corradh
all roads lead toward a castle that doesn't exist
Are you the owner?
I am two-thirds offended and one-third pleased.
I demonstrate none of this. I only arch my brows in a lethargic, nearly indolent expression. In true Ieshan fashion I ask, “Do I look like the owner?” and in the asking I draw attention to the raven-slick and raven-brightness of my skin, the ornately pleated mane, the obnoxious show of wealth in Solterra’s austere culture. I smell strongly of lavender even covered in fresh sweat; and it is the carriage of self, I know, I have practiced since boyhood. The exact way a Prince walks. The exact way an Ieshan meets the eye. The exact way one can sneer without changing their expression whatsoever.
Is that not what one inherits, with an upbringing in a stucco palace?
I do not spend long assessing the other man. He is handsome in the way of a commoner; bold rather than understated, brightly coloured and marked with a chimera stain. There is something in his disposition that makes me think soldier, and I suppose it is from a lifetime of them living in the background of my life. I recognise him in the same way one recognises familiar scenery, the way the educated can glance at a field full of flowers and say, ah yes, that’s the desert marigold and that there is the yucca.
This boy is a soldier. My eyes linger on the cool metal collar on his neck and I say, “There is no reason not to remove that beneath the new regime.” I ensure my tone remains noncommittal, but that beautifully practiced art remains; how to sneer without sneering. It’s all in the voice. It’s all in the eyes.
I say it in such a tone because there is a part of me—one I smother—that wants to step close enough to touch it. The longer I am forced to regard him the more I discover he is exactly my type of conquest. There is an edge to me that remembers the days of my youth—well, younger youth when I had picked fights with soldiers just to know I bled.
At last, I close the distance between us. And in doing so I nearly brush his shoulder, but only in a gesture of reaching for a trio of figs. I pit them and eat them there, in front of him. “The owner is named Panagiota. He lives on the hilltop there.” I jerk my chin in the proper direction; the orchard of palms seems to stretch endlessly, to the point where one cannot even see the farmer’s simple stucco home. “But the labourers will be arriving any moment, if you are looking to pay for the figs. There’s a head picker; her name is Maria.”
I could have stepped back away from him, but I don’t. I stand close enough to feel the heat radiate from his body in the dry Solterran air.
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