Council of Blades (14 page)

"Late?" Miliana crowed like a morning cockerel and lit the streets with a pure sound of joy. "No! I wanna dance for justice!"

A bottle was uncorked, and soldiers called for their sweethearts and their wives. Someone with a lute struck up a tune, and Miliana tried to dance an Aglarondian folk dance with the happy bird. Free of Ulia and deliriously at ease, Miliana lost herself in a whirl of joy.

Lorenzo could only watch and give an anxious sigh.

Miliana loosed an urgent groan, and Lorenzo took her down off his shoulders and helped her over to a wall. For the fourth time since her disappearance beneath a table at the tavern, the girl was thoroughly sick; great soul-rending heaves tried to clear her of the alcoholic poison crawling through her brain.

Lorenzo simply sat down at her side and helped to sup-port her through her suffering. When she had finally done, he pulled her small, frail body into his lap and wiped her streaming eyes and nose. Tekoriikii passed him a water gourd and Lorenzo made Miliana rinse her mouth, then cradled her softly as she shivered in his arms.

"Wh-why can't I be… magical?"

The girl whimpered the words into Lorenzo's hair, clawing her little fingers through his clothes. With an anxious expression in his eyes, Tekoriikii nudged at her and made a whistling sound.

Lorenzo agreed.

"You are magical! We both saw you cast a spell." He tried to coax Miliana's face out of the shadows.

"Hey-you're a sorceress!"

"No…" Miliana hung weakly in Lorenzo's arms, hid-ing away her freckles and her tears. "If I were magical-really magical, then maybe I might get a wish."

"What wish?" Bird and nobleman both hung close, locked anxious gazes, and tried to coax the girl out of her shell. "What wish, Miliana?"

Miliana emerged-small, brown, and crushed by one inarguable misery.

"If I had a wish, then maybe I could be pretty. Really pretty."

The girl hid her face away from Lorenzo and the bird.

"Someone beautiful. Just-just not Miliana. Just for one single day…"

The girl clung against Lorenzo's chest and wept. Locking tortured glances, Tekoriikii and Lorenzo quietly stroked at Miliana's hair.

"Princess Miliana is beautiful. And I'll prove you wrong. Tomorrow I'll show you just exactly what I see.

"I'll show you. I'll make you open your eyes."

"Glub glub!"

Sick, swaying, and miserable, Miliana's whisper barely carried to Lorenzo's ears.

"I'm just so frightened. So frightened…" The girl curled fingers into Lorenzo's tunic. "I wanted to be like my father. I wanted to be… to be… proud.

"But I'm just so scared of the… futility. The dances and the husbands." Miliana swallowed back another surge of nausea. "Don't let them put me in the finishing school. I'd rather die… I'd rather die… I'd rather die…"

Crying herself to sleep, Miliana hung like a rag doll in Lorenzo's arms.

Tekoriikii spared the girl a long, sad gaze, and then quietly led the way back home. Behind him, Lorenzo hoisted Miliana like a treasured child and wandered carefully back to the palace doors.

Waddling happily across the floor of his gloomy king-dom, Tekoriikii bathed in beams of light and listened con-tentedly to the dawn chorus of birds. A marvelous new treasure had come into his life, and the bird need only close his eyes and sigh just to savor its gentle glow.

His journeys had first brought him to a treasure trove of people and places, songs and lights; it had brought him a bounty of shiny baubles, and day by day Tekoriikii's collection grew.

And now, most miraculous of all-the journey had given him a friend.

Hanging his head down through the broken ceiling, Tekoriikii watched the human girl in her sleep. She fed him food and taught him songs; she had shown him magic picture books, and recited aloud from the pages for hours on end.

And yet last night the little female had been so very sad.

Her lack of plumes was a terrible, crippling disfigure-ment. The male human Lorenzo kept a feather in his hat as though making up for the lack. Tekoriikii turned his head this way and that, regarding Miliana as she slept off her wine, and pitied her for her naked, unsightly skin.

She needed cheering-and Tekoriikii had just the thing!

With a bright burst of inspiration, the bird jerked his head back up through the hole. He warbled happily, and did a little dance to celebrate his own magnificent clever-ness-Tekoriikii, the handsomest and smartest of all the birds!

