Venus City 1 (14 page)

“Mother, I'm sorry,” Braya's voice trembled. She didn't know what to say.

“Do not grovel in front of me. Go along. Go play Bride,” she said casually, her hand waving her toward the door.

The way Mother kept brushing Braya aside—it didn’t bode well. Mother never spent time on anything she didn’t find worthy of her attention. Braya had witnessed her snubbing many people in the Court before, and had even seen her relinquish interests in hobbies such as gardening, piano, painting, and other trivial pursuits, as she liked to call them. Not to mention lately she’d taken to locking herself in her study or spending more hours at the Court. If she no longer had time for Braya, did that mean she’d given up on her in addition to all those other things?

****

Braya's bad mood had returned for her afternoon classes. She'd missed lunch, got scolded for missing her first afternoon class, Maydessa had been shooting her hand up in the air every five seconds to answer all the questions the teacher asked—she'd even hit Braya over the head on accident with her crazy hand-raising impulse—and she'd only made matters worse with her mother.

When dinner time came, Brielle approached her and asked if she'd stay at Heartland to eat with them. Braya pretended to consider it, opened her mouth to say no, but was interrupted by a voice at her ear. “Say no.”

She flinched in surprise.

“No,” she told Brielle. Her small face crumpled into a frown, and she looked down at her shoes.

“Oh, that's all right, Miss Braya. But you're always welcome to join us. Have a nice night.”

Even though she was just a Finch, Brielle was the only who'd been nice to her so far and Braya found she felt a smidge guilty for rejecting her so quickly. It was Asher's fault.

Once Brielle had walked away in the direction of the Great Hall, Braya muttered out of the corner of her mouth, “Impeccable timing, as usual.”

He snickered. “I got here a couple hours ago, actually. I made my own carrot cake during your class, too.”

“You're still stalking me,” she hissed.

“Believe it or not, following you around this place is a whole lot better than perishing underground with the rest of the Locers.”

“I had rather thought sulking underground suited you,” she said sarcastically. There were a few other Brides passing her in the corridor, and Braya didn't want any of them to think her mental for talking to herself. “Can we go somewhere else to talk?”

“All right. Let's go to the courtyard,” he agreed.

“Where's that?”

“It's where they hold all the weddings,” Asher answered. His voice moved from behind her, and she presumed he was standing somewhere in front of her. Then he materialized out of thin air, and Braya's eyes widened at the sight of him.

“What if someone sees you?”

“Your concern is touching. But don't worry your beautiful hair over it. Everyone's in the Great Hall right now,” Asher smirked. “Follow me.”

Ignoring the hair comment, Braya followed him down to the ground floor and through several corridors. They were heading to the heart of the manor, she could tell.

The corridor opened up to an outdoor hallway. Straight ahead, Braya could see the courtyard gleaming in the soft tones of sunset. The open-air hallway surrounded the courtyard with pillars of great stone covered in tangled vines. It reminded her a little of a park, if parks were tucked into a neat open rectangle in the middle of a castle manor. There was a fountain in the center, just like the one outside of the Bride and Groom, though much smaller. A few benches sat around the fountain, and Asher directed her to one.

The length of the courtyard was long, and reminded her of the chapel with the skeletons sitting on the pews. Tall, elegant trees with thin trunks stretched up nearly thirty feet on both sides of the court. There was a low-hanging platform anchored above their heads, narrow like an aisle. The trees were far taller than the platform, so circles had been cut along the outer edges in order for the tress could poke through. Braya imagined if she were up on the platform—it was probably level with the second-floor—the trees wouldn't look so tall.

Since the platform sheltered most of the courtyard where Braya and Asher sat, it was somewhat shadowy. The sun must be setting fast.

“How did you know where this was?” Braya asked.

