Upon returning home after my first training session, I found a note he’d left informing us he’d caught the first skyship to Alhena that morning. Alhena was hundreds of miles to the east, at the other end of the kingdom. We had a few client contracts we needed to sign there, but it was horrendous timing with the shop’s reopening.
I was desperate for an excuse to venture into the city to train with Yarah, and Nahn reluctantly agreed to let me handle delivery orders. All thanks to Mel, who took temporary residence in Basil’s bed and helped my grandmother run the shop in my absence. My friend didn’t question why her assistance was needed, and for that I was grateful.
I still hadn’t given an official acceptance to Jere. Every night Nahn requested an answer, and every night I ignored her. Neither Jere nor his mother had paid another visit to the shop, which did little to quell my unease. While I was grateful Nahn hadn’t yet accepted on my behalf, the look in her eyes told me it was only a matter of time. That my free will was nothing more than an illusion.
When two weeks passed and still no word came from my brother, Nahn and I grew worried. She wouldn’t show it, of course, but I caught her lingering stares at the front door. I was too cowardly to admit that it was my recklessness keeping him away.
Instead of letting my guilt unravel me, I devoted every ounce of my being into dancing and deliveries. Basil would come back soon like he always did.
“Are you even listening to me?” The matron smacked my draped arms back to the present strenuous moment.
“Ow!” I cried down at her from the raised circular platform where I was to eventually perform in Yarah’s absence.
“Hopeless,” she muttered. “You have no upper body strength. Your core isn’t strong enough to hold these poses.”
“I’m working on it.” My body ached all over. If I wasn’t dancing, I was running to deliver timely orders to clients. At home I fed and changed Pahn, took him on walks in the garden, and practiced the exercises Yarah suggested while the rest of the house slept.
“Well work harder.” The matron wore a relaxed white crossed top that stretched across her chest, paired with flowing white pants. Her usual snake mask sat perched across the top half of her face.
“Where’s Yarah?”
“Unwell,” she answered vaguely.
“Could I get a copy of my contract?” I inquired, thinking of Yarah’s ominous words.
“Later. We’ve got a lot of training to do according to your natal chart.”
Official natal charts were created by an acolyte through Blood Sight, typically right after birth. Each chart consisted of a circle with the corresponding positions of the planets depending on which Zodiac constellation they were in during someone’sbirth. I’d found mine hidden in Pahn’s bookshelf. In the bottom corner of it, the symbol of Gemini was printed in my dried blood so that anyone permitted to use Blood Sight could verify my identity with a single taste.
Most often, charts were used to determine compatibility for marriages or verify suitability for certain occupations. They were the map to a person’s soul. In the wrong hands, such coveted information could be exploited.
“I don’t see how my chart impacts my dancing abilities,” I said.
“You have no water placements.” At my quizzical brow, she continued. “Water signs—Cancer, Pisces, and Scorpio—are the most emotional. Dancing here, in this position, requires fluidity that only a water sign can achieve. When I watched you that first night, even for a few moments, I saw that in you. Though passion alone isn’t enough to succeed.”
“Then why isn’t Serpentine in a water queendom? Why Gemini?”
The matron’s eyes flashed with annoyance. “Enough distractions.” She snapped her fingers at the musicians, who started the song from the top.
I began the choreography and listened to her bark instructions while trying to feel the story in the sensuous melody. There were no lyrics, only instruments, but they were filled with sadness and longing. I’d never danced to anything like it, and every time I started to get into it?—
“Stop!” the matron shrieked. “Stop, stop, stop. Everyonestop.”
“What’s wrong now?” I panted in frustration.
“Everything. Your movements are still too raw and untrained.”
“If it’s such an issue, then maybe you shouldn’t have hired me.”
She walked in a slow circle, assessing from head to toe. “You are supposed to be sensual and alluring, not wild. There is a magnetism to your abandon, certainly, but those who have been here before will tell the difference between you and Yarah. You must be mysterious, as if you are dancing with a secret. You need to make men crawl to you.”
I flung my hands up. “I didn’t take this job on the basis of men’s desires. I came here to dance, and that is what I’m doing.”
She clucked her tongue. “Just follow these routines exactly as I tell you to.”
“I’m assumingyoutrained somewhere?”
“In Leo.”
