The Wings of Ashtaroth

Chapter 10: Monsters: Section IV: Vivaen

Vivaen: The City Streets: Qemassen

This noisy Massenqa marriage festival was exactly the kind of celebration Vivaen was usually desperate to avoid. The raucous crowds made her arm hair turn rigid as pine needles, and though she went masked like the others, every eye and every smile seemed fixed on her with probing intensity, as though they could read Vivaen's true name written in her skin.

She would rather have found an empty house to sneak inside, to wait out the excitement like a storm, but a party of friends had been foisted on her against her will.

Friends. The word felt wrong on her tongue and in her heart. Vivaen had never had friends in the truest sense—fellow thieves and ne'er do wells, certainly, but friends had only ever been something others could take from you. Friendship was a wound best cauterized and wrapped in thick bandage.

Bree though—Bree had friends of a kind. Since her arrival, Eaflied had been kinder, and there was Dashel, who dutifully stood guard when Princess Bree had an itch to scratch that only Aurelius could reach. But Vivaen was no fool. Dashel's longing for Aurelius burned in his eyes and throbbed in his veins whenever the prince left her room.

Tonight, Dashel and Aurelius were nowhere to be seen. Vivaen had been handed over to Eaflied and Djana, who each now walked downhill beside her in the direction of the Eghri eq-Shalem.

Vivaen eyed the women to either side of her from behind her black cat mask. Eaflied wore the face of a jackal and Djana a wooden tiger's mask. Djana's beautiful, coiled hair was bound in a yellow scarf covered in the dainty outlines of green leaves and flowers. It made her mask appear to peek out of a forest thicket, searching for prey.

A disguised slave ambled ahead of them. He'd been assigned to guard them and fend off pickpockets but given the amount of beer Djana had already consumed, and the shambling revellers frolicking in the streets, it seemed more likely he'd serve as bodily support when Djana, Eaflied, and Vivaen returned to the palace too soused to walk.

Though she'd mellowed to Eaflied, Djana was almost a stranger. The Ajwatat was personable enough, but Vivaen still felt out of place and foreign around everyone at court, and Djana's accent made her more challenging to understand than the Massenqa-born courtiers.

"I can't see in this hideous . . . , dog face," Eaflied complained in clumsy Massenqa, substituting "dog face" for "mask." She fumbled with the twine that held her jackal-counterpart bound to her ears.

At least Vivaen could speak Massenqa. Eaflied was reliant on Vivaen to translate much of the time.

Djana laughed, and despite herself, Vivaen smiled along with her.

"She could return to the palace if she wanted," offered Djana. "No one would think ill of her."

No such charity for Vivaen. This was Vivaen's marriage feast, and it didn't matter that she'd rather be trapped inside that rickety boat on the Helit Sea, there was no refusing the dubious honour the festival was meant to represent.

"What did she say?" Eaflied pleaded. "Complaining about the Feislander savage, is she?"

For a cruel moment, Vivaen considered keeping Djana's offer to herself. It was Eaflied who'd forced Vivaen to Qemassen against her will, so why not make the queen suffer with her? But then, if Eaflied did leave them, Vivaen might have a chance to steal a much-needed moment of privacy.

"Djana said you could return to the palace if you're tired." Vivaen tried her best to sound convincing, but it came out as sour as ever.

Eaflied scoffed. She shoved her arm in front of Vivaen's chest and twitched her fingers at Djana, prompting the Ajwatat to hand over her skin of beer. "No, I won't hear of it." She took a stupidly large swig. "No one hides the queen of the Feislands away like a dragon's horde." She shoved the beer at Vivaen.