Page 143 of A Sword of Ice
How was he supposed to deal with that?
With his head held high and his mask in place, that was how.
He lifted a brow, gaze flashing between the two Elementals. They were pressed close together, a united front in the face of their newfound ruler. He stared at Shula, but she did not recoil from his gaze, so he turned to Iona.
“I am listening…”
55
This is War
The streets of Seirz bustled with activity and colors that Iona hadn’t seen in years. She breathed it in, her throat closing from the flecks of iron and ash in the air, with a curiosity that pressed into her bones. Porir had never been this lively. In fact, she’d assumed every human city was as melancholy as her previous home.
It was strange to see that not everyone lived in the poverty she’d imagined they did. The streets were ripe with riches and a gaiety she’d not felt in a long time. Street urchins weaved their way through roads and stalls of street vendors, their sticky fingers slipping up to steal oranges and apples and pocket their wares.
After spending so long traveling from place to place, from quiet woods to a hollow castle, Iona was glad to see something lively, even if it wasn’t her own home or her court. There was something about this place that was as freeing as it was deadly.
Deadly, because if the humans found out that Fae were hiding in plain sight, they wouldn’t hesitate to call their soldiers and have them executed.
“Come one, come all, and catch a glimpse at the world’s last polar bear!”
Clay’s shout drew in clusters of humans. They surrounded them, whispering their eagerness down the line. Children pushed their way to the front, bouncing on the balls of their feet, smiling through gapped and missing teeth. They were there, as captivated by Clay’s energy as they were about the promise of a polar bear.
He seemed like he’d actually been raised in a circus, Iona thought, peeking at him from behind a single sheet they’d hung between twin posts in the city’s center. A simple change of clothes, stolen by Shula Azzarh’s own sticky fingers, and Clay appeared the part of a ringleader. The top hat on his head covered the tips of his elongated ears, and the tail of his jacket whipped with every quick move he made down the line of viewers.
He entranced them, pulled them in with accidental glamor, and they were too weak to resist his beauty.
“The beast is behind this curtain! But beware his teeth, little ones… lest he gobble you in one ferocious bite!” He made a growling sound near a group of children, who jumped back in a fit of giggles. Then he straightened and walked backwards towards the curtain, grabbing the edge in his fist. He yanked. “Behold!”
Iona’s heel dug lightly into her familiar’s side where she was mounted on his back. He growled and stepped forward as the curtain was ripped away, and they came face to face with the crowd.
They gasped, jerking back as Iona and her familiar walked into the circle.
The music came next, a song that trailed from Shula’s throat and echoed around them. It rose and fell through the crowd in a beautiful melody that Iona found her body moving to. She threw her leg over her familiar, falling at his side in a flurry of thin skirts.
Never before had Iona worn so little in the human lands. In the Jade Court, wearing thin, white skirts that reached their thighs was normal because of the heat. Seirz wasn’t warm. In fact, it was rather chilly. Her ears were safe from the piercing stab of the wind thanks to the scarf she’d wrapped around her head. The bright blue scarf covered her ears from view and trailed down her back against the scars.
Everything else felt entirely too exposed. The skirt she wore was merely twin scraps of fabric that covered her front and back, yet left the sides open to show the toned, smooth skin of her legs. Her feet were covered in flats, and bangles slid up and down her ankles and wrists.
If this was what Shula had worn every day at the circus she used to work for, Iona couldn’t fathom how she’d stayed. It was terrible attire to be forced into.
But she did it.
She moved around her familiar in quick steps to the rhythm of Shula’s rising voice. They moved like a unit until Weylyn burst from the crowd, surprising them as he joined in on the dance. He moved like he belonged in the wilderness, with savage abandon.
Shula had planned this choreography; half of the plan had been filled with Shula’s ideas. Valerio had stared at Shula when she’d mapped out the details, as if surprised she’d ever been capable, and Iona had to force herself not to look so smug about it. How could he ever had any doubt that Shula was anything less than amazing?
Weylyn was in nothing but his pants and boots, his bronze chest on display. The long braid at the end of his head twirled and danced with his own movements like it was its own entity. He was hypnotizing, like his glamor was on full force, and that magic lived within the light steps as his feet flicked against the ground.
They made quite the show for the next few hours. Humans came and went, and soldiers passed never the wiser, dropping coins into their purses as they slowly made their way across the city, until night finally fell and they packed up their things.
The city was a busy place. One they never would have been able to slip through undetected. There were no trees to hide them, the buildings clustered too close together to keep them in the shadows.
It had been Shula’s plan, really, and subject of grand debate. How to slip through the city undetected.
“By hiding in plain sight.”
Her own face had been hidden behind scarves as she sang her way across the city so no one would recognize her as the wanted Fire Dancer from Piriguini’s Circus that was on every poster they passed.
