Chapter Two – Part 3 – Why are we even here?
Mireya knew she should just go back to her cabin, but there was too much noise at the bottom of the hull, the scent of sweat and musk and the unfamiliar crowded cells. Just rocking, endless rocking. Unsteady, the delicate ash-haired blonde wavers towards were Kintere stormed earlier, his slamming of doors hard to forget, he was never angry with her. Pausing outside to tidy her shirt and straighten her hair before knocking, building confidence so badly knocked. The tumble on deck had made everything hurt so much more, her back stinging as she leant against the wall.
The door was open, just a crack, letting out strange indigo light. There was a voie inside – not the incoherent rambling of a very drunk Kintere, but something softer. The generous, calm voice of Curia Edvard Thryche.
“Come in please,” he said, sounding quite close to the door. “I’ve been waiting.”
“How’s Kintere?” She had to fight to keep her voice steady, relying on old tricks from her former life to keep her trembling at bay.
“He’s asleep,” Thryche said softly, sucking at a long stemmed pipe, a heavy mug of some steaming sitting in his lap. “The duke’s guard were rougher on him than he’d like to let on, but he’ll survive.”
The man himself lay on his stomach, face buried in the small pillow under his upper body. His back was a hatchwork of cuts and scrapes. And whip lines. Mireya watched Kintere sleep for a moment, the rise and fall of his chest, eyes glistening at the sight of him, the thinning of her lips as close to an emotion as her face will stray.
“He always does things the hard way.” It never failed, did it?
“So do you. Both of you will learn, given time.”
Mireya was quiet for a moment, pausing to digest his words. So still as to be carved from marble, all milky cream and alien eyes that suddenly lift to bore turquoise holes into Edvard’s face.
“How much money did you pay for me?”
That caused the aged mystic to raise an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I want to know what I was worth.” The same tone that was thrown at oily patrons, untouchable and aloof as she takes a few steps closer “And to know how much I would have to pay off before I am finally free.”
“You hold no debt to me,” he said with a smile, tamping out his pipe and taking a sip from his steaming mug of whatever. “I purchased the debt that Auss created. He named his price, and I doubled it – it would not have mattered what he named, I would have paid double just for the pleasure of seeing his face when I refused to tell him why I wanted you.”
“Your pleasure wasn’t mine.” Mireya hugged herself, trying her best to make her frown audible as she perched on the sofa’s arm, as far away from the Curia as possible. “He was so angry to have been bested by you. Still. You have paid for me…One more in a line of so many, only…You are the only one I fear. Because you bested Auss Maran.”
“Me?” the old man muttered, his face wolfish in the dim, indigo light. The light glimmered for a moment, and only now is its source obvious – above Kintere’s back hovers a small sphere of what appears to be porphyry water, suspended in a cradle of light. “Bring me that, will you?” Edvard says, indicating the sphere by way of his pipe stem. “And I’ll explain.”
Mireya ‘s white as a lamb, her eyes wide and shimmering in the light. Long muscled limbs untangling themselves with confusion. Fetch a light? How silly. Timid, uncertain as she advance on it, expecting something. Fingers ran over her flaring hips before stretching to touch the globe, breath held. The globe settled in the bed of her cupped palms, the sphere warming in colour as bands of sunny yellow overtook the indigo. Mireya’s own skin became sickly pale in the yellowy light as she advanced back towards Edvard quickly.
“That change is why I bought your debt,” Edvard says softly, patting the sofa beside himself. How careful he is to refer to her debt, not her self. “When Rhayd was eight, I created one of these for him. It’s called an Ioun Stone – it’s a weaving of the mists sensitive to those who have talent at shaping. It’s a reactive tool in its entirety. Changes colour when interacted with by those who can weave the mists. Those who cannot, their hands pass directly through the stone itself inhindered by its presense.”