There were no ships to spot in the distance.
No matter how long Adda kept watch by the shore, all she could see was the sea’s horizon on all sides of the sun-washed island.
In the three years that she had been here, she had walked every inch of the place and could draw it perfectly from memory. The ancient grove at the southern end with the gentle waterfall, the largely destroyed statues overgrown with moss that predated the locals that lived here by centuries, if not millennia, the farms dotting most of the lowlands in the middle, and the seashore town at the northern tip of the island, crowned by an old estate in which she now lived with him.
With the Northman.
His origins were the best thing she could use as a name since he refused to offer one that she could use, even a fake one. And Adda was certainly wasn’t going to call him father as he wished.
When they first left her old gypsy camp on that dreadful winter day and set out for the south, she thought the Northman was kidding around when he said that he would now take up the duties of being her father. At worst, Adda would’ve assumed that he meant something much darker and bloodier.
But she came to learn that he had been completely serious, and beyond caring for her physical well being, he also sought to teach her whatever he knew: the history and wisdom of his people and others he had encountered in his mortal travels, how to read and write, how to compose poems and songs, and the rudiments of anatomy. When it came to fighting and sailing he taught her nothing. And though he pretended not to know much about the present era, Adda knew that couldn’t have been true given his adequate grasp of the language and letters.
“How old are you?” she would ask him out of the blue at times, especially when they were alone under the stars after he had fed for the night. But he just smirked and kept quiet, as if sitting on a great secret.
When he told Adda that they were going south, she thought he meant Azzuretto, and her heart jumped at the idea: sorceresses of great power, magic that could supposedly open portals to other realms, great cities of sculpted marble encrusted jewels at every step, and endless white, warm beaches—a wonderful dream.
A dream that was shattered as soon as they embarked on the dreaded ship that brought them to isle of Zeccar.
As soon as they arrived, the Northman killed the captain and crew, then burned the ship and every other he could find. He stormed the seashore town by night, killing those that opposed him barehanded and with gleeful irreverence, till at last the entire town bowed down before him and begged for an end to the senseless slaughter. The ones that made it through that fateful night he simply kept as unquestioning, almost unthinking, thralls, enslaving them to his will by some blood magic that went beyond Adda’s understanding, though she wondered if she was similarly afflicted without knowing.
Every ship that could sail out of Zeccar the vampire burned, including small fishing boats, and the fire in the lighthouse he put out permanently and blocked off the entrance to it with rubble.
Not a single ship had been seen since.
For the last three years, the islanders simply went on with their lives as always, except with the vampire lording over them, and occasionally preying on unsuspecting victims in the night.
But the vast majority found their lives undisturbed, as he only selected the women he found most pleasant to serve in his harem. These he never touched in any sexual manner, as far as Adda could see, and she questioned whether he was even capable of doing anything with a woman in that sense; but he did enjoy humiliating them and torturing them in small ways, and he usually drank only their blood, which he took care to nourish with the best food and drink the island could offer.
As for Adda, he let her walk freely, but most of her time was spent awake at night reading and learning as he commanded.
There was nothing special about today’s night, except for the fact that Adda felt she was reaching the end of her ropes and needed to do something about it.
Just how long were they supposed to be here for? How long would they waste away on this small island that seemed outside of time? She wondered what was happening in the outside world. And, if she were honest, she wondered what was happening to the camp she left behind, and the people she never thought she’d miss…
At times, it didn’t even feel like her parents were dead, at least not more dead than the others she hadn’t seen since that day. And though she repeatedly thought back to how she suffered and how much they deserved their fates, seeing what her companion could unleash upon innocents made her question that once-perfect judgment. Her parents and the others were annoying, perhaps even deserving of a beating or two. But killing them in the way he did? It was monstrous.
And Deniz, he deserved it least of all. In fact, Adda didn’t her old leader deserved it at all. Manu sure fucking did, the cheating bastard, as did his whore, Mira, and yet the vampire had spared them both, as if only to torment her, and at times she still woke up after dreaming of being with Manu before any of this had happened, kissing and cuddling and making love. Bastard. A thousand curses upon him and that bitch of his for causing all this.
