Page 98 of The King of Koraha
Double ugh. She forced a brilliant smile and left. Glad to have a few angles alone, Shyla packed her new purchases into her pack. It took her longer than she wanted to admit to figure out the purpose of a few of the pieces, meaning they had no practical purpose.
And that Gurice’s definition of skimpy didn’t match hers. Gurice’s was more like…next to nothing. Still…Rendor might appreciate them more.
Her heart lurched. Thinking about Rendor brought up so many conflicting emotions. She wanted to find him right now, take the pendant off him, explain everything, and beg for his forgiveness. Except she couldn’t just skip to the end.
Instead, she slipped under the fur fully clothed. If Xerxes asked about it, she’d claim she had been too tired to change. Despite her nerves, she was exhausted from freeing the guards and she fell asleep almost right away. When Xerxes joined her, she was barely aware of him.
When she woke, at first she thought the solid body curled around her was Rendor. Then reality chased away all her warm fuzzy thoughts and she quickly extracted herself from Xerxes’ embrace.
“Little One?” he asked sleepily.
“Water closet,” she said, dashing away. The sand clock read angle three-fifty. It was almost time to wake, so she slipped out to the main room.
Vilma arrived at angle zero with first meal. If she was surprised to see Shyla awake already, she didn’t show it. Instead she called for Xerxes to get his lazy ass out of the cushion.
Xerxes and Vilma discussed the arrival of the taxes while they ate. Shyla kept quiet, hoping that nothing changed.
“I’ll give Zahoor a couple chests of coins to keep here,” Xerxes said. “We’ll send the rest to Haiya.”
“All right. Who do you want on the surface?” Vilma asked.
“Zahoor, Dayana, Big Brute, and Little One.”
Vilma scowled. “Why her?”
“Just in case we run into trouble. The wagons of goods are most vulnerable when arriving and leaving a city.”
“We can handle trouble,” she said.
“I know.”
She grunted. “You’re the boss.”
“I know that, too.”
Twenty angles before the danger zone, Shyla, Rendor, Xerxes, and his team stood sweating on the hot sands, waiting for the arrival of the tax wagons with their escort. The small caravan of three wagons would come from the south since their last stop was in Zirdai. Jayden had just paid his first tax payment to the King as the city’s official Water Prince.
Shyla resisted the strong desire to glance at Rendor. As much as she wanted to check his expression and read his thoughts—how badly was he enthralled?—she was supposed to be thinking only about Xerxes.
As the tax caravan drew closer, Shyla counted eight Dunnar monks guarding the wagons. Add in Xerxes and his soldiers and that made a dozen opponents against nine Invisible Swords. She liked their odds.
About forty meters before they reached the city proper, the wagons began to sink into the sand.
“Sluff sand!” someone yelled. “It’s everywhere!”
The gamelus strained to pull the wagons out, but the sand underneath their feet softened. It was a nice bit of chaos. Many of the mercs ran to help the wagons. Shyla kept an eye on Rendor, waiting for the right moment to remove his pendant.
Except when she stepped forward, Xerxes clamped a large hand on her shoulder and spun her to face him.
“Well played, Little One. But did you really think I wouldn’t know when you destroyed your pendant?” He grabbed her necklace and twisted it so the metal tightened around her throat, cutting into her skin. “Now watch as my soldiers ambush your ambushers.”
Thirteen
Shyla’s breath wheezed in and out as Xerxes kept a tight hold on the necklace twisted around her neck. Fear swelled inside her, matching the arrival of Xerxes’ company of elite soldiers sprinting from their hiding spots. They were led by Vilma. Shyla stopped counting opponents after two dozen. The odds no longer looked as good for her Invisible Swords.
The wagons continued to sink into the sand along with the panicked gamelus. Their drivers tried to calm them and pull them to the stable sand. The monks worked to unload the chests of coins with the help of Dayana, Rendor, and Zahoor. No one seemed to notice that the chests then disappeared into the sand.
It would have been comical if Shyla had the breath to laugh. The soldiers rushed to do battle, except there wasn’t an enemy to fight. Everyone stopped in confusion.