“Did some exploring,” he said simply. “Here,” he thrust a small box into her hands, “this is for you. Use them tonight. Ness is already in fits because we haven't even begun the de-hazing.” He sounded bitter when he spoke of Ness, and it reminded her of last time he'd spoken of his captain. She got the feeling Asher didn't like him.

Braya opened the box carefully. There were boosters inside.

“What are these for?” She recognized the magenta seal of Venus City—a female warrior, her skirt flaring around her ankles, her hair wild above her head, a sword clutched in her hand—emblazoned on the corner of each paper, authenticating them. The boosters were of different colors and different designs, but they were all about as small as a coin. She'd never had one before—being primarily used to enhance performances in careers and
 
rarely sold commercially—but she'd heard a lot about them.

“You know how to put them on, right?” Asher asked. “You need those to keep up with the de-hazing. It's physically straining. And don't ask me where I got them. A master never has to reveal his secrets.”

Braya rolled her eyes. “I've never used them before, but I heard it's just like pressing a fake tattoo on. When do we start?”

“Eager?” He smirked. “Tomorrow night.”

“And how long do I have to do this? Be your slave and dupe my own city, I mean.”

“For as long as it takes,” Asher shrugged his shoulders. He'd been staring at the fountain, which had been maddening for reasons she didn't know, but now that he flicked his eyes over to meet hers, she wished he'd go back to observing the fountain. “Ness hopes we'll be done in a few weeks.”

“Your tone suggests you think otherwise?”

He snorted. “Of course it'll be longer than that.”

“How long?”

“I don't know. We came to Venus City five months ago and we'd only planned on staying for one,” he admitted. “Every time we plan on leaving, another problem arises.”

“Five months?” She sputtered. “What have you possibly been doing for five months?” And how had no one in her city
caught
them?

“Like I said, Brays,” he smirked, “a master never has to reveal his secrets.”

“So you have secrets,” she pointed out. “There's more to this than you've told me. Well, I want to know about it. I deserve it since you're forcing me to be a part of this.”

“What's there to tell?” His eyes glowed as the last ray of sunlight vanished. “You told me last night that you don't believe what I said, so what's the point in telling you more?”

“I did,” she gritted her teeth. “But that doesn't mean I don't want to know what you're keeping from me. I know there's more to this than a friendly warning about an upcoming war.”

He laughed. “Brays,” he murmured, turning so that he was facing her properly, “You can doubt it all you want, but what can you do about it? The master-friend link we've got prevents you from telling anyone about us.”

Ignoring his mocking tone, she forged on. “I could do
something
about it, instead of playing along like some mindless puppet.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Why? Your patriotic spirit is burning inside you, and you want to take revenge on the bastards fooling around in your city? You really don't seem like that type.”

She huffed. “I have my reasons and they're none of your business.”

He folded his arms with a smirk, his eyes a dashing shade of blue as they appraised her. “I could say the same to you. None of this is your business.”

“You've made it my business by involving me,” she snapped. Braya didn't know what possessed her to ask all of these questions. Hadn't she resolved earlier to sit back and find her own way out, regardless of their plans?

His face scrunched up as he considered this. “Not really, no,” he shook his head. “Now, if we had approached you and asked you to join us willingly, that would be a whole different story. However, we quite forced this onto you, didn't we? You're a tool, and nothing more.”

“Is that how you consider all of your
friends
?” She asked, her voice acid. He'd been the idiot to change the name from master-slave to master-friend—not that it mattered a bit to her—and then he went and called her a tool?

“Gracious, no. I thought that would be obvious. You never really warmed up to being friends with me, did you? I don't really have any friends these days. There is no such thing in Ephraim. No such thing as much of anything, at least recently. War has torn my homeland apart.”

“War?” Her eyes widened. She didn't know why, but all of his talking about war and she'd never considered it had touched his home, too. It shouldn't matter to her, though.

“Yes, war,” he said icily. Her eyes caught his, and they matched his tone. Splintered, like the surface of cracked ice. “It's ruined everyone's lives.”