She thought back to Sandra and how she was killed, and to Esmeralda and how she stood there in utter shock, looking at the remains of what used to be her mother. She didn’t deserve that, thought Adda, but it was too late for change any of it. Hopefully, they would never meet again.
Leaving the shore, she turned around and made her way back up to the main building, padding barefoot over the ground that was still hot after the assault of the noon sun. Though she had drunk from the vampire’s blackened veins more than once, she was no vampire herself, and had continued to grow and mature. She was practically a fully grown woman now, and she had no intent of spending her adulthood as a part of his harem, nor of being a servant to him of any kind, and least of all an obedient daughter into eternity.
I’ve gotten one set of parents killed, thought Adda bleakly, imagining a future where she dragged his coffin into the hot noon sun, opened it, and then and watched him burn to ash, kicking and wailing. What’s one more?
Her dainty brown feet went over the marble floor in candlelit halls of the house. Servants were scuttling about, cleaning soundlessly, more dead than her vampire, without so much as raising their eyes off the ground. Most, she knew, probably thought she was a vampire, too. And lest they get any ideas about raping or murdering her during daytime as revenge against her captor, Adda preferred to keep it that way.
Going up to the terrace, Adda found the Northman sprawled in a wicker chair, with three barely-clad women seated on the armrests, while two others were fighting for his entertainment with wooden swords and shields, their pale and naked young bodies almost glowing in the moonlight.
“Daughter, come and watch!” he said giddily, rubbing his hands. “I’m starting to think I should give them real weapons. It might be entertaining.”
Eyeing the women, Adda wondered what families they came from, what parents, husbands, or children they may have had before they were rendered only into objects for this undead creature’s entertainment. “How long will you continue with this?” she asked, the disdain dripping heavily from her tongue.
“For as long as it stays amusing,” he answered with an indifferent flick of the wrist. As one of the women stepped back, the rug beneath her slipped on the marble beneath and made her fall back. A dull thud as the back of her head slammed against the hard stone floor made Adda wince. The poor woman gasped in pain, arched, and shuddered, then turned to the side and spit out reddened phlegm. A pitiful sob escaped her bleeding mouth. The Northman clapped. “And it’s very amusing!”
“I’m warning you,” said Adda.
Though he looked like a corpulent man that could barely have risen at that moment, the vampire jumped up with preternatural speed and almost teleported before her, towering and bestial, a lionlike visage that snarled and watched her with malevolent dead eyes. “You warn me of what, my daughter? Why must you bring your boooring, boooring troubles wherever you go? This is what I freed you from! Enjoy yourself. You’re a queen over these people. Fuck them, beat them, kill them, order them to build you a temple. Live a little!”
She was too ashamed to even look at the other women. That she allowed this to befall them without taking any measures to rid the island of the vampire did not escape her. “I don’t want to be a queen.”
He questioned that with a dismissive tilt of his head. “No?”
“Not of some shitty island in the middle of nowhere!”
The vampire smirked. “On his mother’s side, my father was the grandson of Igir Frostheart. Have I told you who Igir was? A warrior of great renown, a man said to have wrestled orcs barehanded for fun, with lungs powerful enough that he could blow a horn and make it heard across the whole world, from the frozen heart of Kalavela to the volcanoes of Mirmir!”
Adda snorted. How many stories like these had she heard by now? Even the harem averted their eyes with haughty disinterest. “I’m sure that’s all true.”
“Igir was of noble blood, a direct descendant of Revna the Wise and Toke Wolfsheart. Making me a direct descent as well. You stand before a man with some of the oldest, purest, and most sacred blood in this accursed world. And I content myself with this… shitty island. But it seems that you cannot. Who knew the ambitions of a small gypsy sigala would go so far beyond my means?”
Adda remained unimpressed. “What the hell is a sigala?”
He grinned and caressed her head with fatherly patience. “You should have learned my tongue when I offered to teach you. Now, you will beg me to learn. Do so convincingly, and I might yet to teach you to speak as one of Revna’s true handmaidens.”
“Or I can just ask somebody what it means.”
