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“Not the mate of one? How can you tell?”
“The Ka’lakka enters the pool first,” he says. The woman is in the foreground, already up to her thighs in the pool. “Look behind her. There’s the Ka’lakkori.”
A man stands at the edge of the pool behind her, but separate from the crowd in the background, whose faces are blurry gray blobs.
“Wait, I think there’s an inscription in the puddle!” I grab one of the fallen pieces of trim and use it as a squeegee. When I wipe the puddle, the algae clears away, sticking to the trim in yucky red lumps. The puddle thins, trickling into the tile groves.
“Careful, ti kori,” Mak warns.
“Can you read it?” I ask.
“Yannaka, third of her name, hailing from House Kavarikka…” He reads slowly, squinting at what I’ve revealed.
I shuffled to the right in my crouch, scraping more algae away. More loping calligraphy becomes visible as the water disperses.
“Matebonded to a great warrior named Immo, son of favored metalweaver—”
As I scoot back, a subtle crumbling sound perks my ears. I pause, bracing my palms on the wet tiles. Mak and I exchange one panicked stare for a second before the floor gives out under me. My back half plummets as Mak dives toward me. He grabs for me as I scrabble for the edge of the hole that opened up.
The wet algae gives me no chance of gripping down, and in a heartbeat, I’m dangling by nothing more than my gloved fingers squeezed tight in Mak’s hand.
I glance over my shoulder, making out nothing but darkness below.
“You’re slipping!” He’s gritting his teeth as I attempt to swing my other hand up to reach him on the edge.
My glove becomes the enemy, sliding off my sweaty palms.
“How far could it go?” I manage, as I watch him lose hold of me. His eyes say a million silent protests as he’s left clutching an empty glove. He cries out my name with painful desperation as I drop.
Thud.
My back slaps a hard floor. I didn’t fall far at all.
I blow out a breath, rubbing the back of my head where I’ll surely develop a huge lump.
“I’m alright!” I yell. “Don’t you dare jump down here!”
Quiet Kar’Kali curses and barely translatable prayers.
“You would command a king?” he asks, voice shaky.
I tap the comm device on my wrist to open a flashlight feature. It shines in my eye briefly before I direct it toward my surroundings. There’s scaffolding all around me, support structures intended to keep the floor above sturdy. But many of them have collapsed, leaving only a few stone columns bearing the brunt of the weight.
But something else catches me, so I wander into the hidden space.
“Move off the mosaic!” I call up to him. “If you fall through it, the art will be destroyed!”
“Francesca,” he barks, “Where do you think you’re going? This rutting picture is worth far less to me than your safety!”
I realize how lucky I was when I come to the edge of a massive pool. It’s an empty bowl that goes farther than my meager light can reveal. Had I fallen through anywhere over the deep recess, I might’ve broken a limb or worse. I capture a few images with the comm and rush back toward the shaft of light shed by the hole I fell through. Blue curls hang down as Mak cranes his neck to see me.
I smile up at him, enjoying the look of relief that passes over him when I come into view.
“It seems like this whole room used to be more indoor pools,” I tell him. “And this floor was added later for the library.”
“Do you live to torture me?” he sighs.
“You signed a contract,” I say with a grin, batting my lashes innocently. “You’re stuck with me.”
