He raised his brows, black eyes gleaming. “You’re not up for it?”
Ha. I’d turned both collecting crocus flowers and being silent into games for my sisters. If anyone could make a boring party a good time, it was me. “I can handle it.”
He tilted his head consideringly, then smiled, sharp and bright as a knife. “You look very beautiful tonight.”
His unexpected words stabbed me, leaving me hot and breathless. My whole body warmed from my forehead to my palms. I didn’t want to care, but I felt a fluttering in my stomach, a delight and uncertainty I didn’t know how to handle. The back of my neck prickled. He thought I wasbeautiful.
Instead of saying thank you like a normal person and potentially revealing how much the compliment meant to me, I scowled. “Why didn’t you say that earlier?”
“I was mad at you,” he said cheerfully. “I didn’t want to be nice.”
I wasn’t sure whether to scream or laugh. In the end, I kicked his shin lightly, and he grinned at me so fondly I thought my heart might burst.
The door opened, and Aunt Tirtzah and Chava reappeared. “Let’s go, then,” my aunt said, marching into the hall.
The four of us returned to the garden courtyard, Chava peeling away. Aunt Tirtzah walked confidently through the guests until she reached a clump of well-dressed men and women in their sixties and seventies. I was glad; I wasn’t ready to look Daziel in the eye again.Beautiful.
“Messieurs and madames, may I introduce my niece, Naomi bat Yardena, and her betrothed, the shayd Daziel bar Cathmeus.”
A man with an impressive coiffure and twenty years on the others recovered from his shock first. “Enchanted, mademoiselle. And—honored guest—I believe we crossed paths at the opera last week.”
Amusement welled within me, and I felt a bit more normal. Of course they had.
“Which one?” Daziel said, which was how I learned he’d attendedmultipleoperas.
“The Sons of HarChermon. I believe…you were accompanied by a cat?” The gentleman glanced at me, as though maybe I’d been the cat in question.
A crack of lightning drew everyone’s attention upward to the dome shielding the garden. The guests stared at the night sky until thunder rumbled. As though it was the permission they’d waited for, everyone then returned to their dancing and talking.
“It’s a beautiful dome,” a lady in orange silk said to Aunt Tirtzah, who inclined her head graciously. The dome was a wild extravagance, but that was the purpose of parties like this, to show off your resources and taste.
“If only Bar Asher had one yesterday,” one of the men said. “The storm completely decimated their garden party.”
“Were you there?” someone else asked. “I heard it was carnage, everything flooded.”
“You should have seen it—chairs strewn across the lawn, everyone chasing after napkins and scarves.”
“It’s hardly the only strange thing going on,” said a man with a weak chin and a strong mustache. “Did you hear the first maelstrom stopped spinning last week? It started up again a few hours later, but still quite alarming.”
My eyes widened. The three maelstroms guarded the northern entrance of the Lersach River from the Long Sea. Only Ena-Cinnaian sailors knew how to navigate the whirlpools. They kept their secrets in rutters, guides explaining exactly how to sail, used by navigators like Gilli’s mom. Because of this, only Ena-Cinnaianscould enter the river’s delta and sail down to Talum. Foreigners landed in port cities, then crossed overland to the river and continued on domestic ships.
I remembered my voyage here, my ship navigating the safe currents through the maelstroms, listening as sailors raised their voices in the traditional song requesting safe passage from the Leviathan, the Behemoth, and the Ziz. I’d told myself we’d be safe, that the sailors had done this a hundred times, but I’d been terrified all the same.
“If the winds are off, why not the maelstroms?” a man with a cravat said.
An elderly man with a sheaf of silver hair turned to Daziel. “What do your people think of these changes?”
Daziel smiled without teeth. He took my hand and lifted it to his lips, pressing a kiss to it. I almost wrenched my hand from his in surprise. “I care only about my betrothed. Shall we get a drink, yonati?”
He dropped my hand and sauntered off. With a hurried apology to my aunt’s guests, I followed.
“I think we can do better than that for fun,” Daziel said lightly when I caught up to him on the lantern-lit garden path. The silver-tinged leaves of olive trees shimmered above us.
I watched him, curious. He’d clearly been displeased, but I wasn’t sure why. “It irritated you, them asking what your people think about the maelstroms.”
His expression hardened. “I’m not an emissary. I’m not here to answer politicians’ questions.”
“True.” I couldn’t argue much, given how sick I was of government students hounding me to get close to my aunt; like Daziel, I had no desire to be sucked into politics against my will. But in mycase, I was treated as a pawn, and in Daziel’s…“It’s an interesting opportunity, though, isn’t it? You’re the only shayd here. They’d listen to you. You could make an impact.”
