A fine-boned woman watched me warily from the smooth glass, her large eyes made larger by the charcoal definition of lashes and brows. Her thick hair, braided into three crown coils and pinned with a beautiful fall of gold flowers, added height to her small frame. Her mouth was painted into a stylized flower bud that was oddly melancholy, its natural upward curve hidden in the white paint that softened a stubborn chin and created an elegant length of throat.
I blinked, bringing the separate parts of my face into a whole. The woman before me was pretty, but not beautiful like Moon Orchid. My eyes followed the downward sweep of white paint to the hollow of my throat. It had been left unpainted, a jewel of smooth, natural skin that hinted at what lay beneath the clinging sheath of pink and green silk and the tight binding of the embroidered sash.
“Although she is completely covered, the message is still very obvious,” Dela said wryly.
“That is our art,” Momo said.
I shook my head. “I cannot do this.” I stepped away from the mirror. “I am not feminine enough. I will walk like a boy and give us away.”
“Nonsense. You were skilled enough to fool everyone into believing you were a boy for years. I’m sure you can now manage a Peony.” Momo led me back to the mirror and stood me in front of it again. “Look at yourself. You are a beautiful Peony, a highly skilled artist whose company is reserved for the rich and powerful. Every other man will be busy unwrapping you with his eyes. They will not see anything beyond that.”
I pressed my lips together, tasting the waxy red ocher of the paint. I knew Momo was right: the soldiers would not see anything beyond the promise of my body. Not at first, anyway. Even Kygo’s gaze had changed when I had finally told him I was a girl. He had been furious, of course, but as he recast me in the mold of woman, I had felt my body became a possibility to him, and my flesh the sum of what I was. At the time, it had shamed and infuriated me.
I stared into the mirror and a small smile shifted across the reddened flower-bud mouth. Part of me wished Kygo were here to see me in the gown and paint. Would he think me beautiful? I glanced across at Moon Orchid. Not if she was in the room. Still, he had made me his Naiso, and kissed me even when I had been stinking of horse and sweat, and covered in mud. I was more than just a body to him.
A small doubt slid through my thoughts like a honed dagger. It was possible that my body had never had anything to do with it. Perhaps he did not want Eona—just “the thousand lightning strikes tipped with pleasure.” Was that why he had not sought my company on the ride to the city—since I dared not touch the pearl, I was of no use? I looked at Moon Orchid again. He could have any woman he wanted. Why would he choose me?
Perhaps he did not even see Eona when he looked at me. Perhaps all he could see was dragon power.
Mama Momo guided me away from the mirror. “If all goes smoothly, you won’t be in the company of the officers for long, anyway,” she said. “Tell me the plan again.”
We had been through it twice already while I was being painted, but she was right to insist. “One of Sethon’s half- brothers is hosting the party—High Lord Haio. He has requested only lower rank girls, so when he sees me among the others, he will complain.”
Momo nodded. “He is tighter than a fish’s bum and won’t want to pay for a Peony he did not order.”
“I then explain that there has been a mistake, and that Vida and I are a gift for the emperor from the Blossom Houses: a Peony for music and song, and a Safflower for the more base arts.” I paused. “What if Haio decides he wants a Peony after all?” I did not have a clear idea of what would happen at such a party, but I knew it would not be safe for either of us.
“He will not want to interfere with his brother’s pleasure—with good reason. Haio will have a steward escort you to Sethon.”
“Ryko, Yuso, and Dela will intercept us,” I continued. “We’ll get rid of the steward and make our way to Ido.”
“Do not miss that opportunity.” Momo gripped my arm to emphasize the warning.
“We know,” Vida said.
“We get into Ido’s cell. I heal him, then we make our way to the east wall of the palace, where the resistance will be waiting with horses and an escape route out of the city.” I looked at the somber faces around me. “Let’s hope the gods are with us.”
“They should smile upon you just for the sheer audacity of it all,” Momo said. She turned to Dela. “Are you sure you cannot do this without risking Lady Eona? I could have her meet you outside the palace.”
