Page 68 of Bloodguard

When she looks up, I pretend I’ve been watching a little girl with brown curls and brown eyes who’s holding tight to her mother’s skirt with one hand and a doll in the other. The mother is placing an order for purple flowers for the upcoming festival commemorating the death of the phoenix. “Hmph,” I say.

“My, you’re in a chatty mood today,” she teases. She nudges me with her elbow. “What’s on your mind this time, you wizard of words?”

You, I want to tell her, but I don’t because that’s the way it should be. I think. “That little girl looks like Dahlia,” I say. “Except Dahlia never had a doll. The only thing she really had to call her own were these green shoes Rose passed down to her. She slept with those things, she loved them so much. And when she slept, Rose would sew any small holes shut and reinforce the stitching so she never had to take them off.”

“Oh,” Maeve says, suddenly lost in thought.

I cock an eyebrow, unsure whether she’s pitying me, my sisters, or all of us. But I don’t push. Not this time.

“Leith, look.” Maeve points ahead excitedly.

My hand drops to the hilt of the sword Jakeb gave me as I narrow my gaze. I don’t see any immediate threat, and our exit pathways are plentiful.

Maeve hurries forward, and I follow her to another market stall. This one has red silks draping over the top and amber flags anchored above it that hang lankly and slither in the slack breeze.

The colors are of my home country.

“Belladom,” she says.

I frown as I draw even with her and the dwarf manning this booth. His bright smile is smarmy, and I wonder for a second if I should just take him down. Probably not, though.Pity.

“Come, Princess,” the dwarf says. He lifts a vial containing belladom oil and removes the stopper. He wafts his hand over the perfume. “The rarest and most prized scent in all the realms.”

I huff. “Our ancestors used it for bug repellant.”

The dwarf frowns at me. He recovers his smile and continues selling Maeve on his wares. “The scent is nature’s purest aphrodisiac.” He waggles his eyebrows.

As if she needs any help in that department.

I reach for one of the actual seeds. It’s large, about the size of my fist, and oblong. Holding it triggers a slew of memories. Roasting the outer leaves over the fire, my mother wrapping rice and legumes in them to give us extra nourishment. It was the main staple of my people’s diets for centuries. Until the outsiders discovered the hard seed’s unique scent and the wealthy classes of the realms began to covet it.

Maeve’s brow furrows with confusion as she addresses the peddler. “It attracts…”

“Anyone you wish to attract,” he promises.

Bullshit.

“I always thought belladom was some sort of cactus,” Maeve says, eyeing the seed I hold and glancing between it and the many perfume bottles the dwarf has arranged.

“Belladom grows in the desert,” I say, “but it sprouts underwater during the flood season. Don’t ask me how, but the floodwater mixes with the sand in a way that fertilizes the plants. Each flower produces a single, prickly fruit containing one of these. The needles must be scraped off with a knife before you can eat the flesh or get to the seed.”

Maeve’s hair sweeps over her shoulder as she turns to me. “That’s very laborious.”

Indeed. I spent eighteen hours a day suffering in those belladom fields, and this merchant will make more money off the sale of one vial than I made in a year. I set the seed down. A vicious urge to grab the man and drag him out of his fancy stall has my hands curling into fists.

I step away before I do something stupid.

“Don’t go, my lord. Come, have a sample,” the dwarf insists.

I’m not his lord, and I want no part of this. The mere aroma of that shit churns my gut and brings back harsh memories I’d sooner forget.

“Leith, wait,” Maeve calls.

But I keep walking.

“Leith.”

I pause farther down the line of market vendors. It’s not her I’m mad at. It’s the memories that surfaced upon seeing belladom again.

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