Page 18 of Daughter of the Ninth Line: Part Two

Acacia rushed out of her room holding a red dress, roughly the same color as the sun-scorched earth of her home territory. “Come on, Avalon. We only have four hours until you have to meet Vox Vylan in his bedroom, and you smell like the ass end of a beast of burden.”

I sniffed my armpit and winced. She wasn’t wrong. She herded me into the big copper bathtub, filled with some kind of fragrant herbs and murky white water. I didn’t even have time to be embarrassed as she undressed me, and three of them scrubbed me down, even cleaning the dirt beneath my fingernails.

By the end, I was in fact several shades lighter. Here I thought I’d been getting a tan in the harsher Southern sun. Turns out, it was just caked-on dirt.

They preened me until the clock read 8:55pm, and I was standing at the door of the bowels, the whole floor hovering around, as if I was off to my first ball rather than some guy’s dorm room. Viana had her arms wrapped around the waists of both Polus and Link—her boyfriends—and they were all looking at me like I was a miracle.

Acacia chewed her lip. “You should see if you can get him to do something about the famine in the Eleventh and Twelfth Baronies while he’s buried between your thighs.”

Viana hushed her. “We aren’t pimping her out for humanitarian aid, Acacia. The Upper Lines don’t care, and we shouldn’t ruin Avalon’s chances of a better future by making her a political spy.” She grinned and hugged me tightly. “You look beautiful, though, so if anyone could make a man like Vox Vylan spontaneously grow a heart, it’d be you. Remember, if you start to gag, just force yourself to swallow.” She pushed me out onto the dorm landing.

I frowned at her parting words, and the way Polus was laughing. “What?”

“She means have fun,” Acacia answered, then closed the door.

Sucking in a deep breath, I made the climb to the top floor of Boellium, and the elite of all of Ebrus’s Lines.

Twelve

Vox

I’d cleared out the dorm, because I could. Not because I was embarrassed that I’d invited her here, but because I didn’t think she’d enjoy being stared at like some sort of freak. Ridiculous, really. I hadn’t been living like a monk in this hellhole for the last year; I’d had lovers. Many, in fact, because I couldn’t fuck anyone twice without them getting stars in their eyes and dreaming of crowns on their heads. Figurative crowns, of course. Ebrus didn’t actually have royalty.

Though the First Line would be as close as you could get. At least, that’s how everyone had always treated us, and my father would be the first to expect their reverence. I hated it. Always had, even when I was a child. The stares and expectations were the heaviest mantle.

Displacement in my air barrier told me that Avalon had arrived. I stood and straightened my clothes, still unsure why I was doing this.

There’d been a small seed of feeling that had been sown upon seeing her, and it compelled me to dig at it, whether I understood it or not.

Walking down the spiral staircase to the common room, I strode confidently toward the door. Straightening my face intoits normal stately mask, I opened it. And my jaw immediately slackened.

With the lights of the landing behind her, she looked almost ethereal. I cleared my throat. “You look nice.”

That was bullshit. She looked more than nice. She lookedbeautiful.Her skin was glowing, her hair falling in beautiful waves over her shoulders. She was in a dress that I knew was of the Twelfth Line style, a fitted bodice that hugged her curves right down over her hips, before flaring into a full skirt.

She looked like a goddess. That small seed of feeling began to sprout into something else. Something that I wasn’t sure would get enough light to bloom into anything more.

Mentally shaking myself, I stood to the side and indicated she should enter. She gave me a tight smile, stepping across the threshold. She was possibly the first Ninth Line conscript to step foot on this floor in a hundred years.

“Where is everyone?” she asked softly, like she was worried about being shushed by a librarian. I shut the door behind her, and she briefly looked panicked.

Well, that was good sense, I guess. I hadn’t thought about how it would seem, just her and I in a deserted dorm, with the door locked.

“Everyone is out, but if you’re uncomfortable, I could get Shay or someone else to come back?”

I was a fool. When was the last time I’d made an effort with a woman? Normally, they crawled into my lap with little effort on my part. I didn’t do anything as basic astrying.

Shay, while she didn’t pretend to understand my fascination with the girl from the Ninth Line, had insisted this kind of effort was good for me, even if it couldn’t go anywhere. That I should consider it training for whatever bride my father inevitably picked out for me. Or my mother, I guess. I wasn’t sure which option was more terrifying.

Shay might’ve been right. I knew that I didn’t want a loveless, messy marriage—the kind my parents had, fuelled by rage, gossip, and illicit affairs. It was the most toxic environment I’d ever witnessed… and I’d grown up in court.

Avalon canted her head toward me appraisingly, then shook it. “No, it’s fine. I can always stab you if you get too handsy.”

I choked back the laugh that threatened to burst out. “That’s treasonous talk, Ninth. Don’t you know the walls have ears?” Not in here, though. This dorm was my domain, and there were no spies here right now. Nothing but the sphere of silence that I meticulously maintained and the girl across from me. “Let’s go up to my suite. The meteor shower is estimated to begin within the next hour.”

She followed me obediently up the spiral stairs, and when we stepped into the Dome, she sucked in a small gasp. I resisted the urge to preen, like I’d had anything to do with the beauty of this room. It had been here for longer than I could comprehend. The large diamond panes of glass managed to be both beautiful and unobtrusive, a frame for a breathtaking view of the stars. The moon was thin and dark, making it the perfect night for the meteor shower.

She spun around, taking in my suite with wide eyes. I tried to see it the way she did: the large bed covered in the finest blankets, the ornate desk and chair that overlooked the courtyard. Intricate rugs, sculptures, and swords all sat side by side. A low bookshelf ran right around the room, filled with numerous tomes that varied in rarity and boringness.

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