She frowned. “So you think it's fair to bring that here?”

“It's nothing of the sort,” he sighed in exasperation. “I'm tired of repeating the same thing over and over!”

Braya decided it was time to shift the subject again. He wasn't looking at her anymore, or the fountain for that matter, and there was something about the way his shoulders were tensed that made her feel like she'd broken something inside of him, set loose his personal demons. She'd never even thought him capable of having personal demons until she saw him seized in terse silence the way he was.

She floundered for another question. Would her next comment offset him again?

When he finally made eye contact with her, she knew instantly what she wanted to ask. She'd never thought of it before, and in the grand scope of things it didn't matter, but the desire to know took root deep inside her and she blurted out the question.

“What about your family? Do they have the same blue eyes as you?”

He was stunned, she could tell. “There's nothing to say about my family,” he answered coldly. She shouldn't be surprised by that—he'd just confessed his country had been ravaged by war. What if that meant his family, too? But she dismissed that, and pressed on.

“Don't you miss them?”

“Stop it!” He roared. “Stop asking me about my damn family and that's an order!”

“But—”

“I said stop!” His expression was furious and his eyes had smoldered into an alarming, dark shade. His right eye, however, was lightening at a rapid speed, and it was only a moment later that the entire iris changed color. Washed away like snow, the blue color was gone and a bright amber gold shined brightly in its wake. “Do you want me to ask you about your family? Would that make you happy? Come on, then, Bray. Tell me about your family.”

It was an order, but Braya didn't want to obey. She was flummoxed. Why was he getting so worked up about his family? And what was up with that gold eye? Was it a foreigner thing? Perhaps he had an illness...

Just like on the underground balcony, Braya heard Asher's voice invade her mind. It filled her up and she shivered at its chilling tenderness.
Tell me about your family
. The iron grip wrapped around her, the frigid touch carved a path down her back, and then her mouth was open and she was divulging to him all there was to know about her family. Even though all she really wanted to do was ask about that golden eye!

“My Mother's name is Charlotte Malister and she's the Head of the Fair Lady's Court. She's a very powerful woman, though I'm sometimes intimidated by her. She's a very busy woman, so she couldn't raise us herself. She hired a Bride named Harmony, who raised me, my older brother, and my younger sister since we were young,” Braya rambled on, much to her horror. “My brother Aspen is going to become a Groom soon and my younger sister Bellamine is sick with Tristant—”

“You're kidding,” he murmured. “Go on. Tell me more about your sister.”

Braya panicked. She couldn't tell him about Bellamine. She'd rather pass out. Bellamine was counting on her to protect her, cure her...not spill her secret.

“Well, my mother is ashamed of her,” Braya sputtered out with a cry, “so she hides her in the house. No one knows she even exists. But...ugh...” Braya gasped as she tried to clamp her mouth shut. “She...ahh...no...” Braya panted. Sweat soaked her back as she fought the urge to keep talking. Pain was cording up her body and she could feel something cold blooming in the back of her head. “Please,” she rasped. She was on the verge of losing consciousness again.

“Stop,” he ordered sharply. She couldn't see much. Her vision was covered in colorful spots. Her head swam, and she couldn't hold it up any longer.

Braya crashed into him, limp against his body. She heard him mutter something. His arms came around her and his hands were in her hair, his fingertips massaging her temples. He was speaking, but she couldn't make out what he was saying. The rumbling in his chest, though, was comforting, and coupled with his firm touch she quickly regained her composure.

She jumped away from him the second she was sure she had the strength. He stared at her with unreadable eyes as she struggled to her feet. She purposely left the box of boosters on the bench and wobbled away from him as fast as her leaden legs would carry her. If she had the voice for it, she would have screamed at him for making her reveal Bellamine's secret. How could she have let her guard down around him? He was a foreigner, and no matter how much she wanted to know the details behind his group's presence in Venus City, she vowed to never let it happen again. For Bellamine's sake.