Princess Carmin could taste the beer in the air.
It cascaded off the balustrades from the floor above, into copper troughs that formed artificial rivers and fed gilded gutters that passed between tables filled with half-drunk nobles. A few feet from her table, the gutters fed into a well, flowing further down to the second floor.
The yeast nauseated her, and she itched to unsheathe her scimitars and hack her way through the Tower to find her betrothed prince.
No. Deep breaths. Gather information first. We need this alliance for the kingdom.
Oreus was with her—a member of her former guild, the Guillotine Crew—playing his lute as he sang on stage—a wooden platform that faced not only this floor but also the balustrades above. A clear view to the comings and goings of the floors that mattered.
A flutejack like him could hear a butterfly flapping its wings from a mile away so long as there was rhythm to its beat. Any message could reach him if there was melody to it. Instantaneous communication.
On Carmin’s left was her other associate: Priscylla. Donned in a frilled dress and wearing a garnet tiara, Priscylla acted as Carmin’s surrogate, pretending to be the princess of Archeus and attracting the attention of flattering nobles. She was effectively Carmin’s camouflage. A lone armed and sober sellsword in a place like this would stick out like a sore thumb, but no one paid attention to a sellsword guarding a princess. Carmin had two scimitars in proud display on her back—there was no mistaking why she was here, which is exactly what she wanted.
Priscylla’s voice rose to an abruptly high pitch as she questioned the current noble fawning over her. “Really? And there is no hangover at all the next day?”
“Not the slightest hint you were ever drunk, Princess,” the noble said. The makeup on his face hid his pimples like a coat of ash on a gravel road. Fraudulent alchemists pushed anything as renaissance products these days. Carmin decided to label him Eggface.
“Shamra’s beer is special,” Eggface continued. “The pinnacle of alchemy. But, ah, be careful. Never mix it with redgoat’s milk or glinting fungi; the effect will be reversed and it’ll give you the nastiest hangover.”
Priscylla giggled stupidly and drank from her pint.
Carmin leaned close to Priscylla’s ear. “Ask him now. We can’t lose all night with this one.”
Priscylla nodded.
“By the by,” Priscylla said. “I heard Feremel’s Prince Jonathan was in Atlia a week ago, in this very establishment.”
“Many come to the Tower,” Eggface said. “Most you never encounter. So many entryways.”
“I should think a prince is hard to miss.”
“You would be surprised, Princess. I always settle on this floor here. Never seen a prince.”
“Oh. And how many floors are there? The tower is such a marvel from outside, but rumors say it’s bigger on the inside.”
Eggface offered a patronizing laugh. “Tall tales. It’s no more than five floors. The first floor was erected along with the city’s town hall. A place for peasants. They enter from some back alley or other of course. Nothing like the rolling bridges and the glass lifts we use to reach the more opulent floors. The Tower grew higher the last twelve years to accommodate men of our stature. Shamra took over management around the same time. A witch with a mind for business, my father says.”
Priscylla supported her chin on her hands. “Is there any floor you’d like to visit? Perhaps a place reserved for the highest of society? A place for princes?”
“Hm, there is that room called the Chamber of Nirvana. An out-of-body experience. The Duke of Sarel spent a week there once. Couple of princes talked about it highly, too.”
Carmin perked up. The clue she needed. What kind of room held such seductive sway as to have dukes waive responsibilities so long? Could Jonathan be there?
“I would love to see it,” Priscylla said.
“I would, too. Alas, I don’t know where it is. You need an invitation. A prince or a duke could bypass the rules, but seeing as we’re neither…”
Priscylla tucked her chin in her shoulder playfully. “I’m a princess. I’m sure I can bypass rules.”
“It’s men only, princess. But never mind that place, I’m sure we…”
Carmin stopped listening. They had to get into that room. The princess card wouldn’t cut it. But they had not expected an easy rescue. She cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered in a melodious tone for Oreus to hear her. “I’m waiting for you. Time for phase two. Need to isolate someone from the staff, to find secret room.”
She signaled Priscylla.
Oreus brought his song to a quick climax, kissed his fingertips and bowed magnanimously to the cheering crowd, then approached Carmin’s table, dipping a pint into the gutter beside her.
“Floor above is less crowded,” he said. “There’s a wall curve where I assume is the kitchen. Staff comes and goes, and it’s the ideal spot to sneak up on someone.”
Carmin nodded.
