Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Lance’s wounds are worse than most, which means his bloodlust is mixed with a very natural and understandable ongoing desire for revenge. We listen to him to indulge him.
A tap on my shoulder is a welcome distraction.
“I am sorry to interrupt, sir, but I believe your bride needs to go home.” Lydia slides up to me and murmurs the warning in a soft voice. She gives it in a very calm and restrained manner, but I know Lydia would never dare interrupt me while socializing if things had not become urgent.
I make my apologies and head to the ladies’ lounge, which is a much brighter and more cheerful place. Sometimes I wonder about the wisdom of splitting off into genders. If I want to sit in a dark room and have depressing alcohol-laced conversations with Lance, I can do that at home.
The snacks are better here too, sweeter and more pleasantly presented. Even with my shades on, I feel a certain sense of joy in the decor. I pick up some coconut ice and nibble on it as I walk in. I am sure Lydia is correct that my help is needed, but nothing too terrible can happen at a party like this one.
Women are louder than men, and the conversation layers over itself in so many directions it is hard to pick up any individual thread. It does not take me long to find Mila however, even among all the hubbub. This is because my wife is standing on top of a table singing what appears to be some kind of Angelish countryside song. The other women are egging her on by clapping their hands and attempting to sing along. The effect is not unlike an acoustic hall of untrained cats.
Emmaline is on the outskirts of the chaos, smiling at it all with the visage of someone who has successfully orchestrated an absolute mess.
“What is happening here?” I approach her first. I don’t love that my bride is on a table, it is vaguely dangerous, but I am a soldier and I have seen much more dangerous things unfold than this. I am surprised to see her being so outgoing. She seemed like a more demure type.
“She had a pinch too much of the good stuff,” Emmaline says. “I told her to take a sniff, but she inhaled with all her might.”
“And what is the good stuff?” I school my tone very carefully.
“Oh, it’s freshly imported from the East Coast. It’s very, very good. The girls and I have been enjoying it all week.”
She won’t say the word itself. That would make it all too real.
She means Soma. She means every woman in this room has partaken in the most illegal drug our society has, and that my innocent bride has also been encouraged to take it—assuming she even knew what it was.
“This is illegal,” I remind her.
She is unmoved.
“My bride is nineteen, and she is freshly arrived to New Boston. I wanted you to be a good example to her, not a corrupting force.”
“If you want to keep her innocent, keep her home. New Boston is no place for innocence, and well you know it, Archon-General.”
“I thought you might have some respect for me and my position,” I growl.
Emmaline smiles, undeterred. That’s the Soma. She might not be as high as the others, but she has clearly had enough to avoid feeling anything like fear. There is no point talking to her. There is no point engaging with anybody in this room. This is the biggest display of lawbreaking and social decay I have encountered in a long time.
I do not have time to deal with all of them. I am worried about my wife, who is now swaying so much she is about to fall off the table. This is all more dangerous than it looks on the surface. I should have been more wary from the beginning. Women are always more dangerous than they appear.
“I’ve… had… the time of my liffffe…” Mila is crooning. “And I never felt this way before…”
I scoop her up into my arms. She is light enough to carry, and holding her is easier than letting her run around. Her eyes are bright. Too bright. Her pupils are like saucers, and the speed at which she is talking is about twice as fast as anybody could ever hope to understand.
Yesterday, a sweet, innocent young woman stood before me, and today I hold in my arms a deflowered socialite absolutely out of her mind on the most illicit drug our society knows.
“We are leaving,” I tell Lydia, who has dutifully shadowed me to the edge of the female crowd, and now slips through it behind the pair of us.
“Oh, no,” Lydia deadpans. “What happened?”
“Emmaline slipped her some Soma,” I growl.
Fortunately there is always a back way out of these engagements. Mila will not be the only person who leaves this gathering worse for wear, and she will not be the only person who needs to depart unseen.