Long before the sun had commenced her crawl up towards the horizon, members the newly-minted alliance departed for the Windcatcher City.
With seven humans in want of transport, Gillian agreed to have his subordinates who would later be heading for Amplevale—Dockar, Vitrius and Torbald—carry them back in dragon form alongside himself and Meya. Unsurprisingly, the humans wouldn't be riding the dragons but clinging onto their front legs.
With darkness as their cover, they took off on a low, leisurely glide skimming the top of the sand dunes. They could've shot high above the clouds, of course, but the humid cold and buffeting wind would freeze the humans' frail lungs. Even at the humble speed and height, Coris was already shivering against Meya's underbelly in his bundles of cloth. She adjusted her arms, pressing him more snugly into her warm skin. To her right was Gillian with Baron Hadrian and Zier in each arm, and to her left was Vitrius with Lady Arinel and Jerald. Bringing up the rear, the frailer Dockar and old Torbald each took Simon and Christopher, respectively.
The sky lightened to pale hyacinth, revealing the walled city blinking just beyond the rippling sea of sand. The dragons touched down behind a row of sand dunes and resumed their human disguise, then the congregation slogged their way up to the travellers' road leading to Hyacinth's town gate. As part of Meya's plan, Baron Hadrian had sent word of her surrender, and Meya found Hyacinth's sleep-deprived guards-women waiting for her with seething smiles and swinging chains.
When Coris threatened to be chained alongside her in the wheeled cage and paraded back to the palace, the guards relented. Still, Meya and the four additional "Greeneyes" must walk among the populace on foot, while the noble, human guests were allowed to lounge on palanquins balanced atop the mighty shoulders of Hyacinth women.
The outrageous arrangement triggered yet another heated lecture from Coris, before he announced he would join Meya and her brethren on the ground, forcing the rest of the group to follow suit.
Though even Zier didn't seem inclined to gripe, Meya couldn't help dipping her head in apology at her human comrades as two guards steered her forward, squeezing each of her arms in their gigantic hands.
By the time they ventured onto the thoroughfare, the sun had already risen free of the Blue Mountains' shadow. Meya knew from experience that it was schooltime. As artisans and merchants bustled around arranging their storefronts, young girls came charging out from doors and alleys on Meya's right-hand side of the street, clean-shaven and draped in purple-embroidered white togas, toting copies of the Holy Scriptures. Fathers came trooping down the hill towards Meya, leading their kicking, bawling daughters. They saw their children off at the school's entrance—a gap in the mile-long wall on the left side of the street, crowned with an imposing sandstone arch. Some shot dirty looks at the teenage girls hunkered nearby, gnawing on dates and chucking pits at passing young men, along with whistles and jeers.
"Ow!"
Meya whirled around at that familiar cry. Coris was rubbing his cheek. His eyes found the owner of the invisible traces of date sugar and spit now on his skin in a tall, muscular young woman who looked to be around Meya's age. Even as she wore the school's embroidered toga, she lounged against the flaking adobe wall with no regard for how harder her father would have to work to scrub the dirt off the white fabric.
"Hey, gorgeous. Where you from?" She called, prompting her surrounding friends to whoop and crow. Her eyes zeroed in on the region not far below Coris's midriff, "Betcha got a solid five hundred down there."
A second round of applauding cheers befell the woman as Coris flushed crimson, even as he'd known enough to feign total obliviousness and hasten his feet. Seething, Baron Hadrian tugged up his sword. Sunlight glanced off the silvery hilt, silencing the hoodlums for good—or while they remained in sight, at the least.
Her arms trapped, Meya pitched in with her own healthy serving of glare. Fixed by her glowing, allegedly ill-wishing eyes, the louts scattered like peas in a popped pod into the school. Yet, Meya's fury lingered in the pounding of her heart in her ears, as did their words.
"Five hundred?" She raised an eyebrow at the guard on her right, arms trembling in their grasps, itching to break free and check on her poor husband.
"Latts—for a pump." The guard added at the blank look on Meya's face, then added again, "—of his seed. Pop out a child, bump up a rank, they say. It's a promotion criteria. If it were a boy and you couldn't pay dowry, you could leave it in front of the school."
She motioned with her head towards the school's seemingly unending adobe wall. Coincidentally, a young boy—Meya knew because he had some length of hair—was prowling that particular stretch of wall with his reed broom, sweeping date pits strewn about its skirt into his dustpan. His dusty, wrinkled uniform was a far cry from the blazing white togas of the Scripture-toting girls passing by him through the arched doorway.
"Agh, five hundred's nothing." The other guard's voice traveled to Meya like an echo from the other end of a tunnel, "They're bidding by the thousands for Dizadh's load these days."