“Bah, good luck finding someone who knows. You think those babes of today speak my tongue?!” he howled with fury. “They speak as slavering little goblins! I speak as a warrior, true of heart and sharp of wit. I shit on your tongue, and theirs, and all others.”
“I’m getting off this island,” she insisted vehemently.
The vampire shrugged calmly, and the thin lips partly hidden by his golden beard curved derisively. “Swim then. Let’s see how far you get.”
Adda turned away and stormed off, then heard him instruct the women to get back to fighting as she headed back down the stairs.
Before sunset, Adda was lying in the bed of her solitary bedchamber, reading by the lamplight as he came in. There was, at times, an odd shyness to him and the way he moved, a reminder that he may have once been a mortal and maybe not quite the crazed barbarian he painted himself as.
Hard to think that this was the same man that ripped Deniz apart like a worn rag.
“I hope you don’t really try to swim,” he said.
Adda lifted her golden eyes off the pages of the book but briefly. “I’m not stupid.”
He moved about the room, admiring the oil paintings, book spines, and trailing a clawed finger over the polished furniture. Though his face and body were always unchanged, Adda noticed that his hands shifted much. One day they would look plump, soft, almost child-like. But sometimes, like today, they were gnarled with thick veins that had dark blood pouring through them, the fingers elongated, the yellowed nails long and slightly cracked.
“Why do you want to leave this place so much?”
Adda shut the book. “Because I don’t want to grow old in this hell.”
“This isn’t what hell looks like,” he said pointedly, and the anguished look in his eyes told her he had memories he would rather not share.
“Either way…”
“I can stop you from looking old, if that’s womanly vanity that afflicts you. But I didn’t think you’d want to be a child forever.”
Adda followed his movements around the room from under her long lashes, her toes flexing rhythmically. “I’m not a child anymore.”
The vampire held her body in his gaze for a time. “No,” he conceded. “Perhaps not.”
“Besides, it’s not about that. I don’t want to stop aging. I just—”
“You will someday,” he added.
“—don’t want to be here.”
“I understand.” Wearily, the Northman sat down at the edge of the bed. “But we can’t leave yet.”
“Why?”
“I can’t say,” he said.
“Then to hell with you! I’m leaving.”
Adda opened her book, but his mere presence annoyed and disgusted her. She shut it again, then threw her legs over his head and brought them to the floor, ready to jump out of bed.
The Northman grabbed her by the arm and held her down, though he took care not to hurt her soft brown skin with his hardened claws. “Let go of me,” she threatened.
The sorrow in his face almost startled her. “You asked me my name before.”
Adda kept trying to pull away helplessly and stomped her feet like a child. “Dickwad. That’s your name.” The chuckle she hoped to get out of him did not come.
“Egel,” he said slowly, then his hand dropped away. He lowered his head, as if bested in combat and brought to shame. “My name is Egel.”
“Egel,” she repeated evenly. “Are you telling the truth?”
His gaze snapped back to her face, embers of fury smouldering behind the calm blue pools at the surface of his eyes. At times, with morbid curiosity, she wondered what his rage fully unleashed would in its wake and what it would make of her. “You think I would lie about my own name?”
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The sudden confession made her sympathetic enough to stay put, but she was far from happy. “And sigala? What does that mean?”
Egel smiled once more. “Does it matter?”
“It means whore, doesn’t it? Or cunt? Bitch?”
“It means…” he began slowly, and a pained half a minute passed till her relentless stare pried it out of him: “Daughter.”
Adda waited to see if he was merely toying with her. At length, she added, “You’re not my father. Even if you’d like to be.”
The vampire gave no reaction. Then he sniggered. “Well, I certainly hope I don’t end up as he did.”
Adda rolled her eyes and sat back down next to him, somewhat deflated. It had been a long day, and she desperately needed to sleep. However, she slept more at ease knowing he was underground and in a state of torpor.
“Give me a few more months,” he said. “Then we will go.”
“I have your word on that?” The vampire nodded wearily.
With that, they both fell silent, and peace seemed to have fallen over the island again. Framed by the small arched window opposite the bed, the first honeyed glimmer of the sun could be seen as a haze rising over the horizon.
