A Girl Named Calamity by Danielle Lori

CHAPTER TEN

UNWILLING OMEN

The festival was in the heart of the city. We walked down the maze-like dirt streets for a long while until we entered a large open square. Wooden tables covered the area, and people milled around, stopping at all the vendors and booths set up. The dark night was lit by the moon’s light and the surrounding torches. The Star of Truth was as bright as the night I left Alger. It was a comfort only to look up and be able to find my way home.

A dancer ran past us with a baton, both ends on fire. I watched as more joined, and a beautiful dance made of fire began. At the end of the performance, the dancers threw their batons up in the air, and I jumped at the small explosion. Fire that spelled, ‘Sylvia,’ was the only thing left as the orange flickers drifted away and diminished.

A couple of men walked past me, and one stopped in his tracks. I swore that he sniffed the air.

In a flash, the situation with the soap came back to me. I expected the man to grimace and walk away, but instead he walked towards me and introduced himself.

I had to extradite myself from the conversation, as he didn’t seem as though he was going to leave anytime soon. Rosa smiled and helped me get away. I tried to ask her about the soap, but she cut me off and pointed at some vendor’s stand while prattling on about what she wanted to buy. As we walked around and looked at the wares, I noticed more strange reactions. Some men did grimace and walk away.

Just when I would begin to feel self-conscious, a man would crowd my space and it was a painful experience to escape his attention.

I tried to push my irritation at the awkward situation aside, and when Rosa offered me the traditional Sylvian brew, I didn’t hesitate to accept. I blamed the old lady in the bathhouse; she had driven me to drink. I hoped I ran into her so that I could coax an answer from her about the soap, but wasn’t too hopeful with her sneaky ways.

When I wasn’t having to dodge men who seemed too interested in me or having to weave past men who seemed less than interested, we talked and drank. I watched a dance of women who all had leather on their upper arms while the men stood in a straight line.

“If you are interested in finding a man, you should go dance,” Rosa said over the music and revelry. I shook my head at her and watched the dance. It seemed similar to Alger dances where the women weaved around the men, their left leather-clad arm towards them. I watched as a man slipped his hand around the leather on one woman’s arm, the dance slowed for a moment before the woman nodded her head, and then with the man’s hand around the leather, they left together.

Ah, so that was being pulled in. A lot tamer than I had assumed.

“Where are they going?” I asked Rosa.

“To get to know each other,” she replied.

A song played, and I could feel the emotion within it as the rhythm sped up and slowed down. The feeling of sadness from happiness to passion was a jarring effect. I didn’t feel anger, and I assumed that would have probably put a damper on the crowd.

We were walking by all the different booths of crafts and food when someone grabbed my hand.

“Would you like your fortune told?” an old woman in a robe asked as she tried to pull me towards a booth.

“No, sorry. I don’t.” The only money I had was what I was supposed to pay Weston. I had taken a few coins out before I left for the festival. He wouldn’t notice, right? Besides, I didn’t want to know my future. It was mine to find out on my own.

A mournful expression appeared on the old woman’s face. “Enjoy the festival, enjoy the time you have left.” She dropped my hand while I stared at her with wide eyes. She disappeared into the crowd as I tried to comprehend that she had just told me I would die soon.

Why would she say that when I had been clear on the fact that I didn’t want my fortune told? My ears were hot with irritation. I tried to tell myself that she was just an old, addled woman. But the irrational feeling that something would fall from the sky and land on my head flashed through my mind. I had a grossly overactive imagination.

I tried to forget her words with another cup of brew.

When I realized the effect the drink had taken, I also lost Rosa. The thought that I had no idea how to get back to the inn alone sent prickles of anxiety through my body. When I looked up and saw the Star of Truth, I let out a breath of relief.

Hopefully, it would work, and if it didn’t, then Grandmother had officially gone senile, and this whole trip was a pointless endeavor. I didn’t care if men were after me and I could remove prisoners from magical rocks.

I looked into my empty cup. What would another harm? I got a refill and then told the Star of Truth to take me back to the inn. It took me a moment to realize I had said it out loud.

The streets were full as I followed the star. It didn’t move in the sky, but every time I would look up from my clumsy feet, I would need to turn, or I would have run into a wall. I didn’t know whether it was that I was in my cups or if the land was moving for the star. I was too drunk to care.

I finished my cup by the time I got back to the inn, and realized I shouldn’t have. My face was hot, my head was light, and I stumbled some going up the stairs. The inn door banged shut, and I glanced behind me and saw Weston walk in.