"By Freda, that's insanity." The first guard guffawed.
"Well, he ain't getting younger. Old man's been pumping for decades. He's running himself dry fathering the whole danged town."
As the two women dragged Meya on, chortling over her head, Meya's eyes remained upon the boy. It was likely he was one of those abandoned children, cast aside after they had exhausted their worth to their parents.
She imagined the school had begrudgingly took him in, and, when he was old enough, set him to work to pay for bread and bed and books. She remembered the days in front of the church back in Crosset, watching parents turned away by Friar Tumney slouching off with their unwanted baby girls, no doubt to raise them up with resentment.
What if the child had been a Greeneye? Would they have even ventured out to the church and risk exposure for the slim chance of getting rid of it legally? Would the school have simply left it there to hopefully die of exposure in due course? Though Meya knew she would never do such things to her own child, it would've been but one less baby living unwelcome and unwanted in Freda's cruel lands.
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The doors to Hyacinth Palace's Great Hall trembled with echoes of the conflict within as they approached. The guards threw the doors open and marched in, dragging Meya between them, and the once muffled, strident voices now blasted her at full force—
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"Sylvia, please! I have a deal to fulfill. I can't spare my women for your search!"
Lady Hyacinth was no longer lounging lazily upon her throne but bent forward, appealing in frustration to her counterpart. Baroness Hadrian stood adamant on the dais, her raised voice traveling the length of the hall as she brandished a shaking finger down at Amoriah.
"Four of my people under your care are missing! Meanwhile Olivis is dragging you into his childish feud with some peasant girl. Need I draw up a map to remind you whose army is nearer to Hyacinth?"
"Army? Are you listening to yourself, woman? You're declaring war over two Greeneyes and two girls who don't legally exist?"
"My lady, Baron Hadrian has returned with the convict." The guard on Meya's right announced, coming to a stop behind the gaggle of spectators gathered at the foot of the dais. The group whipped around, along with the two warring noblewomen, revealing the familiar faces of Frenix, Atmund, Dorsea, Philema and Tissa.
Baroness Sylvia's flashing gray eyes finally found Meya, squeezed between the two hulking guards-women. For a blink, her fiery expression softened in relief, before freezing back to smoldering ice. She hurried down the steps towards her family.
"I guess that's one less excuse for you, then, Amoriah?" She threw a sharp quip over her shoulder as she took up her usual spot beside her husband.
"Sylvia, what's going on?" Baron Kellis glanced between the two fuming women. Sylvia pursed her lips as his stare settled upon her, then turned and met Coris's puzzled gaze instead.
"The Graye sisters, and Cleygar and Lors, they—Oh, Lexi, I'm so sorry." Her hands flew to cover her mouth. She shook her head, eyes wide and fearful, "Amoriah has no knowledge of them. They've never made it here."
Her whisper befell them like a clap of thunder. Agnes—Persephia—Cleygar—Lors—Missing? How could this have happened?
Meya would have crumpled to the marble floor if it hadn't been for the guards' ironclad hold on her arms. A blade of wind rushed by her as Coris marched to the forefront, eyes blazing,
"Preposterous!" He snapped at Amoriah, brandishing the letter they received days ago, "We sent you a letter asking of their whereabouts and received this reply from one Lasralein Hasif. They should be under her care!"
"As I have just told your mother, I've received no such letter, Lord Hadrian." A new voice joined the argument. It belonged to the tall, thin woman with cropped black hair, draped in a purplish toga, standing to the left of Amoriah's throne. The silvery sequins dangling from the wire band on her forehead gleamed rainbow in the late morning light as she descended the steps towards Coris and received the letter in question.
"This is not my handwriting nor signature, my lord. The Lady Hyacinth can attest to that. I have not the slightest idea how this came to be."
After a moment of examination, Healer Hasif passed the letter on to her Lady with numb, stiff fingers, her face now pale and confused as the rest of them. Amoriah nodded her support, then turned to the Baroness with a sigh.
"Three of the missing are Greeneyes, Sylvia. Worst case scenario is they've been kidnapped and sold to the black market. Their eyes fetch high prices here. They should've been more careful."
Coris whirled around to Meya, and she saw her horror mirrored in his eyes. Coris had briefed her on the fate of the poor boy whose eyeballs had ended up on Jadirah's brassiere. Now Lady Hyacinth was suggesting the same had happened to their own Greeneye friends? It'd been days since. They could have been taken anywhere, without their eyes—their very selves!
