vicars. Angry at not one, but two strangers following her, one a proper bitty in Solanine and the other a drakken. Angry that some random gold and gemstone contraption happened to fasten to her wrist and refused to come off but clearly possessing some sort of aetheric connection. Just angry.
She couldn’t view her own aura, but if she could, she knew it would be blazing ruby like a thousand firedrakes shooting their flamesacs into the sky at once.
Her fingers vigorously drummed atop the tabletop as she witnessed the tragedy of a Neenah LeFleur con. The man had no clue what was happening. After a while, she grew bored. The sound of a sporting match played on the aerescreen over the bar, and a few patrons roared as one team scored. A pair of goblins were throwing knives and guzzling ale like their lives depended on it.
Vicars in Drenth should’ve put her over the edge, but the fact that Solanine and the shadow showed up in the Meadows was the froth on the ale. The surprise of it all, the laughter, the blinding light. Then appearing in the flesh at the exact moment of her flight. Both occurrences were not coincidence. But how? Same with that cloaked drakken. That draconem of the lesser order knew her, knew where she’d be, where to find her. A drakken, a void aetheurgist, and vicars were ingredients for a slag-tasting bread.
Yet, above it all, it was the word Solanine had called her: Godsblood. A wrinkle in her memories made her think she should know it. To whom she was.
And it angered her all the more to be left in the dark still.
“Need anything, beautiful?” a syrupy voice asked, snapping Ashe’s wandering thoughts.
Ashe found a nymph-faced woman smiling shyly at her, a tray of empty mugs held in a dainty hand. Exposure between the folds of a simple pleb tunic of muted browns left little to the imagination of Mother Marrow’s gifts underneath.
It was Wren.
The mist smiled with Ashe as it ran up and down her body in waves of need. “Maybe.”
Wren tittered as her soft skin flushed in the flickers of the smokeless lights above them. Her ambience was a bright, lustful red. An inferno grew within Ashe now, the mist raged against her. But not in warning, O no, this was different. This was carnal.
Begging. Pleading. Wanting with a lust that had only demanded blood half a day’s turn ago. Flesh touching flesh. Body heat against body heat. Fruitless passion ignited within her loins like never before. A ferocity that had never been borne within her.
Wren set the tray down upon the table, lightly gripping with porcelain fingers, leaning forward so that the folds of her tunic parted to reveal more of her flesh. “And what would that be?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, little bird?”
The thief-girl grinned, breathing heavily, hinting. Aura fulgurating. “You tease me.”
Inner desire burned within Ashe; the mist curled about her legs with want. Her gaze slowly moved up the valley of collarbone to the graceful neck. Up to puckered lips of pink that were slightly open, tongue pressed against pearl, pupils dilated.
O Zenith, how Ashe wanted Wren. Wanted every inch of her body pressed against her own. Fingers roaming as they would, touching everywhere, releasing the pleasures waiting to be explored.
She leaned closer, her own heart beating furiously. Her desire was too much to hold back. “Not anymore.”
Wren licked her lips.
“Yes!” One of the patrons watching the sporting match slammed the bartop, his exclamation battered down the tension-filled moment between her and Wren. “I’ll drink to that. Girl! More wine.”
The nymph’s mouth hung open. “You lazy bastard, Olaf. Can’t you see I’m busy? You fucking help them!” Wren bellowed, but not without giving Ashe a knowing smile. ‘Later,’ the smile said.
“Zenith’s cock,” Ashe coughed into the hem of the stolen cloak. Copper on her tongue.
It had never been that strong before, the passion, the urge to toss. Or to kill. The same that had washed over her while she stood above the murdered servant in the Guilder’s villa. A threshold to her childhood forever broken. The innocence of her old life gone in a blink. Ever since her first blood had the desire grown. Desire of Life and of sex. Desire of Death and of the void after. Always begging her for designs of the flesh.
Never had it been this strong, though. Never had she wanted to cross that bridge so succinctly with another person.
Life and Death.
Wren had always been a game to her. Always a flirt or a wink of intent, yet she’d not crossed that invisible bridge she couldn’t uncross. No, she’d held herself in check around the young woman whose name meant ‘little bird.’
Until now.
Up until the moment she’d stuck her blade into that man’s flesh back in Prien Soabin’s study, she’d been able to control the urge. Her willpower had always beaten back the growing dissent, cordoning off the baser part of her nature. Her taskmaster had once told her that the pull of aether sought out the vulgar needs of man, and that she must guard herself against it. Seduction by the power of aether could drown a soul.
