Speaking to Skull Kings by Emily B. Cataneo

Author:Emily B. Cataneo [Cataneo, Emily B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JournalStone
Published: 2017-04-12T01:40:42+00:00

THE FIREBIRD

Elena, bright rage twisting in her chest, felt her tail creak under her coat as she faced the man in the snow.

“That’s not enough.” The man jabbed his fat fingers at the three gemstones pinned to burgundy velvet that Elena clenched in her gloved hand.

Elena wished she could spit in this man’s face, watch cold spittle drip from his frozen whiskers. If only she could trade for the oil with someone else—as she had all autumn—but winter fell hard over Novgorod, and today he was the only merchant left in the market—all the other stalls stood shuttered in the long purple shadow cast by St. Sophia’s gold domes.

“It’s more than enough.” Elena dangled the velvet between them; snowflakes pocked the fabric. Sell me the oil, you fat bastard. They had run out of oil more than a week ago, and Nina was fading away.

“I’ll need twice as many. Price’s gone up.” The man cradled the glass bottle, black sludge sluicing inside.

“Do you have any idea what these jewels are worth?” Elena’s tail creaked again, stretching the cold skin around her tailbone; she ground her teeth as the corroded feathers spread apart. She willed her tail to stay down, to stay hidden, but anger coursed through her and she felt the spreading feathers lifting her coat’s frayed hem. “The Empress Catherine gave this sapphire to my great-great grandmother, and this emerald—”

“It don’t mean you get to tell me what to do no more.” The man stomped his feet as snow drifted around his boots. “Your kind aren’t even people. Commissar says so.”

Elena hated the way his mouth twisted in a smile around the words. Once upon a time you would have ducked out of the road for our family’s motorcar. Where were you the night of the fire? Stealing vodka from our cellars or holding a torch?

I can’t lose Nina too, the way I lost my parents.

Sell me the oil.

“Seven gemstones, or nothing,” he said.

Her tail twitched, this time lifting her knee-length coat like a boat sail—she felt the wind bite her thighs. Wincing, she turned her head and out of the corner of her eye saw the rubies on her tail winking in the falling dusk.

The man’s mouth spread into a smile of missing teeth and triumph. “Cout-ments. I see.”

“They’re called accoutrement,” Elena snapped.

“Wouldn’t the commissar like to know you’ve been hoarding the people’s property?”

They ripped off accoutrement, without ether—Elena had heard men like this one talk about it in the market, about how some nobles died from the pain. She would make them shoot her before she let them take her tail, or take Nina’s lungs.

“Wouldn’t the commissar like to know you’re bartering for jewels with a noblewoman instead of reporting me straight to him?” Elena’s tail was now fully lifted, the feathers spreading apart and bristling, visible under her coat, but she didn’t care, he already knew she had accoutrement.

He shrugged. “You have nothing anymore. The commissar don’t care what you say.”

Elena lunged forward and jammed her

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