“So busy that he’s no longer even looking after his business?” I pressed, not buying that excuse.
Ray didn’t climb to power in the city like Ashgate without making his business his priority. The fact that he would just abandon it now made no sense.
“Well, it is what it is.” Zayr rose from his seat, signaling that this conversation was over.
Before leaving, however, he propped his hands into the table and leaned toward me across it.
“A word of advice, General, just because I like you. Whatever you do with your Joy Vessel, don’t taste her joy yourself.”
“Why not?” I frowned, confused.
Not that I had ever intended to taste Elaine’s joy myself. To save enough gold, we had to sell every drop of joy she created. But Zayr’s advice sounded more like a warning, raising an alarm in me.
“It’s toxic,” he replied with conviction. “Human pleasure may taste nice while you consume it, but it does something to our kind. It just wasn’t meant for us to feel. Look at Prince Rha. He lost his mind over a Joy Vessel, tried to let them all go, which enraged the queen and nearly cost him his life. And Ray is getting…” He shook his head, leaving his last sentence unfinished. “Well, just stay away from her, General. You survived a bite of avirutudragon. It’d be a shame if a human woman ended you now.”
Eight
Elaine
Iscraped the thin layer of salt crystals from the bottom of the metal tray that I’d scavenged from a trash pile on the beach two days ago.
Timur had accompanied me on that rare outing that we had made at noon, when the sun was at its zenith and most fae hid inside their caves or their beach shelters. Timur held his hood with his skeletal hand, making sure his skin remained in the shade. Apparently, the sun didn’t affect the parts of him that were bone—a small blessing that came from his terrible affliction.
Trash piles were in abundance at Ashgate, scattered all along the beach as far as the eye could see. Sadly, most had been rummaged through many times already and now contained few if any things of value. In the rubble of chipped stones, weathered bones, and rotten seaweed, I managed to find a tin tray, a flat piece of wood the size of a ruler, and a big shell that I could use as a container to collect my salt.
“I can buy you a tray and whatever else you need,” Timur rumbled from under his shroud as I scrubbed my treasures clean in the ocean surf.
I knew he would. He’d never said no to anything I’d asked for so far. Only I never asked for much, dead serious about saving every coin we made.
“I don’t reallyneedthese,” I said, “not enough to waste money on them. I just want to try something to see if it works.”
In the past week, Timur had managed to find enough clients to arrange for dinner every second night. Sadly, there was nothing for me to do between the dinners but hide in our shack. I slept for hours, washed my clothes, and had a sponge bath with the soap he bought for me, and I still had many long, boring hours of nothing to do in between.
Through Timur, I knew that no more Joy Vessels arrived to Ashgate after us. It both worried me and filled me with hope. I didn’t know what happened to Ciana or where she was now, but I hoped it was a better place than Ashgate. Maybe the royal guards arrested the traders and brought Ciana to Kalmena or Teneris. In a royalsaraishe’d be safe until I made enough to buy my freedom. Then, I’d figure out how to find and free her too.
After our scavenging, I’d filled the tray with the briny sea water, and left it on the roof of our shack for two days, until the water had evaporated in the sun, leaving the sparkling salt behind. It wasn’t much, but it filled about one third of my sea shell container.
On the nights when we weren’t selling my joy for food, Timur bought me rice packed with boiled seaweed. That was the best this city had to offer with other options being raw fish or various uncooked sea creatures. I loved sushi, but sucking raw mollusks from their shells or pulling gelatinous strings of meat out of the crustacean’s limbs wasn’t the same.
We couldn’t have a fire out of fear that it’d attract unwanted attention because shadow fae didn’t normally cook for themselves, at least not on the Ashgate Beach. Most of those who lived on the beach ate raw fish they caught in the ocean or dug mollusks from the sand during the low tide. Those who had money to spend bought rice packs from the merchants in the ground-level caves. But regardless of what they ate, they ate it absolutely unsalted.
I doubted that even salt could improve those packs of flavorless rice and boiled seaweed, but I hoped it’d make them a little easier to swallow. At least until we had enough clients for me to have a proper dinner every night.
That was the reason Timur left every night around midnight. He met with his contacts from Kalmena at the end of the shadow tunnel in the desert above the city. Together, they figured out the schedule and confirmed appointments.
When he returned, he usually updated me, then took a quick nap in his chair that he positioned between the trunk with his weapons and the locked door, only to leave again before midday like he did today.
Whenever possible, Timur preferred to run his errands in the city while I slept during the day. He hoped that most of the Ashgate’s population would be asleep at that time too, though he slept little himself.
Somehow, Timur managed to get enough rest to function by taking a series of random naps at all hours of night or day. But those never seemed particularly restful. He’d groan and grind his teeth in his sleep, often jerking awake as if from a nightmare. Thankfully, there hadn't been any more of those terrifying screaming episodes again.
Between all his absences, Timur didn’t spend much time with me, but I’d gotten used to his quiet presence enough to feel like something was amiss when he was gone. I knew better than tocomplain, of course. Timur left to find people who would pay for the privilege to feed me. And without those people, there’d be no money, no freedom, and no future for either of us.
I often felt on edge in Timur’s absence. For better or for worse, he was my one and only protector in this city. As I scraped the salt and collected it into the shell, I listened for any sound from outside.
It was afternoon now, with the sun shining brightly in the sky. Inside our windowless dwelling, however, it always looked like twilight. A faint green glow shone from Timur’s bracer attached to the inside of the door. He took the second bracer with him. The magic between the two kept the doors locked. I could leave anytime by removing the bracer from the door if I had to. However, no one could come in here, only Timur.
Of course, if anyone really wanted to get into our shack, the bracer wouldn’t stop them from knocking the walls down. Timur and I never spoke about that, but I was sure he knew it and that was why he insisted I stay quiet and keep my existence a secret from our neighbors.
