Page 68 of Shadowlands Omega

“I understand,” he says, but he withdraws his hand so abruptly, it leaves me feeling like I’ve done something wrong.

That feeling grows more pronounced as we shop in a tense silence, so much less pleasant than the light banter we exchanged before. I buy myself new shoes and shoes for the other members of my family that I know they’d like, and after swapping out my oversized boots with the short booties made for me on the spot in the leather shop, Yaron leads me to the fabric stalls.

“Batiks!” I exclaim when I see the beautiful, starched cotton fabrics, dyed in varying shades. I haggle with the vendor, arguing with them over which ones are real wax and which are synthetic fakes commonly produced in Glass Flats, but also in the Rookery. Real wax batiks only come from the Shadowlands and Ruby City now, though Mirage City used to be our largest supplier before the Fates were found to be controlling the city and trade stopped between Mirage City and the South Island.

Eventually, we settle on a price for the real wax fabrics and a few pieces of Ankara textiles and mudcloths. The female merchant, who I hadn’t even noticed because she wasn’t handling the negotiations, then takes me into the back to be measured and fitted.

I head into the stall, leaving Yaron out front looking stressed and grumpy. The female chuckles when she shuts the curtain between us and the outside world. Everything quiets. It’s like we’ve entered another universe.

“So it’s true,” she says the moment we’re alone. I wonder if Yaron can even hear us with how loud the market is. That makes me a little nervous, but I remember now that we did come to snoop. I suppose striking up conversations with random vendors is part of that and it’s much easier to do without him looming over me.

“So what’s true, miss?”

“It’s Zanele,” she says.

“Kiandah,” I reply just as quickly. The woman looks young, though my guess is that she’s around my age or older. She has long braids that fall to her waist and I try not to clench my teeth in envy as I remember what my hair looked like before.

She smiles at me and I feel instantly guilty that I’ve been caught thinking negatively towards her, especially when she drops her tone and says, “They say Lord Yaron has been tempted as no other Shadow Lord has been tempted before. They say a great and powerful Omega has brought him to his knees. That he took lashes for her. That he worships the ground at her feet…”

I laugh. I just can’t help it. Zanele laughs, too, knowing she’s spinning yarns. I shake my head as I wipe the moisture from my eyes and she resumes measuring me and making little adjustments to the stiff, brightly colored fabric she has wrapped around my waist. “I think someone’s been telling you tall tales.”

“Or someone is being modest,my Lady. I haven’t seen Lord Yaron in the Night Market before and I’ve never seen him do his own shopping.” She giggles again and I laugh with her, thinking of poor, sweet, homicidal Yaron standing outside a batiks stall grumpily waiting for me. “I think he really likes you, miss.”

My face warms. “It’s because I’m an Omega.”

“I don’t know.” Her voice rises at the end, teasingly, but not in a mean way. In a way that sends feeling all the way down to the soles of my feet and the tips of my toes. “Omegas have passed through the Shadowlands before and he was not tempted by them.”

“You’re making me blush, sha,” I say, using the old Orias word for sister.

“I don’t think it’smemaking you blush, sha-lee,” she replies, the Undoline derivative.

I perk up. “You’re from Undoline.”

“Born and raised.”

“I didn’t notice your accent.”

“I work at the Night Market three days, then I go back to Undoline the rest of the week to help prepare the fabrics. It comes and goes, depending.”

“I’d stay put, if I were you, given what’s gone on here with Trash City.” I didn’t even mean to prod in that direction. The words simply came to me. And, having said them, I realize that I’m in a position now to push. “Has Undoline had any of the problems with Trash City or the undead army we’ve had in Orias?”

Zanele’s brown eyes flash. She’s hunkered down in a crouch, applying pins to the legs of my new trousers. I feel like I’m sweating. Cold, but sweating, even though the weather near the ports is balmy and pleasant, even at night. The waters of Zaoul are warm on the east side of the islands, cold on the west. Here in the strait between the two islands, the warm and cool waters clash.

I wait, staring at her expectantly in a way that I hope appears innocent. “Pardon me for saying, sha-lee, but didn’t your family work with the traitors of Trash City to kill Alphas?”

I wince and shake my head. “Is that what people think?”

“Are they wrong?”

“I…” Ancestors save me, it’s what I have to believe. “My family didn’t kill anyone, but…” But I need her to tell me what she knows. “But my parents and oldest sister were working with them to supply bodies for the undead army. I…Lord Yaron absolved us. But at great cost. What we did — ”I am not my family.“ — what they did — was wrong. So wrong. They shamed me.” I shake my head, realizing what I’ve said and recoiling from it. “I…I’m sorry. I’ve never said that out loud before.”

She shudders visibly, but she nods, too. “Have you seen them with your own eyes?”

“The undead?”

She nods.

I shudder. “They’re horrible. Have you?”

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