“I have to be there to heal Ido and control him,” I said, before Dela could answer. I was afraid of going into the palace, but I was just as frightened of losing my one chance of rescuing the only man who could train me in my dragon power.
Momo sighed, then beckoned to Moon Orchid. “Take Vida and Lady Dela to the top room, my dear. Yuso and Ryko are waiting.” She smiled at me. “Lady Eona, will you stay a few moments longer?”
I crossed my arms. “What for?”
Did she think she could persuade me to stay out of the palace?
“I would speak to you about Ryko,” she said in an undertone.
Dela turned back, ignoring Moon Orchid’s gentle ushering toward the door. “Ryko? What about Ryko?”
Momo’s eyebrows rose at her tone. “It is a matter between Lady Eona and myself.”
Dela’s chin lifted. “Ryko is my guard. I will stay, too.”
“Your guard?” Momo echoed.
It was no longer strictly true, but both Dela and Ryko seemed to be clinging to the formal bond that had first brought them together. I caught the silent plea in Dela’s eyes.
“Lady Dela will stay,” I said. My support was not all for Dela’s sake; I did not want to face Momo alone. Especially about Ryko.
Momo’s lips thinned, but she nodded and waved Moon Orchid and Vida from the room.
“You are killing him,” she said flatly when the door had slid shut behind them. “This possession of his will—it is withering his spirit.”
I tightened my arms across my chest. “I did not ask for it.”
“Yet you keep on doing it. I have spoken to him.”
“Only twice,” Dela said. “And Lady Eona has promised—”
“Three times,” Momo said. “At least.”
Dela focus snapped to me. “Three?”
“His Majesty made me. It was a test.” I lowered my head. “I did not want to.”
“Eona!”
I did not look up; the disillusion in her voice was clear enough. “You were not there,” I said. “Do not judge me.”
Momo clicked her tongue in irritation. “It does not matter how many times. Ryko is a man who lives by his own code, and if he cannot have that, he would rather die. I should know. His damned code drove a wedge between us.”
“How?” Dela asked.
“His mother, Layla, and I were friends. We worked in the same house. She wanted to get out and take Ryko back to the islands, and she was so close to repaying her bond. Then she was killed by a client, right in front of him.”
Dela pressed her hand to her mouth. “Killed in front of him?”
Momo nodded. “He tried to stop it, but he was only eight. I took him in after that. Then when he was sixteen and I had my own house, he helped one of my girls break her bond. She manipulated him, but that’s not the point.” She waved away the girl’s importance. “He just wanted to save her, like he couldn’t save his mother.” Momo turned to me. “For Ryko, your control is a bond that can never be repaid or escaped. You have his spirit in chains.”
I glanced at Dela. “Maybe he should leave us.”
Her jaw tightened. “You know he will not.”
“It is only going to get worse,” I whispered. “If our plan works and I heal Lord Ido, then Ryko will be caught up in my control of him.”
Momo shook her head. “Does he know this?”
“Yes.”
“Then it is his own choice. And that is the crux of the matter, isn
’t it,” she said grimly. “If Ryko cannot make his own choices, by his sense of duty and honor, he would rather die.”
“I am hoping that once I am trained by Lord Ido, I can end this bond,” I said.
Momo grunted. “You are pinning a lot of hope on Lord Ido,” she said. “I pray that you can control him, as you say. Let me show you something, as a warning.”
She loosened her sash and pushed her robe off her right shoulder, exposing the bony flat of her back. A long ridged scar, old and deep, slashed the skin—the mark of a whip.
“That was Ido?” Dela whispered.
Momo nodded. “When he was seventeen. I turned my back on him,” she said. “Never make that mistake, Lady Eona. He will strike as fast as a scorpion and with just as much venom.”
“Why did he do it?” I asked.
“Because he could,” Momo said. “It is his nature.”
