Page 65 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

So, I stood there, dripping in my smelly armor, and wondered if smiling was also off the list.

I decided against it since she wasn’t.

She looked like someone who didn’t use those particular muscles too often, but I had to admit it worked for her. She was tall, slender, and darker skinned than Rieni, almost like the beautiful face had been carved out of a piece of ebony. Her features were lovely, but it was her hair that really drew the eye, being drawn back from her face in tiny braids that were grouped into a ponytail that cascaded to the floor.

All the way to the floor.

And then some.

I had never seen hair that swept the ground, especially not after being braided, and found myself trying to figure out how long it must be for that to work before snapping out of it. Damn it, Cassie, this isn’t a joke! Her clothes alone told me that much.

They were beautiful even for this place, although there were no elaborate, seed pearl bedecked robes here. Or even the diaphanous, only sort-of-there gowns I’d seen at dinner. She was wearing armor of the tightfitting, leather variety I’d seen on fey archers who wanted protection that didn’t impede their range of movement.

That type was usually spelled for added protection, which I assumed was true here, as little round cabochon stones of a milky hue decorated the suit at the joints and around the collar, all of which abruptly flashed red when she approached me.

She glanced at some near her wrist and then back up at me. “Stand away from her,” she told Pritkin, and to my surprise, he did, backing off about ten steps.

The lights didn’t change, except to start blinking rapidly as she approached.

I held my ground, knowing a test when I saw one but not knowing what it was. Other than freaky when she put out a hesitant hand and paused. And then, as if steeling herself, she grasped my shoulder firmly.

The lights abruptly went solid gold, and the crowd gasped theatrically as if rehearsed. The woman, however, did not. If anything, she looked resigned, as if she’d expected that.

Her hand dropped, and she shot me a look that could only be described as venomous. “You don’t look like your mother,” she said, then abruptly whirled and walked away.

***

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Pritkin said, his voice low, as we were hustled down the same wide tunnel in the rock that everyone had come out of. “Lady Bodil didn’t like your mother. Don’t bring her up.”

“I wasn’t planning—wait. She knew my mother?”

“She knew them all, the gods, that is,” Pritkin said grimly. “She’s one of the oldest here at court.”

“She doesn’t look it.”

“She has god blood, but not Nimue’s. She can’t vie for the throne as a result. She has a champion, but he isn’t doing well, and nobody thinks he’ll win. We’re up for his replacement.”

“What?” I asked, startled. “Why?”

“I’ve been able to talk her into considering the idea—”

“You have?” I said, slightly startled, because Pritkin had many gifts, but diplomacy wasn’t one of them.

“—but the outcome is still in the air. We have to—”

But I didn’t find out what we had to do because we were suddenly there, branching off the hallway into an expansive room that not only wasn’t a throne room but looked more like a stable. Only without the straw on the ground because these horses bedded down in the canal outside. Yet everything else was pretty much what you’d expect.

A row of the unusually long seahorse saddles was hanging on the wall, and another was either under repair or in construction on a tall wooden frame. Rough wooden tables held leatherworking tools, piles of bridles and reins, and lengthy, fishing pole-type things with shiny crystals on the end that I couldn’t name and that nobody felt like explaining. Stalls were scattered about the walls, why I didn’t know as I didn’t see any land animals here, except for an Earth-like cat in a corner who couldn’t be bothered to do more than yawn at us as we all streamed in.

And went toward a small area in the back with a beat-up-looking desk, a couple of chairs, and a small wooden half-wall separating it from the rest of the room, like an office for the stable master. Who took her place behind the desk and attempted not to glare at me. She mostly failed but I was used to that by now.

“We have to come to an understanding,” she began, but I wasn’t having it.

I’d just woken up, I was exhausted, still hungry, fairly cold, and very uncomfortable in my smelly armor, not all of the stank of which was Pinkie’s fault. Not to mention that nobody had explained a damned thing! I was also wondering why we needed to risk our lives to put a woman on the throne who I didn’t even know when we already had Pritkin.

But I decided to start with something a little less combative.

“Where are Rhosier and the others? Are they okay? And how did we get out of the kitchen? And who were those men who attacked us? And why did they attack us? I thought challengers were supposed to be off-limits!”

---