The Proposal Game by Megan E. O'Keefe

Author:Megan E. O'Keefe [O'Keefe, Megan E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-12T22:00:00+00:00

13

"Is this your idea of a joke?" Silka’s voice was hard and smooth as a riverstone, which meant Halva had really screwed up. They stood under the sparse shade of a reedpalm in Halva’s garden, trusting the heat and vegetation to keep any would-be eavesdroppers at bay.

Silka shook the thick, folded sheet of paper at her and Halva flinched back. "I thought you’d find it amusing—"

"Amusing? Have you gone sun-mad? Skies above, Halvie, I do love you but—an engagement party? To Detan Honding? Do you have any idea what a tizzy my mother is in? You’d think someone told her I was liable to drop dead of old age at any moment. She’s calling me an old maid now—bah! I wish I was an old maid!—but this little stunt of yours has put the wind up her. She’ll have me married off to the first marginally acceptable man she can con into it!"

"She can’t force you, you know, there are laws against that sort of thing."

Silka snorted and threw herself into a chair with a grunt. "There aren’t any laws against guilting a woman to death. Or throwing her out on her backside."

"She wouldn’t!"

"She most certainly would." Silka dragged her fingers through her hair and sighed. "My family doesn't even have a concordant to lose, and I haven’t been able to secure an apprenticeship anywhere. It’s either join the Air Fleet or marry well for me."

Guilt blossomed in Halva’s heart, seeing the thin lines of distress spread from Silka’s eyes and lips. Shunting aside her own worries, Halva pulled a chair close to her friend’s side and sat, patting her knee. "You stop that now, it’s not like you to mope."

"It’s even less like me to get married."

"It won’t come to that, not if you don’t want it."

"The Fleet, then." Silka’s lips pursed tight. "It’s the only other way."

"I’m sure we can think of something. What about the watch? Have you inquired after a position there?"

"Sure, and so has every other hard-up soul in all Aransa. They’re full up."

Halva scowled at the empty air somewhere over Silka’s shoulder, letting her gaze unfocus as she dug through memory in search of an idea. The Fleet, she decided, would not do. Too often local joiners were shipped off into any old far-flung sector of the Scorched, where they spent their days chasing rumors of Catari uprisings and securing selium mines against bandits.

"You can’t join the Fleet," she said.

Silka rolled her eyes. "I’d enjoy it, at least. The martial arts have always appealed to me."

"But they could send you anywhere."

"Traveling actually sounds nice."

"Without me?"

Her friend’s grave expression melted under the force of her sudden, barked laugh. "It would be a terrible hardship, but we’d survive."

"You would. I’d wilt with sadness."

"Oh pah, you’ll have Cranston’s shoulder to weep on."

"If he ever forgives me. And anyway, it’s not the same. He’s not you."

Silka leaned forward, bright eyes narrowing with suspicion. "What do you mean, forgives you?"

Carefully restrained emotions threatened to bubble to the surface. Halva cleared her throat once, twice.

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