Yet she had not seen the remorse that shook Ido’s body after I had healed him, nor witnessed the terrible pain he had suffered to hold back the ten dragons from tearing me apart. Surely it was possible his nature had changed. Why else would he put himself in such danger?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TWELVE GIRLS; AN auspicious number. As we gathered at the Gate of Good Service, I scanned the faces around me in the twilight. Some of the women were tense— no doubt the three bodies in the canal were playing on their minds—while others had the glazed eyes of dragon chasers, the drug loosening their minds as well as their bodies. Momo had told us to stay well away from those girls; they had no sense of their own safety or anyone else’s, she’d said. The warmth of the day still held, and the smell of sweat was barely masked by the clash of perfumes on the bodies around me. We were corralled between the men who were our “protectors” and the soldiers who manned the gate. I shifted my sweaty grip on the neck of my lute and leaned over to Vida. She was standing, feet apart, arms crossed.
“You look like you are on guard duty,” I whispered.
She unwound her arms and pressed her hands together. “What is the delay?”
A woman sidled up to us. “I didn’t know there was going to be a Peony,” she said loudly, directing the attention of all the other women to me. She was dressed in a gown similar to Vida’s, although considerably more skin showed, and when she smiled, I saw her teeth had been dyed black, the custom marking her as a married woman from the far southeast coast. How had she got so far from her home and husband? “We’ll have music,” she added. “We can dance.”
“What? Are you trying to be an Orchid?” another Safflower scoffed.
The two women began a soft exchange of insults, pulling the focus of the others away from me. I looked back at Yuso; the stern commander I knew was hidden beneath a ratty beard and worn clothes and a slouch. He yawned, affecting boredom, but his eyes met mine in swift reassurance. Dela stood beside him, absently scratching the stubble on her face. She hawked and spat.
I rocked forward on my toes and watched two of the gate soldiers search a dragon chaser. The girl giggled and draped herself against them until they finally pushed her face-first and limp against the raw boards of the new gate. Only twelve days ago, Ryko and I had followed a battering ram through that gate, fighting our way into the courtyard on the back of a horse. I shivered, remembering our beast trampling a soldier, the man’s chest caving under its hooves. Was Ryko also remembering that same desperate night? His face held only impatience as he lounged beside a Trang Dein man, the two of them a wall of islander muscle.
“Little Sister Peony, please give me your lute.” I jumped as a very young, pock-marked soldier held out his hand. The old- fashioned courtesy matched his shy smile. “I will be careful with it.”
I passed him the instrument. He gently shook it and peered into the exquisitely carved sound holes, then handed it back.
“I am sorry, Little Sister, but I will have to search you.” The pits on his face stood out white against the vivid scarlet of his blush. “Orders.”
I bit the inside of my cheek as I felt his hesitant hands pat my chest and waist, then around my hips. Beside me, Vida was getting the same treatment from another guard, but with far less deference.
My young soldier ducked his head. “You can go in now.”
I tried a Peony smile—slow and mysterious, as Moon Orchid had taught me—and saw him flush again.
Vida fell in beside me, and we walked through the gate into the courtyard that ran alongside the huge kitchens. I circled my hand around my wrist and felt the shape of Kygo’s ring, hidden under the leather thong that was wrapped and tied into a thick bracelet. It had been Moon Orchid’s idea, and the care she had taken to wind it around my moon wrist had felt like a silent blessing.
I glanced back; Ryko was walking through the gate. We had all made it into the palace. I sent a quick prayer to Tu-Xang, the oldest god of luck. He was known to protect fools and thieves.
Four men bustled up, barely acknowledging our ragged bows. Their black caps and the green feathers pinned to their robes marked them as stewards. Momo had been right: we had no guards once we were inside the walls, only eunuchs. On the terrible night of the coup, Ryko and I had seen many of the eunuch attendants hacked to death, but these four seemed officious and self-satisfied, as though such atrocities had never happened. It seemed the change of an emperor—even a brutal change—did not stop the machinery of the palace.
“Follow me,” one of them called. “Keep together.”
