AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jaspar was furious. He wasn’t bluffing.
Visions of Mestibes came to Aurelius. The mood was high. All the citizens were waiting for someone to cheer for their salvation. And they were perfectly poised to scream his name.
But, like all crowds, they would only wait for so long. If he didn’t arrive soon, someone else would gladly take the credit. Perhaps Benedict would find some way to solidify his own position. Perhaps his mother would claim it was all her idea. Then the war would start, and the focus would shift. By the time he finally came back, no one would care that it had been his effort that saved them all.
That meant he had to get home now to consolidate his power. Everything he had worked for? Everything he had fought for? Six years of sweat and suffering? If he didn’t get into that carriage right now it would all crumble!
And yet...
If he didn’t run to the Grove this second, he would always wonder what would have happened...
In the end, the decision was easy.
He reached up and grabbed the carriage door.
And with all his force, he slammed it shut.
79
TEIGRA
Teigra sprinted through the streets, pushing by the crowds that were already assembling near the palace. The throng didn’t distract her, nor did their calls of recognition. Because there was only one person she was looking for. The only one who could make all of this madness disappear.
Fabulosa.
Jaspar? Aurelius? She’d known them for longer. She had spent far more time with both of them. And yet, none of them knew her like Fabulosa seemed to. None of them had seen her as clearly as the high envoy had—deep down, to the core of her being.
And right now, that was what she needed. She needed to be held by a stable force. She needed to be touched by a knowing hand. She needed to be seen by eyes that saw what no one else seemed to.
Teigra searched for what felt like hours, visiting familiar places and old haunts, longing to find the one person who would look at her broken life and laugh—not out of spite, not out of pity, but because she knew that another life could be bought and built on the rubble.
Just when she thought she might never find her, she spotted the beautiful glimmer across the agora. Flowing pink fabric fluttered in the sea breeze. Her hair was held back with golden pins, encrusted with sapphires. It was the sort of showy opulence that no one else in Ardora could pull off.
Teigra gave a relieved sigh as she approached the group of shopkeepers huddled around the high envoy.
“Called off, I’m afraid,” said Fabulosa. “It appears this Teigra was nothing more than a spy sent from Mestibes.”
Teigra stopped dead.
No...
“What?” said Gyges. “But I’ve seen them together! They’re in love. I ’eard they’re even planning on making a big show of it this evening?”
Teigra put her hand over her mouth as Fabulosa trilled her little laugh. “Oh, I am afraid not. Well, you didn’t hear it from me of course, but my sources say that she tricked His Highness into her arms and probably her bed as well. Preyed on all his weaknesses. All in a sordid attempt to get this military alliance with Ardora.”
“Is that what the ceremony tonight is for! Nera, are you ’earing this?” said Gyges to Nera Baros, a gray-haired honey trader that Teigra had negotiated a hundred-vase order with just one month ago. “Turns out that girl was just using the prince! Just like she was using poor Jaspar—you remember? Flirting and such, but never following through!”
“Oh, I knew it! Didn’t I say so. I told you she was just using them both. Them Mestibians are all the same! With their fancy words and thinking they’re better than us!”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Fabulosa. “And the nerve. When they were the ones who stopped the rest of us from finishing off the Rinathi when we had the chance. Now they come down here, trying to trick your own darling children into dying for them?”
“Shame!” chorused the voices.
Fabulosa tucked an errant hair behind her ear. “Of course, it is your business whether you wish to honor your contracts with Mestibes. Although, I don’t think anyone would blame you if you wished to consider... other options? At double gold, of course. To cover your inconvenience.”
Fabulosa tossed a pouch onto the street in an explosion of glint.
Every gathered shopkeeper turned to face Gyges. The centimane paused long, then nodded. The shopkeepers set at the coin like wolves over a fallen deer, first grabbing for the money, then thrusting forward their parchments—all the contracts that Ms. Securia and Jaspar had negotiated to keep the city from starving during a siege.