“Architecture above is similar to here. No one uses the stairs. Not one soul walked up or down the floors while I was on stage.”
Interesting. Perhaps not even the staff knew all—
Priscylla toppled from her chair, landing limp on the floor.
“Princess?” Eggface said. “Princess, what’s wrong?”
Carmin leaped over her. Priscylla’s eyes were glazed and vacant. Carmin pressed her fingers against her neck.
There was no pulse.
Two days before the mission, Carmin and Oreus had held the princess auditions in the basement of a ramshackle inn in a rundown district of Feremel, two days ride from Atlia and the Tower. Carmin had brought her personal conjurer, Seb, who materialized food to test candidates for table manners.
Thirty-one candidates had come and gone, most of them mooncalf-eyed girls with nasal accents. Bumpkins that strayed too far from the countryside in search of some imagined land of opportunity. The vipers of the court would chew these girls up and spit them out. Their table manners were worse—tearing off chicken wings with bare hands, gravy spilling from their lips. Maybe they’d come for the free food. Wouldn’t do them much good. Conjured food would vanish from the belly after seven hours, leaving one hungrier than before.
“You know,” Oreus said. “There’s a story about a king who’d been tricked into starvation by being served humongous quantities of conjured food. Starved without a single hunger pang.”
“Stupid story,” Carmin said. “Why not use poison and be done with it?”
He shrugged. “Crowds in Fundara loved it. Anyway, I think our mistake was letting the rumor about the auditions run rampant. Every hay-brained farm girl thinks she found an opportunity to escape mundane life.”
Carmin rubbed her eyes. “I’m exhausted. Seb, is the food ready for the next candidate?”
Seb’s hands danced over the table, liquid swirling between them, water and salt browning into gravy. “Only a minute, Princess—”
Carmin slammed her hands on the table.
Seb jumped and the hovering liquid showered his beard. “Sorry—I’m sorry, I meant Carmin. My mind was focused on conjuring. It’s hard to get used to calling you by name.”
“Make sure you do. Lest you start petitioning for a career with the Crones of Manug.”
Seb squinched at the comment. “Yes, Pr—Carmin.”
Shame to scare him, but the mission was too important. Her wedding with Prince Jonathan was in five days, and she had to find him before then. Their political marriage would unify the forces of Archeus and Feremel—deter the Kingdom of Manug from invading further south. End this senseless war.
A bone hovered between Seb’s hands. Membranes of fat materialized and enwrapped it, bulging with meat. The sight nauseated her. The only other conjurer she knew was her older sister Jadi, and she did not miss that sociopath.
Carmin’s heart pricked. Thirteen years and the thought of Jadi’s wicked smile still raised the hair at the back of her neck.
Food restored on the table, Seb wiped his hands in two audible claps to proudly emphasize: There, job done.
“Send in the next,” Carmin said.
The girl that stepped in immediately piqued Carmin’s interest. Pretty but not Carmin’s type, and with a subtle regality to catch a noble’s eyes, shapely in all the right places, rich platinum hair falling down to her waist. As a contrast to that, she had striking eyes, wide, as if she was constantly staring at something. Her wide smile revealed enough teeth to look stupid and harmless.
“Hello, my dear. Please, have a seat,” Oreus said.
The girl approached the chair, then turned at Seb, who was standing some feet behind. Seb nodded politely and shuffled his feet. They stared at each other for an awkward little eternity before Seb, as if struck by lightning, rushed to pull out the chair. The girl sat with a curtsy.
“I think we have a winner,” Oreus whispered.
“We’ll see. I’m a born pessimist that enjoys being positively surprised.”
Oreus turned to the girl. “Do you have a name, dear?”
“Priscylla.”
“That your actual name?” Carmin asked.
The girl giggled. “It’s the only name I need.”
Smart came packaged with a stupid smile. Very promising. And the accent was good, with no trace of the countryside.
“Are you not hungry?” Oreus said. “There’s plenty here.”
“Oh thank you kindly,” Priscylla said as she nibbled at the finger food. “Mmmm. Oh my, but it’s wonderful. Your chef is very talented.”
“There’s chicken, too, if you’d like to partake. Gravy to die for.”
She shook her head. “It looks delicious, but I’m rather alright.”
“You enjoy beer?” Carmin asked.
“Mmm, I’m more of a wine person, but I’ll have a pint on celebratory occasions.”
