I make my way up there and offer the first guard a tankard of mead.
“And one for your friend?” I suggest loudly. “It must be long, lonely work up here, when all the fun is downstairs.”
The locked door opens. The other guard peers through, desperate to see what his friend has procured.
I’ve made an artform of pretending to be some cheerful, helpless woman. Within two minutes, both of them blink, tankards falling from their hands thanks to a very helpful herb I discovered in the kitchens. The cook scolded me heartily when I touched it, warning me away from it and telling me all of its very helpful properties. I suspect it was meant to be used on the more… combative women. In the right dose, Cook said, it tends to make one mildly buzzed. In a stronger dose, it will send you to sleep for hours.
The guards hit the floor and I glance over my shoulder before stealing their keys, and dragging them both inside the hallway before someone sees them.
“Kari?” I call softly at the first door.
“Hello?” A girl gasps. “Hello? Who’s out there?”
It takes me half a minute to find the right key and then I ease the door open, revealing two frightened women.
Neither of them has red hair.
“Here,” I tell one of them, pressing a set of keys into her hands. “Start on the other side of the hallway and begin unlocking the doors.”
“What’s going on?” the other one whispers. “Who are you?”
“Just someone looking for her friend.”
Room after room reveals women gowned in virginal white.
I hurry to the last door.
A plaster frieze lines the wall, men grappling each other with bloodied knives, and women caught in their frenzied embrace. Just as I reach the last door on the right, one of the plaster heads turn, mocking eyes locking on me through its laughing mask. A prickle slides down my arms, all the hairs lifting.
Kasaros.
I hear his laughter in the distance.
“Rhykus is cheating, you know?” I whisper, because a capricious God is the last thing I want to deal with right now. “And you know how much you’d enjoy it if I burned his operation to the ground.”
The plaster figure smiles, then falls still, the spark of life leaving the warrior’s eyes.
I don’t know if that’s approval or not.
I haul open the door just as Kari and two other girls leap to their feet. Fear is etched across their faces.
“Zyla?” Kari throws her arms around me. “You came for me. Oh, ashes. You came.”
“I came,” I confirm, glancing at the nine women behind me. “Now… Who can serve a tankard of mead? There are a lot of thirsty men downstairs.”
Chapter 6
Zyla
Do not mistake a bride’s downcast eyes as demure. Even the meekest bride will murder you if given half a chance.”
—RHYKUS
The women circulate through the auction room with silver platters, their eyes downcast. Meek. Silent. Invisible. And the men gathered for the bidding take their poison, drinking it down eagerly without knowing that death just settled over the room like a shroud.
There was more in Cook’s kitchen than mere drugs.
The woman told me everything I needed to know.
