Ellie scowled, angry at her mother for getting upset, angry at herself for being the one to upset her. The anger was unsettling. Ellie wasn’t a volatile person. She worked hard at keeping her emotions in check. Bad things happened when she didn’t. Yet the anger was there. And growing. The pain in her head increased.
«Ellysetta.»Rain’s voice sounded again, a bit more insistent this time. She continued to ignore him. She’d wanted a simple wedding. Flowers, perhaps, and a priest. But, no. The mighty Rain Tairen Soul mandated a huge court affair. And then conveniently absented himself from the resulting madness. Ellysetta’s anger grew some more.
“Mistress Baristani?” A man’s nasal voice sounded to her left.
“What?” Ellie barked and turned towards the voice.
The cobbler held up several pairs of shoes. “You’ve selected your footwear for your wedding, but you still need to select slippers for your ball gowns and a pair of boots for your day dresses. Something—if I may be so bold—a bit more elegant than your current footwear?”
“There is nothing wrong with my current footwear,” she snapped. “It is the perfect footwear for a girl like me.”
“Of course, Mistress Baristani.” The cobbler gave a small, condescending smile and bowed. “But I’m referring to the new you.”
Her anger flared higher. “Thereisno new me. I am the same me that I have always been. I will be the same me tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.”
“My lady, please, stand still just a few chimes more,” the seamstress pleaded.
Ellie scowled down at her. “I am standing still!”
«Ellysetta, you will speak to me.»
He wanted her to speak?«GET OUT OF MY MIND!»She felt his jagged burst of pain as her angry response blasted betweenthem, and the ache between her eyes became sharp, gouging daggers thrusting into her brain. Dizziness assailed her, but she fought it back.
“I apologize if my choice of words has offended you, Mistress Baristani,” the cobbler said. “I merely meant that in your new position, you will require a different form of attire.”
“I am very aware of what you meant, ser. But I am now and always will be a woodcarver’s daughter. No amount of fancy new clothes—or elegant footwear—will ever change that.” Ellie raised a hand to her head and began to rub her temple.
“Please, Lady Ellysetta, put your arm back down and hold still,” the seamstress begged.
Irritation shrieked through Ellie, but she lowered her arm.
“Ah, Duanniza Baristani,” Duan Parlo Vincenze, the elegant Capellan chef who catered to the cream of Celierian society, gestured extravagantly with a lace-festooned handkerchief. “I have sketched the perfect bridal cake for you. Tall. Elegant. Simple butboi mezza, very pretty.” He held up the sketch of a towering wedding cake. “You like, eh?”
Ellie stared at the sketch in horror. Layer after angular layer of plain square cakes perched on tall, gawky columns. The cake was stark in its plainness, except for gargantuan bunches of dramatically sketched flowers that dripped down the columns. She supposed the chef meant the flowers to complement the minimalist appearance of the cake, but to her they looked like monstrous weedy growths run amok. Ill-fitting, ridiculous attempts to make something pitifully plain look attractive and feminine.
“No. I don’t like.” Her chest felt tight. The room was too small, too crowded. Her mind whirled. The pain in her head was staggering. The anger seemed to be consuming her, stealing the very breath from her lungs.
With a gasp of offended pride, the chef whipped his lacy handkerchief through the air like a sword. “But, Duanniza, it is perfect for you.”
“You must at least select a pair of slippers for the ball. Lady Marissya insisted.”
“My lady, please stand still. Pella needs to repin the waist of this gown.”
“The cake is hideous! I don’t care about the flaming slippers! And for the last time,I am standing still!” Gods, she needed air. She was going mad. She couldn’t breathe. Her vision began to blur.
“Ellysetta.” Rain stood in the doorway, and there was no mistaking the whip of command in his voice.
“WHAT?” Anger roared to blazing life. This was allhisfault! She whirled to face him. Pain stabbed into her waist as she impaled herself on the long, wickedly sharp tailor’s pin held in the seamstress Pella’s hand.
Ellie screamed.
Every window in the Baristani house exploded in a cloud of shattered fragments.
Rain leapt forward, power bursting around him, his teeth bared in savage fury.
“Get back!” he roared. Most of the people in the room were too stunned to move, but a punishing thrust of Air flung their bodies out of his path. Rain destroyed Bel’s opaque weave of Spirit with a single thought. Seamstresses shrieked and fled like mice as the Tairen Soul reached for his mate.
Across the street, as the screams of the milling crowd still echoed in the aftermath of the exploding windows, Kolis Manza cursed and turned away. So close. He’d been so close.