Carmin and Oreus juggled questions about Priscylla’s upbringing—her false upbringing—to which she gave vivid descriptions of castle walls and redolent gardens. If Carmin didn’t know better, she’d think she had a real princess on her hands, fed with golden spoons. But she did know better. All candidates had handed in autobiographies for the auditions. Priscylla was daughter to a maid and a librarian. She’d glimpsed opulent castles, accompanying her mother to work, and the books her father brought home had filled in the missing details.
“Alright, Priscylla,” Carmin said. “Now time for the real talk. What do you hope to gain from this?”
Priscylla’s gaze drifted to the chandelier above with dazzled awe. “Oh, one night of magic. Something to look back to when I’m old.”
“Quite a lovely sentiment,” Oreus said. “Now what—”
“Cut the crap,” Carmin said.
Priscylla lowered her gaze. Her smile showed no teeth this time. “My ambitions won’t burden you. I will be true to the role you want me to play.”
Ah. Ambitions. Bat her eyes at a noble’s son or two and—princess or not—Priscylla would have an in on the circle of high society. There was a cunning girl behind that shell of naïveté.
She would fit like a glove.
“So long as we’re honest,” Carmin said.
“One last question,” Oreus said, and placed a black vial on the table. The label read Interlude Death. “How do you feel about dying for an hour?”
A crowd formed around the unconscious Priscylla. Eggface was visibly shaking. Poor guy. He probably didn’t deserve what was coming.
A waitress waded through the throng. “What happened here?”
Oreus turned, face red with rage. His flutejack perk was not his only talent. “What happened, my dear, is a declaration of war. The Princess of Archeus poisoned under the care of your establishment, by none other than this young man over there!” He pointed to Eggface.
Eggface stuttered for words. “A d-d-declaration of—You cannot be implying—”
Oreus had drawn so much attention it was easy for Carmin to slip away to the floor above. The nobles up there clustered the balustrades, whispering among themselves, Which princess? What happened? I thought the enchanted beer snuffed all poison. Was it a farce?
Carmin snuck toward the curve Oreus had described to obscure herself, and pulled out her dagger. When a waitress emerged from the kitchen, Carmin caught her in a chokehold, blade against neck.
“Where’s the Chamber of Nirvana?” Carmin said.
“I—I can’t. Shamra, she will kill—”
Carmin pressed the dagger. “She holding the dagger to your pretty neck?”
The woman swallowed. “Upstairs. Follow the green carpet to the chamber with the meadow painting. It’s a hidden door. Knock three times on the frame and it will open. Ah!”
Carmin nicked the girl’s neck. “No games. My dagger is enchanted against lies.”
“Sorry. I’m sorry. Don’t knock. You, you should say, ‘My body is a temple, and its pieces should be worshiped throughout the world.’ It’s the code phrase.”
The lie-detecting dagger bluff never failed. Good as magic.
“Anything else I should know?”
“H-hold your breath as you cross the last stairstep. Otherwise you’ll end up on this floor again.”
Carmin frowned. An enchanted staircase? They were serious about segregating the different castes. “Thanks.” She knocked the girl unconscious with her knife’s pommel.
She rushed up the staircase, holding her breath as she crossed the final stairstep. Goosebumps tingled her body, and she inhaled honey scents when she breathed again.
The regally dressed patrons of this floor, confused at the downstairs commotion, exchanged fragmented debates of who should go downstairs to check what it was about. She spotted the green carpet, and followed it, avoiding the wary looks of nobles. It doglegged over a corner and vanished under a mahogany door. Inside were gilded couches and a painting spanning the whole front wall. A sanguine meadow under an orange sky.
Carmin froze. A meadow whose grass was so red it seemed tinged with the blood of soldiers; a land in mourning after war.
The clank of utensils from a nearby kitchen, like distant swords clashing on a battlefield.
Remembrance washed over her, of the Guillotine Crew escorting dukes and princesses, fighting wars for her father’s ambitions. Her sister Jadi conjured wings on the bodies of the fallen soldiers and sent them flying and raining down on the living, cackling madly as if she was privy to some sick joke. Of all the failings of their father, at least he was wise enough to pass the usurped throne over to Carmin and not her warmongering sister.
Memory made Carmin’s trembling fingers feel something thick and wet, but when she rubbed them together, they were dry and clean. She took a deep breath. “My body is a temple, and its pieces should be worshiped throughout the world.”