I frowned. Where had he been all day? I watched him sniff the air and scowl. Not again. I grimaced and finished my trek up the stairs. I tensed as I heard his heavy steps following behind me.

When I got to my room, I slammed the door, but Weston blocked it with a boot and shoved himself in. “What do you want?” I sighed.

He stood in the doorway with a frown on his lips, his gaze clouded with confusion. He didn’t answer my question as he just stood there, still. Tension permeated the air, and I swallowed. When the haze over his eyes turned into something smoldering and terrifying, he walked towards me.

My heart drummed, and I backed up a step but stopped myself. The drink had made me brave, and I wasn’t going to be intimidated by him anymore.

He froze, turned around and raked his hands through his hair. He positioned himself in the corner of the room, the furthest he could have gotten from me. I couldn’t help but think he was only breathing through his mouth. Did I really stink that bad?

His body was tense, his fists clenched. “What game are you playing?”

My heartbeat sped up at his tone. “I don’t play games,” I retorted.

Most of the time . . .

He grimaced. “Why do you stink like a Sylvian bride?”

“I don’t stink,” I lied. I was certainly being unreasonable, but I didn’t feel like being reasonable. I felt dizzy and tired.

“You do, and you will go wash it off. Right. Now,” he ordered.

Demands. Demands. Demands. I’m getting really damn sick of them.

“No, I don’t think I will,” I said.

The muscle in his jaw ticked while he stared at me with a murderous look on his too handsome face. Which was just not right for an assassin to have. “You will go wash it off, or I will do it for you,” he said calmly, but with an undertone of menace that gave me the chills.

I found it odd that he wasn’t moving from his spot in the corner. Why was he even so angry? So what if I smelled like something rotten? He couldn’t possibly be able to smell me from his room. Defiantly, I turned around to crawl into bed. My body tensed and rebelled against the idea of having my back to him, but I was too tired to take a bath.

When a rough hand wrapped around my arm and spun me around, my stomach dropped, and I was sure I was his next victim. Someone had found me and paid him to kill me. Or he had just gotten sick of me.

But he didn’t kill me—he threw me over his shoulder. The impact of his shoulder in my stomach almost made me throw up alone. The motion of him walking as I hung upside down didn’t help. My stomach revolted at each step he took down the stairs, and I focused on keeping my dinner down.

“Put me down!” I demanded as he carried me through the streets. I heard a couple of whistles as if they thought we were lovers and that made my vision redder than it already was.

“I’m going to kill you!” I snarled, but he wouldn’t loosen his grip around my thighs, not even when I pounded on his back with my fists.

I was in the air for a moment, before I landed in a pool of water. I came up sputtering, wiping the hair off my face. He tossed a bar of soap into the water while I made to get out of the baths.

“You get out, I will throw you in again. I will do it all fucking night if I have to,” he barked.

I growled at his back while he walked out of the room. I needed a bed, not be thrown into the baths over and over. If I found that sneaky old woman . . .

The room was dark, only lit by the moon through the small window. My movements were choppy and tired as I took off my soaked clothes. They hit the stone floor with a splat, and I searched the dark waters for the soap.

I ran the soap up and down my arms, wanting nothing but to be in bed. I didn’t know what I would wear, considering my clothes were soaked. But clothes seemed a moot point while this far in my cups.

“I’m done!” I shouted. Weston walked back into the room, and I was sure he sniffed the air again.

Weird.

“Do it again. And do it right this time or I’ll scrub you my-fucking-self.”

I scowled. My arm itched to throw the soap at the back of his head as he walked back out. But something stopped me. Self-perseverance, maybe?

I scrubbed up, more than adequately this time, and hollered at him. Apparently it was good enough now, because he noticed my clothes predicament, pulled off his shirt, and threw it at me. I caught it before it could fall in the water and when I looked up, he was gone. I frowned at the linen shirt in my hand. When had he changed? What did he even do when he left?

I didn’t think I wanted to know.

There weren’t any towels, so I wrung out my hair and slipped his shirt on wet. It clung to my body, but covered more than my Sylvian clothes had, and truthfully I was too tired to care. I grabbed my soaked clothes and left the room.

Weston was waiting for me with an unreadable expression, and we walked side by side to the inn. Tense air filled the small space between us, and when I looked up, his eyes were on me. I shivered in his shirt but held eye contact for a moment.

The realization hit me that I was wearing only an assassin’s shirt while I walked down dusty Sylvian streets.

My world had severely changed.

I pulled my gaze away, and he walked me all the way back to my room. I thought it was kind of gentlemanly, but then he shoved me inside and slammed the door.