I whip my head toward the window. What? Who’s Dia?
Aeri gets out of bed and runs over to the window. My shirt barely covers her long legs. Another inch or two and…
Impulses stronger than I’ve ever felt rush through me. I go over to the dresser and gather my weapons, gripping the handles and shoving them into my bag. I have to do something with my hands. I want to do unspeakable things to her—all of which she’d love. But we have a job to do.
I breathe out. I focus. What is she talking about, anyhow?
“Who’s Dia?” I say to the paint chipping on the wall.
“She’s a moon owl I was feeding in Quu,” Aeri says. “She came all this way!”
She says it like that’s a normal thing to do—to have a little owl friend.
Aeri is the strangest person I’ve ever met.
I glance over. Sure enough, there’s a tiny white owl asleep in the corner of the windowsill. Weird. But then I look at Aeri. Her bright smile. Her half-naked body.
“Can you put on some clothes?” It comes out harsher and louder than I meant it.
“Yeah,” she says, unfazed. “We need to get breakfast anyhow. I haven’t eaten in a day, and I want to get something for Dia, too.”
“Why’s her name Dia?” I ask.
She tilts her head at me. “Because I named her that. Owls don’t come with name tags, Royo.”
I stare, unamused, as she laughs. My stomach rumbles, and I remember I haven’t eaten, either. Not since we stopped for gear yesterday.
“Fine,” I say. “We’ll look for breakfast for you and…Dia when you’re ready.”
She lights up and goes into the washroom. I finally relax once she’s away from the bed. The fuck am I doing with this girl? I am definitely not favored by the gods—that’s for sure.
Aeri comes back out in her ball gown. I’m not sure if it’s more or less ridiculous than wearing my clothes, but at least she’s covered. The green skirt of her dress goes down to her boots.
“Let’s find a jeweler,” she says, arranging her hair. “I’ll sell a diamond, and then we can get a good meal and I’ll find proper clothes.”
“Mikail gave me enough money,” I say.
She frowns, looking skeptical. “Probably not. I had to leave everything behind in Quu. Seok set it all on fire.”
Seok, the guy who owns Sora. I run a hand over my short hair. Nobody should own somebody else.
“It’ll be fine,” I say. “You don’t need that much.”
I have a hundred and eighty marks. That should be enough to eat well and get the stuff we need. But if she wants more, what do I care? It’s her diamond, and she stole it anyhow. It’s force of habit to argue with her, I guess.
She better not buy a trunk, though. We’re not carting a wardrobe into the mountains.
We leave the inn and ride inside the city walls of Vashney. The old capital is not as busy as Quu, but it’s just as big and also filled with a mishmash of people. The buildings are carved stone, stained with centuries of runoff. In the distance, there’s the frozen port. All the ships are aground because it’s just a big sheet of ice stretching into the pitch black of the North Sea.
It doesn’t take long to find the gem district. The town is laid out like a pie that’s been sliced—everything runs off the center, where there’s a colossal statue of the Sky King. The gem houses and luxury shops are together in a wedge-shaped district.
Aeri chooses a gem house and then picks a diamond from her bag. She has a bunch. The shop welcomes her. She walks up to the counter, and a man examines the stone. Then the negotiation starts. I’m not sure what he’s saying, but I recognize haggling in any language. They write numbers down on a paper and go back and forth. He bargains with her just like she’s a man. It’s weird.
They settle on three thousand marks as I look around the store. It’s a fortune for a little rock.
Aeri says something as the gem guy hands her the money.
“Wait, you speak Khitanese?” I ask.