The painting creaked open, releasing a white haze with a nauseating scent, like some perverse combination of lavender with rotten lemons. Maybe an overpriced exotic herb. Nobles would flock around cow dung if the seller stuck a high price tag on it.
She unsheathed her scimitars and snuck through the humid vapors. Once her eyes adjusted to the fog, she discerned women in aquamarine robes, pressing down on something at waist-height, like kneading dough. No, not dough. Naked people.
Men lay on slabs with velvet pillows, being massaged. Something off about them. A bright blue light above their chest, covering their neck in a halo and—
Their heads were missing.
Carmin backstepped. She bumped against something. Someone grabbed her shoulder. She dropped to a crouch, pushing the hand away with an upright movement of her elbow, and spun.
A guard faced her, baton in hand. She feigned a swirling scimitar attack. As the guard twisted to block, she whirled and kicked him sideways on his kneecap, twisting his leg.
Looming figures emerged from the fog. How many? Twelve? Scimitars extended, she leaped and spun mid-air, whirligig-like. Blood gushed out of two necks before she even landed. Stepping quickly aside, she dodged a flurry of blades.
Then the breath was knocked out of her.
A mace wavered over her as she reeled, dazed. When had it struck her?
Two men yanked her back. Legs flailing, she kicked someone’s jaw before they fully ensnared her, each limb locked in someone’s grip. Powerless to move, she convulsed and growled.
From the haze emerged a woman, heels clacking the floor. Regal gait, fishnets under a tight crimson dress. A beauty mark under her eye: two tiny moles like an ant frozen in time.
Jadi smiled the lopsided smile that always sent shivers down Carmin’s spine. “It’s been a long time, sis.”
Children in Archeus dreaded looking under their beds at night. Grandmas shared tales of faerie insects that laid eggs under children’s beds, waiting for curious kids to peek and swarm into the throat to possess the body, forcing them to pull violent pranks.
Carmin never thought to look under the bed. She was convinced the bugs had already seized her older sister.
Jadi tortured cicadas, plucking legs and arranging them in necklaces. Then the wings, then the abdomen. Bit by bit. Curious at where the limits of life were. When would the thing stop moving? What was the minimum cicada that could still function?
One day Carmin found Jadi watching an oak tree with immersed fascination. Her gaze followed a mangled cicada, missing its abdomen and part of the thorax, walking up the tree, still alive. Jadi smiled lopsidedly at her. “I wonder how many parts a human needs to move like that.”
Carmin glared and wrinkled her nose in disgust. Jadi raised her hands and said, “I’m only jesting, sis. Jeez. You really think I’m a monster?”
Carmin always hoped the faerie bugs would leave Jadi’s body. She had dreams of finding her sister vomiting white faerie-flecks that sputtered out to vapor, until Jadi’s eyes would clear and show all the bug-repressed kindness. Then Jadi would hug her and apologize for all the fear and heartache.
The bugs never left though. And Carmin figured out somewhere around her teenage years that faeries were not real.
Carmin and Jadi sat in a large chamber, on either side of an oval table, surrounded by six pillars and ten guards. Gutters coiled around each pillar, beer flowing downward and vanishing into drains on the floor.
Jadi had one of her servants present a cloche-sealed platter to Carmin. Then Jadi removed the cover, revealing Jonathan’s head. His neck ended in a bright halo like the ones she’d seen in the chamber. Jonathan’s head gave a dazed moan. He was alive.
Severance magic. It was real. Disconnecting things in the physical realm while replicating that connection in the spiritual. Wherever his body was, the heart still pumped blood along its muscles, through conjured incorporeal strands to reach the neck of the severed head.
Jadi’s conjuring had advanced beyond any magic practitioner of their era.
Carmin glared at her. “You goddamn witch.”
Jadi laughed. The same way she’d laugh when Carmin scolded her for clipping the tail off a poor squirrel or conjuring butterfly wings on a confused rat’s back. “I’d never thought you’d be one to curse over a feeble man. Men were never your style, were they?”
“Piss off.”
“Sis, darling, why the language? I’m merely offering a service. Men always crave establishments like mine to unload. To let go. An abandonment of responsibility and stress. What better way than to allow themselves to fall entirely in pieces?”
“You’re sick.”
Jadi ran a finger across the platter’s rim. “The mind always clings to something. So the body gets some distance from it while we work on all the tension accumulated by the drag of noble life.” She twirled the platter. Jonathan let out a wan aaah. It almost seemed to Carmin like … a moan of confused pleasure.
