Page 14 of Born for Silk
“You’re pretty.” The words are licks of warmth, and my knees buckle with each letter. “I bet the other girls despise you.”
Shit.
I glance quickly at the girls, at Iris and Lavender. “We have no jealousy, my king,” I lie. It’s one of our vows: no jealousy between Silk Girls.
Meaningful Purpose is what matters.
“Lies,” he purrs, and all the hairs on my neck rise. “Do you know what I do to people who despise me?” He lifts my chin with his thumb, a silent demand to answer him.
I shake my head. “No.”
“I give them more reasons to.”
Then his hands drop from my face, and disappointment hits my stomach as he strides away.
The press in my chest gives way when he disappears into the streets, closely tracked by two men who might well be his shadows. But I know they are his Guards. The Guard. One of them is Kong. His Guardian.
I have studied him. That is surely him. He is large, tanned-skin, and has long dark hair that he pulls away from his face and into a knot at the back of his head.
The quiet stretches to a low, frantic musing between the girls and the Silk Wardeness. “Did he come to see us?” “Perhaps, Ivy.” “To check on his property?” “Why would he be in the Lower-tower?” “Visiting Lord Bled, perhaps.” “I don’t know, girls. Quieten down.”
The questioning continues, and the tattoo man calls, “Next,” but I’m still staring at the door to the parlour.
Outside, the Redwind now swallows any sight or sound, but for the unmistakable screech from above, piercing and fierce, parting the atmosphere to warn us he is here.
His great eagle—Odio.
How I wish to see him. His wingspan must be larger than my outstretched arms to coast the deadly gale.
I exhale hard, finding plenty of room in my chest now that he isn’t close. He’s an enigma like his eagle, present but too high to ever reach.
Rome of the Strait,
The Cradle’s Monarch and Protector
Chapter Two
Aster
I wander down toward my favourite place.
It’s the setting of my earliest memory, from when I was too small to talk fluently, but too fast on my feet for the Silk Wardeness to keep me in her sights.
I had wandered off the pretty pebbled path and into the depths of the aviary, following a scent that I couldn’t quite place. Like mushrooms with floral notes. Wet, yet fresh.
I walked with flowers in my fist, birds rattling trees overhead, and ladders in my forever-ruined stockings, in a direction without supervision—with freedom.
That was when I saw it.
A body of water that boasted more colours than possible, a light reflecting yellows and oranges in an endless green abyss.
A pond.
It was the first one I had ever seen, and I couldn’t swim for the life of me, but I needed to touch it.
I knelt on the grass bedding by the bank and placed the flowers down on the greenery. I skimmed my fingertips across the moving colours along the water when an odd shape caught my eye.
Blinking at it, I reached across and plucked the strange thing up. It was a baby bird floating on the water. Belly up. Legs awkward. Feet curled over as though they were wilted petals.