Egel rose and padded to the door, his lumbering body losing all its supernatural balance and tightness. For but a moment, he seemed wholly mortal. “You should think of when you want it to be.”
“What?”
“Your transformation. Think of what you want to be in eternity, because there won’t be any going back. Better to be a woman grown than a girl for the next thousand years, but it is your choice. Make it wisely.”
Who ever said I wanted to be a vampire? Adda wanted to ask. “I’ll think about it,” she said.
Once he was out of the room, she went to the window and leaned wistfully over the sill, watching the sunrise in the distance.
One, Adda hoped, of many to come.
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As he stumbled out of the tavern, Razlan had little on his mind, which was fine by him, because nothing good ever came to his thoughts anymore.
He hoped to be able to shuffle his way back home but he knew that was unlikely. The town was thankfully less crowded after nightfall, save for the few guards going around with torches to keep the peace as best they could. But they were mostly unarmed and too poorly paid to fight off any real danger—not that Razlan represented a danger to anyone but himself. Besides, many of them recognized him by now. “Move along, gyppo,” said a bearded blond he recognized, brandishing his torch threateningly.
By the time he got to the gate, Razlan could feel the inevitable collapse in the first welcoming grassy patch he came across. Doing so in the city was a bad idea, since the guards were revolted by the drunks, and, if they found him, they would be mad enough to throw him into the river. They did that last year, and thankfully the November water was cold enough to bring him to his senses by the time he drowned. Razlan hadn’t been drunk enough to be unable to grope his way through the reeds and back onto the shore, and as he stumbled out of the sludge onto firmer ground, he could hear the hooting and laughter of the guards that tossed him in. “Washed away the layer of shit off your ugly mug, gyppo?” “Next time, I’ll use half of you to fuel the samovar and use the other half to make pigfeed!” said another, and a delighted cackle followed. “Because of you I got my boots dirty. Come lick ‘em clean, you dirty gyp bastard, or I’ll cut your tongue out to wipe them clean next time I see you.”
Better if he had died that day, really. Or any other day since.
Why he clung on Razlan couldn’t say. At most he was only a drain and burden on everyone, and a cause of pain to Esmeralda on a daily basis. Poor Esmi, he thought. She did nothing to deserve this.
Sandra’s ghost haunted him wherever he went, no matter how happy the people around him were, and kept him fully drowned in the realm of the dead, where he could still see her mangled corpse, exactly as that night three years ago, appearing wherever his eyes landed. But it was her ghost, too, that kept him alive, the lively specter that threatened that she would never love him ever again and spurn him for the rest of eternity in the afterlife if he dared to leave their daughter unprotected in the world before he raised a grown woman able to look out for herself.
Just a few more years, he dreamed gloomily in the sepulchral interior of his favorite drinking hole. Then, maybe the others could lend him a hand in finding her a decent husband. Once they were married for a year or two and happy, he could leave her in peace, go off, and hang himself at last, finally putting an end to the insult to life he had become. He could see it now in his mind’s eye: the hardy oak on top of a lonesome hill, the sturdy branch that he’d test to find it could hold his weight, and the blessed rope that would wring his neck till he pissed himself and exited the mortal realm, now a little better without him in it.
Razlan wasn’t sure which god favored him, if any ever had, but they surely must’ve been disgusted with him now. Knowing that kept him from even daring to enter a church to say a prayer—not even graceful and loving Emilia would want to have an unwashed, pitiful drunk stain her halls…
But the bottle was too sweet to put down. In these hard times, that bitter poison was the only thing sustaining him from day to day, the only sustenance capable of quieting down his otherwise troubled mind.
As he stumbled towards the gate to leave town, it was none other than Manu that crossed his path, flanked by his two lads. “Razlan!” he said, and the voice still carried respect for some reason. “Are you doing alright, old boy?”
Razlan chuckled darkly and suppressed a cough. “Never been better.”
“That’s good to hear… You see Esmi today? She’s still reading cards. Think she might become a natural.”
“Good. Good…”
“Yeah. Good money in that. I’m not going to let her become some”—he glanced down for a moment—”you know.”