“Alcohol. Debauchery. Intoxication,” Jadi said. “All to numb them. Offer sweet escape reality for a time, stripped of thought. Why not take the weight entirely off their shoulders?” Her smile curled wider. “Of course, they don’t know I mean it literally. They never even realize they’ve been severed. It’s an ecstatic out-of-body experience for them.”
Carmin scoffed. “So this is your way of getting revenge at me? You know it was not my choice to be named next in line for the throne.”
“Of course it wasn’t. Our dear lovely Carmin. Master with the sword. Cool head in diplomacy.” Jadi spun the platter faster. “Made a great mercenary, will make an even greater princess.” She released her hand from the platter, and stopped its spinning by grabbing Jonathan’s head. The prince flinched. “Isn’t she a catch, dear Prince Jonathan?”
Carmin slammed the table. “Cut it out!”
“And such fire in her. No wonder Father chose her to be the future queen.”
“Neera’s bones, will you ever let it go? Father is on his deathbed. The kingdom is slowly falling apart because, guess what? A mercenary makes for a shitty ruler.” She shook her head. “You’re just like him. Sucking everyone into your vile vortex of ambitions. What is all this, huh?” Carmin spread out her hands. “A tower of intoxication. Is this how you amass power? Muddling the minds of the rich? As if we need those pompous pricks to be more stupid than they already are.”
“Addiction is a powerful weapon. The tongues of rulers get so loose here. When you think about it, I don’t even need a throne. I’m well on my way to ruling from the shadows.” She chuckled. “Oh, stop scowling. You have to admit. You’re impressed.”
“No. I’m not. I’m sad. And I blame Father for all of it. He should have never usurped the throne. He was a fine mercenary leader and should have stayed that way. You should have stayed a conjurer and please yourself with your revolting experiments. Our life was twisted, but no more than any other family. But no! Father had to have more. Noble status. An army. A crown. More lands. More. More. More. Until he choked on his own avarice.”
Jadi waved a hand. “This conversation begins to bore. Now, I know you want the prince. It would be a terrible thing for your alliance plans to fall apart, love.”
Love. It sounded like an insult in Jadi’s lips. I love you, Daddy, she’d say, and it would sound fake even when she was seven years old.
“What do you want, Jadi?” Carmin asked.
“It’s Shamra now. And what I want is influence. A permit to build taverns in all major cities of Archeus.”
“So you can freely commit your atrocities in my kingdom, too?”
Jadi palmed her chest in mock pain. “You wound me, sis. I have not harmed anyone. As I said, I’m using severance magic to provide a service. Isn’t that a noble thing? Would you oppose everyone that doesn’t agree with your point of view?”
“You can have Treffel. That’s as far as your influence will go.”
“Lovely. You can also have Jonathan’s head, and I’ll be keeping the rest. Part of the prince for part of the lands. Fair is fair. Surely the head will suffice for the alliance.” She chuckled.
Carmin fell silent for a while. She glimpsed one of the pillars, the beer flowing down along its length. Something clicked. A puzzle her subconscious had been working on. Carmin grinned. “The beer here tastes like piss, you know.”
“Really, darling, are we reduced to insults now?”
“The magic beer that leaves no hangover,” Carmin continued, ignoring the comment. “It kills all poisons known to man. But don’t mix with redgoat’s milk or glinting fungi! Every scholar thought you whipped up some crazy alchemy from dragon’s intestinal fluid. How did you do it, sis? Despite your many experiments, we both know you were a terrible alchemist.”
Jadi’s eyes blazed with fury. “Careful now. I might choose that an equally simple path is to be rid of the princess denying me my permits entirely. Dead princesses can be easier to argue with. And with Father soon out of the way, well…”
Carmin laughed. “Hit a nerve, did I? Don’t worry. You have other talents. Like conjuring. Never met one like you in that regard. Seb was fine, but his conjured bread tasted like hay and cotton. Your bread though? Crunchy crust, covered in butter, soft and filling on the inside. You were talented.”
Jadi leaned back on her chair. On her forehead, the veins bulged in a striking V.