A few women hooked arms, their soft whispers breaking into quick nervous laughter. I glanced at Vida and caught her hand, partly to keep our paces matched, but mainly for the comfort of another human touch. She squeezed my fingers. We rounded the kitchen buildings, the salty slick of fish stock on the warm night air, and passed the wall that enclosed the imperial guest apartments, the former home of Lord Eon. For more than a month I had lived as a Dragoneye Lord in the Peony Apartment, and here I was, back as a Peony Blossom. A mad desire to laugh bubbled through me.
We turned along the avenue that led past the lesser banquet hall. This part of the palace had not sustained much damage. There was more destruction, I knew, on the other side, around the central harem where Lord Ido had used his dragon power to blast through the sanctuary wall. Perhaps his torture was the gods’ way of punishing him for his transgression against the Covenant of Service.
The eunuchs led us past the hall to the third guest apartment: the House of the Five Color Cloud. It was our destination, for we were ushered into the formal garden, and the lead eunuch dropped back to walk beside Yuso and Dela.
“You and your men cannot enter,” the eunuch told them. “At any time. Do you understand?”
Yuso shrugged. “We understand.” He opened his hand, showing a set of dice. “We are used to waiting.”
As we approached the elegant door screen, the energy within the group of women shifted. Even the dragon chasers straightened, and I felt Vida tense through our linked hands. It was up to me now to get us past the next obstacle: Sethon’s brother. Momo had been certain he would call for a steward. She knew him and this world, but what if he decided he did want a Peony, after all? A stark memory from the coup—a maidservant screaming, struggling under a soldier—shuddered through me. I tightened my grip on the lute. Ahead, the soft murmurs of the women ceased as the steward clapped to announce our arrival, the glow from a pair of brass lanterns casting his shadow long across the raked pebble path.
The black-toothed Safflower turned to face me. “You should be at the front,” she said in the silence. “What are you doing back here?”
I stared at her surprise, unable to come up with a quick answer.
“Well, if you get your fat arse out of the way,” Vida said tartly, “Fortune Peony will be able to take her proper place.”
Black Teeth scowled at Vida, but she moved aside. “Fat arse?” she muttered as we passed. “Look who’s talking.”
Vida quelled her with a look. I forced a serene smile as the other women shifted for us, a
few murmurs of discontent fading at Vida’s silent belligerence. We took our places at the front of the straggling line and stepped onto the low wooden viewing platform. The screen door snapped open. A plump servant glanced at us, then bowed to the steward.
“They’re late,” he said. He jerked his head back to the sounds of male laughter inside. “They are already drunk as newts.”
A whisper rustled through the women, the tension rising.
“Then let them in,” the steward said.
With a parting sniff, the servant bowed and led us into an elegant foyer, our footsteps muffled by fine straw matting. I recognized the layout; it was the same as the Peony apartment, with a formal reception room at the front and private chambers at the rear. From the murmuring and sharp bursts of laughter, it was clear that the men waited in the reception room.
The servant clapped at the screen door and the sounds of conversation stopped. My mouth dried, parched of everything except fear. Beside me, Vida pressed her hands against her chest.
“Vida,” I whispered. She looked at me, my own panic mirrored in her eyes.
“Enter,” called a male voice.
The servant pulled back the screen, his portly body folded into a low bow.
My blood roared in my ears. Before me, men in the dark blue tunics of the cavalry lounged around a low table, its polished surface littered with long-necked decanters and platters of food. My eyes skipped across the faces, some assessing, some leering. And one, surprised—no doubt High Lord Haio. The smell of cooked meat and male sweat was overwhelming.
Forcing a smile, I bent into a walking bow and led the women into the room. I did not dare look up at the circle of men; they would see my fear as if it were a black mark upon my face. I kneeled, placed the lute before me, and sank into a kowtow, the other women following my lead. The straw matting stank of spilled rice wine and brought a rise of nausea into my throat. I clenched my jaw, fighting for poise. A Peony would not shift with nerves or spew vomit on the feet of her clients.