A strange feeling welled up in him at the sound of that. On one hand, Razlan appreciated that the man was looking out for the daughter he was neglecting. Protecting her and such. On the other… Esmi was his daughter to neglect. And perhaps Razlan may not have been much of a parent, but he could still not recall when he had relinquished the right of fatherhood to another.
She’s my daughter, he wanted to say. Mine and Sandra’s. Go make your own, you arrogant prick.
“I thank you,” he said with a cool smile.
The other gypsy leaned in and eyed him with increasing concern in the sputtering torchlight. “You taking care of yourself, Razlan? Eating?” The washing part likely answered itself from his smell.
“Sure. Sure I am.”
“You know I’m there if you need anything. And so is Mira. You ever need anything, you go to her.”
Razlan had just about run out of patience. “Thanks, boss. I appreciate it.”
He was about to turn and go but Manu grabbed him by the arm. “Say, listen. How about you and Esmi come to us tonight? Tomorrow night, that is. We’ll have dinner together and talk about old times.”
“If that’s what you want, boss,” croaked Razlan emotionlessly.
Manu nodded giddily. “Yeah. Yeah, I think that would be good. And, uh…” As the other two watched him, he reached inside his coat, then took out two leras and held them out theatrically between his fingers. “Take these.”
“I don’t want them.”
“Come on. I’ve had a good night. Business is running as smoothly as four-legged chicken.” He cackled. “I’m the boss, it’s the gypsy way—take ‘em.”
Razlan thought of all the booze he could buy with that silver and considered it, but he was reluctant to sink to even newer lows before this prick that was almost ten years his junior.
“Boss,” said Bogdi. “If he doesn’t want them, I’ll—”
“Takeyour fucking hands away, will you!” snarled Manu. Seeing that Razlan refused to reach for them himself, he went ahead and slipped the coins into the older gypsy’s pockets. “You take them, alright. Buy something nice for Esmi, maybe some new clothes. Go get yourself a woman. One of those young, clean ones at the Red Bear. They got some new girl from down south”—he clicked his tongue—”by Tibet, what a woman! You catch a glimpse of her once and you won’t go soft ever again, I promise you that.” The other two bobbed their heads and murmured in agreement. Even the nearby guard chuckled and nodded along, then whispered an unintelligible name in a lustful, needy tone.
It didn’t escape Razlan that when clients ordered women at the Red Bear they had to bathe first, house rules, and the thought of what he must have smelled like to have Manu to ask him to bathe in such a roundabout way embittered him even more. “Sounds like a sight to see.”
Manu slapped his arm amicably and winked. “You bet. I’ll see you two tomorrow night, aye? Take care till then.”
Razlan found the coins in his pocket and had a thought to throw them after Manu, then knock him out for his comments about his daughter. Or at least throw them in the river out of spite.
But then again, where was he going to get coin if not from others? The last time he had done an honest day’s work was over a year ago, and that was because he hadn’t found anything at the wagon left to sell or anyone to lend money from to buy himself enough to get drunk that day.
Like the parasite he knew himself to be, he took the money out of the loose sidepocket and slipped them into his buttoned breastpocket.
Then he went down the winding road that that led back to the gypsy camp, propelled by the incline to stumble haphazardly on his unsteady feet…
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The morning sneaked up on Esmi, who had first woken up in the middle of the night when she heard drunken singing somewhere nearby, a tortured sailor’s tune that made her want to bash her head against the walls.
It was a big day—at least, she hoped to make it that way.
She was excited to go back and see what Rika had in store for her, though she still secretly hoped it would be that dress. Or a copy of it. Or, at least, one very similar to it…
Upon exiting the wagon she nearly tripped over the body of Razlan, who lay there in front of the stairs, blackout drunk. “Dad?” she gushed with surprise.
As always, there was a moment of dreaded silence during which her heart stopped as she leaned down to check and see if he was breathing. She turned him on his back, put her hand under his nose, and relief washed over her to discover that he was.
Then, all of the joy washed away, replaced with pure rage. “You fucking animal!” she dared to say, knowing he wasn’t awake to hear her. It had been a while since she had been slapped by anyone since her mom died, but she had no doubt a comment like that would earn her a whack across the head or worse if it ever found its way to his ears.
