“Acouple?” Sath balked.
“Like three, pa,pa,” Sorven continued as their father made noises of protest, “we’d make it all right back, especially once she has hatchlings and people want to try and bond ‘em…”
“You’re a little too interested in breeding,” Mavek drawled. “You know there’s such things as girls, Sorven, right? Not just dragons?”
Cassia blinked and looked down at her food. He couldn’t tell if she was fighting a laugh or if something had deeply bothered her.
“Sorry,” Aevrin grumbled to Cassia as Sorven loudly protested that he was just thinking about business opportunities.
“What for?” she asked him, looking a little startled, but not upset.
“My idiot brothers.”
She raised her eyebrows at him, fighting a smile. He relaxed a little, turningback towards her.
“I think it’s nice,” she said. “You all seem close.”
“Well, yeah,” Aevrin muttered, and raised a hand to the back of his neck. They kind of had to be, living out in nowhere in the same house. He swept his eyes around the table, all the warmth in the room. Trying to approach it from an outsider’s view, he found he didn’t mind what he saw. His jealousy felt a little stupid. “Guess we are.”
Cassia
Theanxiousmoodshe’dhad through dinner, sitting at a table with a happy family laughing and talking over each other about people and places she didn’t know, intensified the moment Cassia closed Ashelle’s bedroom door behind her. It was nice pretending she belonged here. But she didn’t. Not really. She sat down on the bed, shoulders hunched, and looked awkwardly around her at the trappings of another girl’s life.
Cassia still wasn’t sure she ought to take up Gramma Prisca’s offer of working and living at the ranch. What if they didn’t really want her here? What if it was just alms wrapped up like a job offer? She and Rylan had once spent a year living at Saint Broscus house, where the aspirants were sworn to help but seemed perpetually annoyed about it. Their Saint only commanded generosity of act, not of spirit. What if the Rivekers were like that?
And she didn’t belong here, with a real family. She belonged in the kitchens of a fine house in the imperial city, a shadow making food for folk so grand they’d never once lay eyes on her.
Aevrin was still downstairs. She quickly slipped into the necessary to brush her teeth and wash her face with the supplies Gramma Prisca had brought her. She didn’t dare ask Aevrin about the outdoor shower, though she wanted to.
Her head ached. Cassia stripped, wincing at the movement and then sighing with relief when the restrictive top was off. The mattress was soft, the sheets coarse in a way she liked against her skin. She fell deep into sleep, and didn’t stir until dawn when a cockatrice crowed. There were voices coming from downstairs already.
Reluctantly, she made herself hunt through Ashelle’s clothes like Gramma Prisca suggested. All Cassia could come up with was a handful of soft, oversized tunics she suspected Ash had used as sleeping wear, and a wrap around skirt that could be tied loose. She was stuck with the pinching brassiere. From the look of things Cassia was twice as thick in every direction as Ashelle.
The mirror in the bedroom showed her someone she didn’t know, a curvy woman standing in a comfortable room with a bruised face that she couldn’t cover up no matter how she fluffed her honey-brown hair.
Feeling unexpectedly nervous, and wondering if she ought to wait in the room until she was called, she made the bed and tiptoed downstairs. Her steps slowed the closer she got to the family’s noises, ears straining in case she heard something bad and needed to turn and race back upstairs. But she hadn’t heard her name once by the time she reached them.
The Riveker family crowded in the kitchen. Aevrin stood at the washbin tackling the giant pile of dishes, which had spilled onto the counter. She was relieved to see they got washedsometimes. Her heart fluttered at the sight of his wide-shouldered back and tapered waist, which was awfully silly; but then, hehadsaved her life. He wasn’t wearing his leathers yet, and she couldn’t help but notice the definition of his back and his biceps through his thin shirt as he scrubbed.
Aevrin’s father stood in front of the stove, a giant steak and cheese omelet that already looked burnt on the top side sizzling loudly. The single eggshell on the counter was so large it had to be from one of the giant cockatrices they kept. Mavek made four sandwiches at once, ingredients scattered around him. Gramma Prisca sat at the table, working on a cross-stitch with slippers on her feet and a robe on. Sorven poured a large pot of steaming grallo tea into a set of metal canisters.
“Morning, Miss Cassia, take it sweet?” Sorven asked. He talked so quickly it took her a moment to sort out the meaning behind the string of sounds. Grallo. He was offering her a cup of grallo.
She paused in the doorway as five pairs of eyes turned her way, Aevrin glancing over his shoulder to give her a quick up-and-down with his eyes before returning to the dishes.
“Please and thank you, Sorven,” she said.
“Hungry?” Sath Riveker asked her, finally moving the overcooked omelet off the flames.
“Not just yet, Master Riveker, thank you.” She felt like she was in an interview, fielding questions from a head steward, ladies’ attendant, and chef of chefs. Cassia clasped her hands behind her back, stance widening slightly.
Sorven offered her a mug of grallo. She took it with a frown and a thank you. A flat metal utensil, rather like a trampled spoon with tiny holes in it, lay across the top of the mug. A white, slightly-translucent square of…somethingbalanced there.
“Sorry, what is…?” She asked, clearing her throat and pointing with her free hand, the other clutching the mug by the handle.
“You've never had lotho jelly?” Sorven asked back wide-eyed. Cassia shook her head no, and leaned forward to delicately sniff at the lotho. It smelled floral, and rather like a citrus. She recalled seeing bowls of the substance sitting out at breakfasts at inns since reaching Zhavek, but she’d been too focused on finding Rylan to sate her curiosity. And it had never been servedonher grallo, like they went together.
“Drink your grallo through it, or choke it down fast if you don't like the taste,” Sathuel instructed her from the stove. “It’s good for you. Helps keep your breathing clear with all the smoke.”
