Dawnsong by Bryn Shutt

Author:Bryn Shutt [Shutt, Bryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

Chords in flats and sharps, no! She knew him. That face, with its flaring slash of jaw and harsh cheekbones, all framed by auburn hair. She would never forget that face—or its expression as she had cursed his heartbeat to the Pale Mercy. Poor man.

Anybody but him!

It had been two years ago, at the peak of the White Poppy War. Lilias had still been with the Troupe Beli back then. They’d stopped in the Masque for a four night show. Everything had gone all right—or as all right as dancing in the Masque could go. Men there didn’t understand true art. All they wanted to see was something the Troupe Beli did not do. So, the audience had been mostly women and children. Not bad. But the attitude of the male population had quickly gotten under Lilias’ skin—probably as much as the men felt irked about not getting to see what was underneath her costume.

Maybe the visit would have become as unmemorable as a grey sky, but on the last night in the city, the master had sent her to running—stage makeup, costume and all—to the moneylenders. Their passage had been paid with the wrong currency; they ran the risk of losing their place on the ship or some such stuff and aggravation.

Anyway, Lilias had gone. To the wrong address apparently. Because all she got was a lone, young man, dressed in Albidoni fashion, answering her knock with the most bewildered look on his face. And that’s when it had happened—

He’d thought she was a courtesan. With a stammer, he had asked her to leave. With that much makeup on and dressed like something from fairytale land, she couldn’t say she had ever blamed him. But it was the city, the lustful mood. It all came out. Of her mouth.

May the Pale Mercy spit on you! she’d shouted. It was the darkest curse she knew, the darkest one anyone this side of the Feathered Wastes knew. His poor, innocent face had gone from bewildered to panicked, a deep, scarlet shade shooting across his rugged features. Without another word, she’d stormed off into the dark that night.

She had always regretted her words, her reaction—not the anger that had driven them—but, poor man. He’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, she had been in the wrong place. Either way. Lilias never could recall how they’d straightened out the travel situation. She had gotten home somehow. All the way to right now...

“That the way they’re wearing shirts now, Des? All wadded up?” The apple-tossing Falcon’s chuckle snapped her mind back into the present. The awful present.

He must hate me; surely, he hates me.

There was a primal grumble from behind the door, some rustling of fabric, the sound of a belt latching, and then, Lilias could hear it, a hand pulling the knob back. Instinctively, she slammed her eyelids shut. It was simple, she told herself. When I open them maybe Captain Edenry will have a different face. Maybe he was changing his face as well as his clothes.

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