4 courts.
3 secrets.
2 sides.
1 war.
-
Leila Bhat-Bayza, The Liar.
She will do anything to keep the life she left behind in the First City secret.
If it means murder, then murderer she will be.
If it means sacrifice, she is ready to risk it all...
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LEILA
Leila swirled the wine in her crystal glass, bringing its rim close enough to her face to admire its purple-red shade. It was an Erudian blend, and though it was well known that all Erudian wine tasted like a god's tears and was twice as expensive, she could tell even before drawing the cup to her lips that it would be the best wine she'd ever tasted.
Her crimson-stained mouth left a mark on the cup's rim. Sipping lightly, she shut her eyes and tried to pick out the flavors hiding beneath the subtle bitterness. The taste of fermented berries and Eastern spices, the backbiting of the oak barrel it was left to age in. Liquid gold was sitting at the bottom of her glass, and she would drink every last drop until the blood pouring from the purposeful gash done into her side stopped all together.
Flesh wounds were always the worst, a truth she had learned from previous experience. She let out a sigh, continuing to sip even though she knew there was no time to enjoy life's finer pleasures. In exactly an hour, Mistress Dahlia would bring the servants she had handpicked to get rid of Anisara's body. They were all children she'd purchased and maimed into muteness. Secrets could not be spilled if tongues could not wag, the woman must have reasoned. A small smile curled on Leila's mouth then, despite the pain reverberating through her trembling form. Well, the woman was in for quite a treat.
Beyond the smell and taste of wine, there were other scents hanging in the air like a confused afterthought. Sweat, the slight press of Daer Sisera's lime-drenched perfume, the coppery reek of freshly spilt blood—there was an ache between her thighs, and she was sure if she dared a downward glance—wine spilled out of her cup and onto the Layeese carpet beneath her bared feet. A cold tremor ran up her back, gooseflesh forming over her arms and naked chest as she peered out of the window for what felt like the hundredth time that evening.
Mistress Dahlia had set aside her most expensive room for the infamous Daer, had told her serving girls to keep the hearth burning and the water in the pristine wooden tub on the room's furthest end warm with expensive adelian stones. There was a spread of finger food and dessert on the low table in the room's epicenter, jasmine tea poured over ice—and ice was an expense few could afford in the summer months. Everything had been made ready for his coming, the best of the best laid out for the Siseran heir to have his fill of whatever pleasure tickled his fancy, be it the most expensive bottle of wine or the most beautiful girl in her ensemble of slaves.
Was Anisara cold?
Leila had left her slumped against a wall, eyes unblinking in the face of Death's shadow, her first victim of the evening. Anisara and the Daer would not be the only people journeying to the Overshadow that fine evening, but they would be the only ones doing so at the edge of Leila's dagger, and both for entirely different reasons.
There were some Leila knew who took pleasure in snuffing out the lives of innocents, and others who took their joy when watching the evil receive their due. She couldn't tell if she'd ever belonged to either group, but she had been raised amongst both. Her vow was never to become them, but when she glanced her reflection in the window's half-lit surface, she realized she'd broken her word.