The sound of the doors opening once again arced through the midst of their despair. Meya strained her neck, peering over her shoulder. A wooden palanquin sailed towards them, carried by four burly women, its passenger concealed within its walls and curtains coated with cochineal. The preceding guests obligingly parted to make way like roadside foliage. The women set the palanquin down with the barest sound, and the occupant emerged.
Even in these dire circumstances, Meya couldn't help but appreciate that he was perhaps the most magnificent man she had ever seen. His shiny hair stretched down his back all the way to his ankles, like a strip of finest black silk on a loom, embroidered with strands of gold and silver. His deep red toga hung from broad shoulders, silhouetting his lean, triangular torso, trimmed with rows of golden bangles on both of his arms and feet. His dark, sharp features stood out against his pale olive skin even without the help of cosmetics. He advanced in a regal, yet gentle, quiet manner, sinking into a curtsy before Lady Hyacinth, who shook herself awake from her stupor, awe and delight morphing into embarrassment.
"Ah, Dizadh!" She slapped her forehead, then waddled down the steps. She cradled the man's painted hands as she urged him upright, shaking them vigorously, "I'm so sorry. Afraid we'll have to reschedule. You'll be paid in full, don't worry."
Dizadh blinked, discombobulated, then surveyed the gawking crowd on either side of his path. His gaze lingered on Frenix, who, as usual, had chosen not to conceal his glowing eyes. Without a word, he dipped another curtsy to Amoriah, then retreated and nestled back inside his palanquin, hidden by curtains once more.
Meya watched as Dizadh's palanquin sailed away, then turned back at Amoriah's voice—she'd picked up her argument with Baroness Sylvia,
"Take all the women you want, but I doubt there's much more that can be done. The black trades are beyond my reach. You know how things are." She shook her head wearily,
"I'm truly sorry for losing your men. I'm willing to compensate. I'm sure you'd find our women just as capable—if not more. As for the two Ladies Graye, they're dead to their father, as far as I know. But you'd need replacement maids-of-honor, still. If you wish, my daughters are at your command."
She tilted her head towards her three elder daughters, still standing dutifully to the left of her throne. Little Amara, meanwhile, had exploited her mother's distraction to slump down and rest in the shadow cast by the grand chair.
"Now, Kellis. I've read your request." As the Baroness seethed, Amoriah turned to the Baron. She gestured at Meya, who started, "Lord Crosset promised me 30 male convicts in their prime if I hand over the impostor. Nothing tops quality seed. You've already lost me my golden hour with Dizadh, so you'd better have a mouthwatering proposal for me."
Baron Kellis nodded serenely, then eyed the two guards-women still restraining Meya.
"The girl is to assist with Sylvia's search. Could you have your guards unhand her?"
At Amoriah's wave, the guards freed Meya's arms and stepped aside. Coris immediately sidled in, scrutinizing her arm for injuries.
"But I must have eyes on her at all times." Amoriah bargained. Kellis cocked his head.
"Understandable. I have no objections."
Amoriah indicated a door to the right with her outstretched hand. The Baron shared a look and a nod with the Baroness, trusting her with finding the lost members of their entourage while he haggled for Meya's exoneration, then swept after Lady Hyacinth. The moment the door closed behind Kellis's swishing cape, Frenix dashed to Meya's side, Atmund close at his heels—
"That Dizadh guy. We saw him when we read the eyes." He hissed, tugging desperately at her arms, eyes swimming in tears. Atmund nodded vigorously. "He lives in that brothel they took that boy to. Maybe that's where they took Lo and the others, too."
Meya's eyes widened. She turned swiftly to the guard on her right.
"Who's Dizadh?" She asked, although she already had an inkling of the answer.
"He's our top courtesan. An hour with him is a must for tourists—well, if you could afford his price. The Lady herself's a regular."
Her speculation confirmed, Meya turned next to the long-silent Gillian behind her, flanked by his three fellow dragons. His chiseled, scarred face was emotionless as ever, but his jaw was clenched, tendons pulsing as he nodded, livid at the appalling injustice done to his halfling kin. If ever there were a tally of the most foolish, most dangerous feats of daring-do, marching defenseless into Hyacinth's man-brothel as a handsome young Greeneye man would probably top the list, but he seemed ready to pursue the matter regardless of how far down the whale's gullet it would take them.
Meya turned last to Coris, staring deep into his eyes—a plea for complete trust. Coris bit his lips as she waited with bated breath. He'd guessed what she had planned to do, but his frown was of worry rather than jealousy. At long last, he slipped his cold fingers over hers and grasped her hand tightly. Bolstering the bond with her other hand, Meya turned back to the guard with a raised eyebrow.
"How much for an hour?"