Standing there in the dim morning light, she debated whether to wake him up and try to get him in the wagon or to leave him there to rot. He seemed so deeply asleep that it was probably a better idea to leave him.
Wondering if the stupid drunk still had any coin on him, she stooped down and rummaged through his sidepockets. There were just two pitiful saresti. But when she unbuttoned his breastpocket, the silverly shine of the two leras made her heart jump. “Where’d you get these from?” she asked thoughtfully, staring his passed-out face. His beard was getting so long now that he was starting to resemble one of those wild old men that rambled and talked about the end times.
Esmi stared at the two leras in her palm for a long time as they gleamed and beckoned with endless possibility, wondering what was right to do. They weren’t hers to take—on the other hand, they certainly weren’t Razlan’s either, and she couldn’t have imagined anything her father could’ve done to earn such a sum. So, at best, he must’ve stolen them, or maybe gotten them from Manu. Though why would Manu hand out so much to this drunken fool and not to her?…
Ten minutes later, she was still torn between putting them back and taking them herself. As the other gypsies woke up and started wandering out of camp, she closed her palm and kept them hidden. It was wrong to steal from her father, but then, anyone could’ve picked his pocket as he lay there. So, if he happened to wake up by some miracle remembered their existence, he only had himself to blame, and, at worst, Esmi would simply give them back with the explanation that she took them for safekeeping.
Her tightly balled fist came to the weathered pouch she had slung around her shoulder and released the two silver coins. “You can’t just leave this stuff lying around.”
As a bright new day crept over the land, she left camp and made her way to town.
A lot of carriages had come in during the night, laden with covered-up goods, and she could hear talk of a noble as she passed by the locals. At the Red Bear where her boy worked at the stable, there were several knights drinking at the tables laid outside, in shining breastplates, discussing what seemed like serious matters in a stony-faced way. Then Esmi noticed something she rarely saw: men with firearms. Not just one, or two, but at least two dozen men in simple uniforms, with rifles slung over their backs and sabres sheathed at their sides, filling out two nearby alleys.
As she stood there staring at them, she could see none other but her stable boy walk out of the grounds of Red Bear and emerge in her direction. Knowing this was an opportunity that rarely availed itself, if ever, she blurted. “Hey!”
Surprised to hear her speak, he turned her way with an courteous half-smile, the kind a merchant might give to a customer. “Hello.”
It was enough to leave her heart beating wildly. Eyelashes battling and blood racing, Esmi tried to take control of her dried and disobedient tongue. “Do… Do you…” The boy stared, uncomprehending. “Do you know who those people are?”
“Not really,” he said. “Some lord showed up. If you ask me, I think they’re going after that goblin band.”
“Goblin band?”
“The one that’s been troubling that to the west. It was in the weekly chronicle.”
Esmi blushed and lowered her eyes shyly. “I can’t read.”
He offered a beaming smile. “Me neither. But they read them out inside sometimes.”
“I’m Esmi,” she said, and offered her small brown hand.
It was such a wild gesture that she was certain he would spit on her and call her a gypsy, or else the gods themselves might smite her down. Instead, he shook it happily. “Orlon. Nice to meet you.”
Orlon, she thought, feeling herself getting whisked away in a dream land. “I’ve seen you in there… many times…” Her mouth became slow and leaden, yet oddly mechanical in the words it put out, like a gearset buried in slime.
“That makes sense. I work in there. My pa runs their kitchen.”
“What’s it like? It must be beautiful.”
He shrugged. “It’s nice; but you get used to it.”
“Maybe one day I’ll be rich enough to go inside.”
“I wouldn’t be too hopeful. The sort of people that go in there… well, they’re something else.”
Esmi thought about his words and about the fact that she had seen Manu walk in and out of the place a couple of times. Then she thought back to the coins she found on her dad. Did Manu really have so much wealth to pass around?…
Realizing she had been quiet, Esmi panicked and sputtered: “I—”
“If you come early in the morning I can let you catch a glimpse of the interior,” offered Orlon calmly. “But this would have to be before daybreak. They drink late into the night and then we get just an hour or two to clean up everything before the next day starts.”
