Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
She sputters a few more times, but there is nothing left for her to do but comply. She scurries away, cursing under her breath.
I enter the apartments and close the door.
There is a huge main room. Very elegant and proper. Not my style at all. But for a girl, it’s nice. Very… pink. And across this expansive room is an open door through which I can see a bed with lots of mosquito netting draped around the frame.
From there, I can make out soft voices, so I head that direction. I pause at the door, not looking in—it seems a little forward to just appear at a girl’s door in this time and place. So I knock. “Hello? Pressia?”
“Who’s there?” The voice is… not quite right. And when I peek into the room, it’s immediately apparent why it’s not quite right.
This is not a woman. This is not even a girl. She is a child. Maybe seven. And she’s on the floor, kneeling on a lionskin rug, playing with dolls.
“Pressia?” I say it again.
She stands up, surprised. And nervous, too. Because she fusses with her dress—also pink—and then gasps. “Oh!” And she drops to her knees, pressing her head against the floor the same way I did in front of Ptah.
“No, no, no. Get up. Please don’t do that.”
She looks up at me, meets my gaze, but does not get up off the floor. “You’re not supposed to be here. We’re getting—”
“We’re not.” I cut her off because I just want to get this over with now. Clearly, she is not the answer I was looking for.
“We’re not?” Her whole face crumples. But she does not yell, or throw things at me, or even mutter a single word of complaint. She just bows her head back down to the floor and tries to breathe normally, but fails.
I sigh. She’s crying. “It’s not you,” I start, but then almost laugh. Because love, man. It hasn’t changed a bit. “It’s really not you, Pressia. And get up. Please. I just want to ask you some questions.”
She doesn’t move, but I can tell she’s trying to stop her crying before she shows her face again, so I try to be patient.
I’m not very patient. But after two minutes she finally looks up at me with a smile. Her eyes are glassy and tears are covering her cheeks, but she’s smiling. She gets to her feet, does some kind of curtsey and then lets out a breath. “Yes, my godling. What can I do for you?”
And this is when I see the woman she will become. Proud. Smart, obviously. And composed.
She might’ve been playing with dolls three minutes ago, but she is not a little girl. Was maybe never a little girl. She is a princess of some kind and there is absolutely no chance at all that she is a market nymph.
I knew it. I knew it the moment I saw her in those books.
But she disguised herself. Somehow.
Well, that should not surprise me. The woman who wrote those books was a very accomplished alchemist. Changing one’s looks is basic stuff.
“Pressia, where do you come from? And how did you get here?”
Her eyes widen with surprise. “You… want to know things about me?”
“Of course.”
“But… you told me not to talk in your presence.”
“Well, that was… not very nice of me. I’m sorry. I want to know these things. Please tell me because I’m short on time.”
She curtseys again. “Yes, my godling.”
“Pell. Just call me Pell.”
“Yes—Pell.” It wasn’t easy for her to say that. The manners have been ingrained. “Well.” One more curtsey for good measure. “I’m from Vinca, of course. But that’s not what you’re asking, because you know that.”
Vinca. Fucking Vinca. Why does this place keep popping up? What is the deal?
“I come from all the goddesses. Every line of succession. And the alchemist, Lyrica. But you know all that as well.”
So very smart and composed. Because these are the exact questions I am asking about and she is wise enough to disguise her answers as silly to hide my ignorance and spare me embarrassment due to my rank of godling.
I’m actually sorry I will never know the grown-up woman called Pressia. Because she would be a formidable ally.
“So what else can I tell you, my—I mean, Pell?”
“Have we met before?”
“Just the one time through a curtain.” This time she does not add the disclaimer to spare me the shame of ignorance.
“What are they doing? With us, I mean. Do you know?”
She glances to the outer room, perhaps looking for her chaperone, who I am now certain is the alchemist Lyrica.
“She’s gone. I sent her to talk to my father about the wedding. Or lack of one, as it turns out.”
Pressia—all four feet of her—relaxes and smiles at me. “They are breeding us to produce the next godling, of course. A little prince for Vinca.”