Tekoriikii's sleeping nest consisted of green branches, leaves and twigs all lined with the finest silk taken from a massive set of underwear found hanging from the palace washing line. The bird upended a great sack made from a set of Lady Ulia's frilly pink drawers and spilled a dragon's hoard of jewelry out across the wooden floors.

Spread out in all their glory, Tekoriikii's gems simply stunned the eye. There were great rubies and strings of emeralds. Zircons and costume jewelry rubbed shoulders with sapphires and pearls. Bits of mirror and polished glass had caught his eye just as surely as platinum and gold. All in all, the bird's collection made an eccentric display.

Rooting happily about amongst a king's ransom in jewels, the bird pulled out a few choice pieces and hung them up from rusty nails to turn and sparkle in the sun.

Three offerings glittered before the bird's giddy yellow eyes: a looking glass, a rope of emeralds, and a single, gigantic rose-pink pearl.

In addition to being the most handsome creature ever to stalk the world, Tekoriikii was an educated bird.

He knew that nothing could cheer a female quite so much as finding herself being courted and so, therefore, secret advances would make Miliana smile.

She must be given a gift-enough to let her know how deeply she was honored, for few females were ever chased by a male. It simply wasn't done. The flattery would raise her spirits, and Tekoriikii would be glad.

The bird considered his potential offerings. The mir-ror? Too bright and shiny. She must not be overwhelmed by the very nature of the gift. The bird peered this way and that at his own reflection, and moved on.

The emeralds? No. Too dull; too common. Although they sparkled, they were the same color as fresh new leaves and, that being the case, she might not value them. The bird regarded the gigantic pink pearl with pleasure, and then took the offering up into his bill.

The pearl had been regurgitated from his crop this self-same morning. With a brisk wash beneath a rainwa-ter pipe, the gem sparkled bright as morning dew. Tekoriikii hopped down the broken hole in the ceiling and landed on the bathroom floor with a distinct, feathery thump.

Miliana turned over in her bed, groaning in distant agony. Beside her bed there lay a bucket as well as a pointy hat, which presumably was for use if the bucket should grow full. Tekoriikii crept toward the girl with exaggerated stealth, cunningly laid the pearl pendant on her pillowslip, then withdrew to gaze down at her in love.

Very, very small, and speckled delicately with brown; she should not let her lack of feathers distress her so. After all, not everyone could be a handsome firebird.

Tekoriikii drew the blankets up around Miliana's slen-der neck, clucked like a broody hen, then hopped back up into the ceiling to go about his own affairs.

Passing along the courtyard, Miliana maneuvered oh-so-carefully, balancing her head atop her neck as though it weighed five hundred pounds.

Miliana had just been through the most unspeakable experience of her life. She had awoken to find herself still thoroughly drunk; the whole bed had been spinning, and the room shifted like a child's kite blown willy-nilly through the sky. She had somehow made her way to the palace shrine and had begged a blessing against poison from the family's private priests, claiming that she had eaten Lady Ulia's infamous blowfish casserole. Now, with her bloodstream purged but her body still feeling as del-icate as glass, the girl took a quiet turn about the palace and tried to gather strength for the evening's affairs.

The breeze blew cool and calming; the promised headache never came. All she needed was a few moments of absolute peace, and she would feel her old self again.

On a fine silver chain about Miliana's neck, there swung a single rose-pink pearl-a large, teardrop-shaped affair that perfectly complimented her coloring. Feeling its unfamiliar weight settling on her skin, the princess drew out the pendant and eyed it with a soft, fond smile.

"Miliaaaa- naaaaaaa!"

The piercing summons caused the girl to close her eyes and freeze, waiting for a migraine headache to begin; luckily, the priest's spells had been first class. With an air of deep and quiet calm, Miliana managed to face Lady Ulia and her father with a smile.

Plucking out her skirts and sinking a wee curtsy, Miliana nodded her tall hat in gentle greeting to her step-mother. Her father-rigid, dignified, and foreboding-gave a brisk nod of his gray beard to his daughter.

"Ah. Miliana." The prince gazed at his daughter without any real interest. "You appear to be well. How do your lessons go?"

