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She didn’t move from her perch on the counter, instead she shook herself closer, eyes practically begging as she leaned in.
“You sure about that, dear?” Any more shaking and her breast would fall in my hand.
“I’m sure.” I lifted the glass, looking at her through the waves of my hair that were falling around my face. “You can bring me another of these, however.”
I had no interest in consuming any more of the stuff, but I would happily down a whole bottle if it meant she would peel herself off the bar top.
It wasn’t that Mylly wasn’t a fine woman. I had lain with Jayse and others enough to know how to pleasure a woman, and to make a woman of any size squeal in delight. I simply wasn’t there for that; I was there for business.
Which I had told her many times before.
Mylly gave me a look that said she hadn’t truly forgotten the last few times I had told her that, her eyes a momentary flash of anger before she sidled away to where the bottle of fire sludge was kept. As she reached it, the door to the side of the bar swung open, a lanky man with an eye patch and scar to match was looking around the old tavern to each of the seven occupants. We were all waiting our turn to go in the back, and besides a traveling couple who were clearly regretting their choice of tavern for a meal on their journey, that was all who filled the darkened space.
The ‘Sea Dollar’ was a common stop for those like me, not so much for those with good intentions. If the female in the young couple didn’t seem so affronted I would wonder if they were there for the same reason as the rest of us.
The man with the patch, Jarrurd, looked right at me and Mylly put down the bottle with a sigh, already moving to the next customer who was also flinching and gasping as he tried to down the house mead.
“Next time Mylly,” I said, clutching the now furiously aromatic satchel as I passed her and her scowl.
“We all know that ain’t true, Caspyn. There won’t be a next time.” She was harsher than I expected, the growl more of a bark as I followed Jarrurd into the back and down the long damp hall that I had journeyed down a hundred times by now.
There were few lanterns on the older Qits, the worry being that the waves would knock one over and send the whole place into an inferno. I doubt that it would happen with the wet that was everywhere, but with how this inn swung and bobbed on the waves it may not have been worth the risk. The shadowed void of The Sway had looked terrifying the first time I had been there, only days after turning seventeen.
My boots squelched on the water that had seeped in from the waves, the walls and doors stained with salt and weathered by the incessant water that was everywhere in this place.
The tavern rocked as the tide came in, sending everything creaking and water pouring in through the walls. The old building was attached to one of the first Qits, the floating city placed on the wrong side of the bay and now known only as The Sway. The old place was built too close to the breaking waves and while it didn’t rock as much as the waves that lashed against its side, thanks to the weights that held it down, it still moved enough that it was mostly abandoned.
It was only the low lives that haunt the underbelly of Okivo that remained there now.
An odd place to sell a head that the queen had commissioned to be killed, but not many were willing to deal with the vile things. Their blood was poison, or so many believed. That among all of the other superstitions, like looking in their eyes will bring nothing but curses to your family, or that touching their skin would bring the scourge.
It was all nonsense.
“Happy hunting?” Jarrurd asked with a voice like gravel on stone as we reached the last door in the long hallway.
“Always,” I growled back, tightening my grip on the bag, while making sure to keep my other hand near the gilded pommel of my blade.
It didn’t matter how many times I had been there, with people like these there was no telling when they would turn on you.
Or when I would turn on them.
The tavern gave a heave to the side, more water pouring over the floor and down one wall. Even with the Qit legs I had been born with I was nearly thrown into the side, into the wet that lined every surface of this place.
“Good. You have two or three for me today?” Jarrurd turned, blocking my way from the door that I knew Yersua was behind.
“One.” I didn’t miss the quirk of a smile on Jarrurd’s face. I usually brought more.
Before he could comment on it, I slammed the foul bag against his chest, his nose curling as the aroma hit him.
Warning pulled at my magic that was boiling under the surface, but I kept it and my eye color carefully contained. No one knew about my magic.
Well, not anyone alive.
Jarrurd was still recoiling from the smell as he opened the door to a space as dark and damp as the rest. Hinges creaked and water sloshed as I entered, the slam of the door as Jarrurd closed it more of a wet slosh than a bang. It might have been ominous if I hadn’t been there before, if the desk that sat in the middle of the room and the burly man behind it wasn’t familiar.
He didn’t even move as I stomped through the water toward him. He sat back in his chair, a lit cigar damp and sagging between chapped lips as he rocked with the waves so that he always stayed upright.
“Well, if it isn’t the fabled Wanderer!” Yersua growled, the usual grind of his voice far too jovial. It sliced through me, the warning perking my senses. The story had reached him, but which parts? The wrong parts could get me killed, especially with him. I grit my teeth, pulling my magic up even as I willed myself not to reach for my knife.