“Redgoat’s milk,” Carmin said. “Glinting fungi. You spread these rumors for marketing, adding a mystique to your formula. Why would the weakness of dragons be the weakness of this alchemical beer? A subtle lie to create vast expectations, wasn’t it? It doesn’t even nullify poison, I’d bet. But the hangover? That’s where it shines. And if that bit is true, why would all else be false? The hangover is all anyone cares about anyway. And the truth of that is proven all the time.” Carmin grinned widely. “It’s just cheap-ass conjured beer, isn’t it? There’s a conjuring chamber at the topmost floor of the tower. As a product of conjuring, the beer vanishes in the morning, along with any trace it left on the mind. No hangover.”
Jadi snapped her fingers. Guards moved toward Carmin.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Carmin said. “Oreus is in the tower. You remember Oreus, don’t you? Guillotine Crew could pull off the most amazing things with a flutejack like him. If I sing your secret, he will know. And I bet he’ll have plenty of ideas of what to do with it. Don’t want the royals to know they’ve been overpaying for a cheap illusion, do you? Release the prince and let us go. I promise I would never do anything to harm my dear sister’s business, so long as you don’t expand your tower further.”
Jadi’s fingers flexed around the armrest, and a single vein popped prominently above the carpals of her left hand. “I should have smothered you when you were still in the cradle.”
“Yes, you’ve said that before. But you know what?” Carmin leaned over the table. “I would have probably overpowered you.”
Two weeks later, Carmin sat in the Flying Carpet tavern, sucking pomegranate-flavored smoke from a hookah. This meeting place of her old guild always felt like home. The hearth blocked out the night’s chill, and the smell of stew suffused the air in cozy tones. Oreus performed on stage, his rasp giving his song a unique gritty style. When his song ended, a girl with braided red hair took the stage, placing a handpan on her lap and tapping a tranquil melody.
Oreus approached the table, laid his lute down, and drank from his beer pint. He spat it out. “Pah! Why is it so warm?”
Carmin blew out a plume of purple smoke. “Your songs are pretty long.”
“Pah. I’ll order another.”
The girl’s melody took a vibrant twist, speeding up to a playful tune that made Carmin think of faeries. A dark hand grasped Carmin’s heart. How many such beautiful melodies had the war silenced forever in the North?
“You’re frowning again,” Oreus said. “Can’t you be happy for once? You’re among friends.”
“We’re not through with Jadi,” Carmin said. “That warmongering minx is already plotting her next move. I feel it in my gut.”
Oreus shrugged. “You’re probably right. But you won a big victory over her. And now the wedding is done, and the North has been alerted of the unification—they’re already sending diplomats and changing their tune. The war will be over soon, my Queen.” He smiled at the last word.
Carmin gave him a sharp look. “Call me that again. I dare you.”
Oreus lifted his hands in surrender.
“Have you heard from Priscylla?” Carmin asked.
Oreus gave a conspiratorial smile. “It seems our little snowflake made her way into the court of Atlia. The nobles leaped to play Prince Charming once it seemed the danger was over and she was coming to her senses. I wouldn’t be surprised if that one ends up duchess one day.”
Carmin smiled. “I should arrange it. I need a good head with sharp ears in that court. On its shoulders, of course.”
Oreus chuckled and raised his mug. “Now you’re thinking like a queen.”
The term rankled, but Carmin knew the truth of it. Her dying father had passed a few days after the wedding. Carmin was about to be crowned their queen. And to protect her kingdom, she’d have to be as sharp as her scimitars.
The bardess began playing a jovial melody. Carmin knew this one. Its lyrics made fun of tyrannical kings long dead. As she whispered the song, the girl looked her way, shot her a flirtatious smirk. An invitation.
“You should join her,” Oreus said.
“It’s been a while.”
“You think this crowd cares?”
Ah, what the hell, Oreus was right. Carmin walked up the stage, raising her voice to the song. The patrons tapped their pints in unison on the tables and cheered for their future queen. And as the song crescendoed, Carmin tapped her feet, dancing and losing herself to the clamor and the music and the bardess’s sweet strawberry scent. Until war and duty retreated from her mind. Until all thoughts of tomorrow vanished, and the only thought swelling inside was the girl playing the handpan.
She’d kept her head about her and she’d won this last fight. She could let go for one night.
Akis Linardos is a writer of bizarre things, a biomedical AI scientist, and maybe human. He’s also a Greek that hops across countries as his career and exploration urges demand. Find his fiction at Apex, Dread Machine, ApparitionLit, Heartlines, Gamut, and more at https://linktr.ee/akislinardos
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