The man had hardly spoken more than five sentences to his daughter in her entire life. Cowed, Miliana made a set of suitably dutiful noises-the lessons went well, she found needlepoint occupied most of her time, and the lavender smoke which yesterday exploded from her fireplace was most definitely the result of diseased firewood. Her father nodded, not bothering to listen to a word she had to say.

Her duty done, Miliana turned herself to the ziggurat of silk that was Lady Ulia. Swallowing carefully, Miliana congratulated herself on her survival thus far, and wished Lady Ulia the best of the day.

"Lady Ulia-is it not a perfect evening? I trust you find the airs as pleasant as I?"

"Pleasant?"

The cry caused Miliana to draw a little breath in pain. Coiling her head backward atop its great abundance of chins, Lady Ulia Mannicci blinked in horror at the girl. "Have you heard what the caterers are doing to my feast? There is still no centerpiece for the table. I desired a great bird, and what am I offered?

A cuttlefish of the most revolting size! I can hardly have a mass of tentacles splayed out amongst the silverware before all of our guests!"

The tirade of woes quickly lost its force; Lady Ulia had dragged in the whalebone and case-hardened steel of her corsets several inches too tight, and the constriction left her short of breath. The woman retreated into the solace of her waving fan and cast her eyes across her step-daughter's decolletage.

Spying the pearly pendant about Miliana's tender neck, she suddenly snatched up a quizzing glass and bent her head down to examine the object in suspicion and alarm.

"A pearl?" Ulia blinked in blubbering surprise. "Sooth, it is a pearl. A pearl of the first quality!" Miliana's step-mother drew in a breath and examined her smiling stepdaughter with a great, foreboding eye. "And just where, my lass, did this come from?"

Something stirred under Miliana's hat. Peeling a dizzy swoop of headache threatening to emerge, Miliana attempted to turn her face into a model of unconcern.

"It just came from… an admirer."

"And who, pray tell, is this admirer?

"Well-I don't actually know." Miliana felt a warm glow as she felt the pearl between her breasts; she polished one of her reserve pair of spectacles to cover her uncon-scious blush. "Just… someone."

"A young lady does not accept gifts from unknown sources." Lady Ulia reexamined the pearl with a mixed air of outrage, pomposity, and scorn. "Particularly not young ladies who already have approved, valid suitors seeking for their hand!"

Suddenly, the entire palace shuddered to an enormous bang. Miliana staggered, went green, and clapped her hands across her aching brow.

Prince Cappa Mannicci stared in the direction of the guest quarters in alarm.

"Great Lords of Baator! What was that?"

Miliana looked up in alarm.

"It wasn't me!"

"Of course it wasn't you! How can a mere girl make an explosion?" The Prince separated himself from Lady Ulia. "It's from that boy's quarters… the one from Lomatra…"

Lomatra. The thought made Prince Mannicci turn a cold gaze to the palace's west wing.

"Tonight, daughter, you shall devote an evening to our errant suitor. This time next year, I wish you to be a Lomatran bride."

"Father!" Miliana's eyes blinked wide; appalled, she took a step closer to the prince. "Father, no!"

"I wish it. It shall be done."

Face set and angry, Miliana used the mask of her great lenses to hide her cold, determined eyes.

Headache for-gotten, the girl gave an obedient curtsy, then smartly turned about and marched herself away.

A Lomatran bride indeed! Miliana clenched a hand about her brand new pearl-Lorenzo's pearl-and felt it spread a spell of warmth past the fury in her soul.

She had a friend now-a real friend. And a more-or-less magical bird monster-thing to stay by her side.

Between them, they would blow her father's plans straight to the Abyss!

Back in the courtyard, Lady Ulia watched Miliana leave and let a crease of suspicion gouge a line across her brows.

"Why, my dear, do you suppose your daughter is so compliant today?"

The Prince of Sumbria focused his attentions on the girl.

"Perhaps the seriousness of life has finally sunk home."

"Yes-or, perhaps, a double life…" Lady Ulia turned the horns of her great lime-green hat belligerently toward her prey. "There have been some very strange things going on within this palace.

"I think Miliana's activities deserve a closer scrutiny, my dear. It may prove to be the very-pearl-of the problem."