Baby Shower by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Epic, Action & Adventure, General
ISBN: 9781682102459
Google: _EFRDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B07BG9S7T6
Publisher: Serial Box
Published: 2018-05-02T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Ojo

“Bellona has outdone herself.”

The smile surprised Ojo with how readily it manifested. Despite the grief lying leaden in the pit of his stomach, he couldn’t help but feel a thrum of excitement. Penelope had not requested he absent himself from the debacle, although they’d both joked about how it might be a favor instead. She’d asked for him. After all the words they’d shared, she’d asked for him. A final courtesy, perhaps? Or an apology for that wretched evening in her bedchambers?

Ojo wanted neither to be true.

He studied her face; the Vanian battlemistress was impossible to read. Few gave the warder enough credit. Certainly, her combat prowess went unquestioned. There was no one alive who would dare downplay Penelope’s achievements in that area. Even Lavinia had nothing but a grudging respect for the older woman. But so few understood just how accomplished Penelope was at diplomacy, how gifted she was at using the inflection of a smile to alter a discussion. Ojo, however, was aware, and for that reason, he found himself unable to truly relax.

“I won’t lie,” he said, reaching up to brush fingers across the frothing of seed pearls and lace dangling from the doorway. It wasn’t dissatisfactory work, in any shape or sense. Bellona was Mertikan, after all. Her people did nothing halfway. But the effusive delicacy of it all seemed ill suited for a woman like Penelope. “I’m slightly afraid of what’s going to be inside the ballroom.”

“Whatever it is, it’ll be lovely, I’m certain.” Penelope was dressed serviceably, with armor beneath her tunic, sword at her back.

“You’re being very generous to Mertika, my dear.”

“You mistake me, Ojo.”

Her smile, as always, filled his world and eclipsed all else. Damn it all. Adechike might have been right, after all.

“I said it’ll be lovely. I never said it would suit my tastes. War, for example, can be beautiful, but most would claim otherwise. And haruspicy is an art of its own. I’m told that there are competitions where the aesthetics of entrails-reading are judged by a jury of peers. It is a matter of perspective.”

“And what is your perspective on this?”

“This will be a gaudy, garish, glamorous, and utterly heinous affair.” Penelope winked at him. “But the food, I imagine, will at least be palatable.”

•••

Penelope was right.

The ballroom was transformed. The ceiling was frescoed with billowing silks, complex floral arrangements, all threaded with firefly glows. The tables were festooned with dioramas: porcelain cavalry, whalebone soldiers and wire-frame ships, manaks in miniature, all coming together in battle, while villagers made of saltshakers and pepper shakers watched on. Beautiful people—some slim hipped and dark, others pale and voluptuous—swanned through the ballroom, carrying silver trays laden with hors d’oeuvres.

There were murals hanging from every wall, and—

Ojo heard Penelope swear softly, even as the battlemistress’s shimmering doppelgängers emerged from the milling guests. Here was Penelope as she stood on her wife’s ship after the two had taken down a mist-fiend with no help but their own hands, armor tattered, blood ribboning from the corner of her smirk.

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