Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
“Tits,” Gwenna declares. “I knew they’d hate tits.”
“How can anyone hate tits?”
“They don’t get to touch ’em,” she says, shaking her head. “That makes them angry. To them we’re nothing but things to grope with no brains in our heads.”
I sigh heavily, feeling defeated. My sheltered life at Honori Hold hasn’t prepared me for any of the challenges that Vastwarren City offers. I’m entirely out of my depth. I’ve always been respected and obeyed because of my holder name. Now that no one knows who I am or the family I come from, I’m finding the world very different and a great deal bleaker than I imagined. I bite at my thumb, my cuticles already nibbled to a painful level. “I don’t know what to do, Gwenna.”
“I do. We turn around and we leave. We go home and we figure something out. You marry some idiot for his fortune and we forget this nonsense.”
She doesn’t understand. Gwenna doesn’t realize that Barnabus would likely get rid of me once he finds out my family has no artifactual value. That our hold has no defenses and the mystical renowned Honori faeriefire cannons are dead, their charges expended. That our defense stones are depleted. We can’t protect anyone or anything, and once that’s discovered, everyone will attack us. Our neighbors, our friends, our enemies—they’re going to realize we’re weak and try to take over Honori Hold. If we’re lucky, Father and Grandmama and I will be cast out. Unlucky? Someone will find what’s left of us in the moat.
And she doesn’t realize that it won’t stop there. Anyone with any sort of connection to us will be either driven out or killed, simply so there will be no one contesting the new rulers.
I can’t even approach the black market because Honori Hold is penniless. Our credit is gone and there’s nothing to pay my father’s debtors with. Father sold all of our valuable artifacts.
I haven’t told Gwenna that Barnabus only wanted me for my family’s holdings. That he’s never been interested in kissing a spinster like me, and all the times I let him touch me, he was pretending. Even now, the thought makes me feel like vomiting. It’s too shameful to bear. I know I’m not particularly pretty or charming, but finding out what Barnabus really thinks of me has made me feel ashamed. Like I’m some sort of disgusting creature that can only be tolerated because of the title I bring. I’ve tucked it all deep in my heart and kept it to myself. As far as Gwenna knows, we’re low on artifacts and I’m here to find new ones for my family. My father’s gambling problems are well-known by all the servants already, though I don’t think they realize how vulnerable it’s made all of us.
“I’m not leaving,” I tell Gwenna softly. “I don’t know what we’re going to do, but we’re not leaving. We’re not giving up. Not after we’ve come this far.”
“Mrrrrowr,” Squeaker agrees. But she also just might want out of my clinging grasp.
Gwenna takes a deep breath and then jumps to her feet, pacing the room. “All right, then. We’re not leaving. We’re still going to join the guild. So if those twits won’t let you in the front door to join the guild, how do we get in the side door? Who do we know that we can pull connections with?”
For a moment, I stare at her in awe. Of course we’re not giving up. It’s time to enact another plan. I’m humbled by her faith in me, and new tears threaten, but I blink them away. Just like Gwenna isn’t a hugger (gods, I could really use a hug right now), she’d hate crying even more. And those horrible men aren’t worth crying over. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t know what we do from here. Father no longer sponsors a guild Five because we haven’t the funding. Even if he did, we couldn’t approach them because I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Right.” She pauses, drumming her fingers on her crossed arms, thinking. “Well, perhaps we should find out where they drink and seduce our way into the school. A man with a tired cock can’t refuse a woman anything she asks.”
Seduction?
Me?
It’s…not a bad plan. If she was suggesting this to anyone other than me, it’d be an excellent plan. As it is, I’m not sure I’m the right person for the job. “How am I supposed to seduce someone? Sit on them and recite Old Prellian poetry until they give in? I don’t know the first thing about being appealing to men. The only experience I’ve had is with Barnabus.”
And I can’t trust any of it.
My cat twists in my arms, digging in her claws, and I let her go. Squeaker abandons me, leaving behind floating bits of fur in her wake, and I cough, waving a hand in the air to clear it.