Her breath caught. “I’d love to…” The words, strained and hot, barely left her mouth.
“Come tomorrow morning. Or any morning. Tell the guards you’re there to help the chef clean up, they’ll believe that. Else just shout my name loud enough.” He raised the empty bucket and rapped his knuckles against it. “Gotta go get water. Nice to meet you.”
“You too…”
As she watched him go, Esmi felt so weak that she could pass out right then and there, and wake up at the moment she could see him again. Her eyes followed Orlon as he disappeared in the crowd, never once straying from the light brown ponytail bouncing over his pale neck. You’re so nice, she thought breathlessly, wanting nothing more than to grab that thing and kiss him on the mouth.
Blocking her view as he passed by, she saw a young gypsy she didn’t know the name of, but whom she recognized as a recent addition to the camp. His face was grimy, and his dark eyes were quick and haughty, even though he was wearing a raggedy coat several times his size. In a world of unfortunates, he was somehow several rungs below her still. What are you looking at? she wanted snap at him*,* afraid he had read her embarrassing romantic thoughts.
After standing there awhile, trying to figure out how she could get so lucky, her feet started moving again and delivered her to Rika’s overburdened stall in the market. The red dress was still shining near the front, just like it was the day before. The older woman could immediately tell from her smile something was up. “All good, little darling?”
“I spoke to that boy just now and… and I think he likes me.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” said Rika. “Else you might be disappointed. Come here, though, I have something for you.”
At this point, Esmi no longer cared about the dress, but once she was behind the stall she realized that wasn’t what the big woman had for her anyway. Instead, Rika revealed a small pin. It was long, like a needle, but at one end had a large opal encompassed by a glittering sunburst.
“Is that real gold?”
“Oh, I doubt it,” said Rika with a laugh. “But it’s pretty, that’s what matters. Sit still.”
The pin was beautiful, but there was no way to thank the woman for it, nor did Esmi find it necessary. “You shouldn’t give it to me. I’ll probably lose it.”
“Oh, nonsense! I want you to have it. Opals bring good luck, you know. And I don’t know about the gold, but that’s a real opal, I can tell you that. And luck, my sweet girl, good fortune, that’s worth more than any gold,” she murmured sagely, “I tell you that right now.”
Esmi thanked her and recounted her meeting with Orlon, then promised she would come again to report back on how their “date” went in the upcoming days. “Remember!” Rika yelled after her. “You don’t go anywhere with him alone, you hear me? Stay close to other people.”
Her voice was so loud that it carried through the whole pathway and busy crowd elbowing past all heard it, causing the young gypsy to blush crimson and sweat a little. “Yes…”
“Good girl.”
Given how well her day was going, she decided to go reward herself with some skewers. As soon as she arrived at Baklal’s little slice of heaven, the black man saw her and grinned devilishly. “Back so soon, young gypsy.”
“I’m growing. I need food.”
Her tongue darted over her lips as she eyed the skewers being handed out, and she reached for her pouch and grasped empty air. The pouch was gone.
All the blazing luck bestowed upon her was snuffed out like a tiny candle by a violent blizzard. Black ice seized her heart, leaving Esmi speechless and trembling, with a numbing chill spreading to the tip of every extremity. No, I just had it. How could I not feel it missing? I just touched it. No way!
She glanced behind to make the pouch it hadn’t dropped, but there was no sign of it, nor could she remember when she had last seen it.
Upon inspecting herself, she realized that the strap around her shoulder was still there, and that only the bag had been cut off without her noticing, which wouldn’t have been all that hard given the thing barely held together anymore. Orlon couldn’t and wouldn’t have taken it without her noticing, that was completely mad, and he had his bucket in hand the whole time. Nor would Rika, since Esmi very much doubted a well-off merchant needed to steal from an impoverished gypsy kid. However, Rika hadn’t known she left home with the pouch, so she couldn’t speak up about it being gone when they met, so it could’ve been missing already at that point.
The only other—
That damn gyppo bastard! she thought with fury, remembering the suspicious kid that passed her by in front of the Red Bear.
Fuming, Esmi turned away from Baklal’s skewers despite her grumbling stomach, and set off with a vengeance.