The Unbroken by C. Clark (ebook reader .txt) 📕

vest with a hood, like the Qazāli wore, only made of finer fabric than Touraine had ever touched in her life, smooth against the hair of her body, embroidered with black thorns that shone just a little in the sunlight. The trousers were black, too.

The princess leaned against the door, and when Touraine was dressed in the vest and trousers, she made an appreciative sound in her throat and smirked. “It’s a crime to keep those arms of yours hidden away in an army coat.”

Touraine blushed. The vest did give her greater freedom of movement, and it was light. The trousers were loose enough to be cool, but not so baggy they’d trip her up with useless fabric. And the ensemble did suit her.

What she heard as she turned about, though, was Pruett’s voice. You want what she can give you.

“It all fits well, Your Highness,” she finally managed, smiling. “Thank you.”

“Yes, it does.” Luca’s voice held a touch of humor.

Touraine pushed at that humor, tried to give the princess some of what she wanted. A gamble toward impudence, but—“If you outfitted the rest of the conscripts like this, you’d have the most loyal army in the world.”

“And the most expensive.” A crooked smirk. “There’s also a heavier set for evenings, shirts. New boots will come later, and we’ll go to the armory soon and see what we can do about…” She waved her hand in Touraine’s general direction as she limped to the door that separated her quarters from the guards’ room. “You need to be properly armed if you’re going to traipse through the city.”

Touraine’s heart leapt. A weapon of her own, to keep. That alone would be worth the position and whatever duties it came with. She’d been feeling naked without her baton at her hip.

“In the meantime, here’s this. Basic but serviceable.” She disappeared into her room and came back with a belt and a long knife. Given so casually and secondhand, but it was finer than an officer’s sword, its silver handle etched with leaves. “I never wear it, but it’s in good repair.”

Touraine stood speechless over the pile in front of her. She had never imagined owning anything of this quality before. A series of extravagant gifts. Balladaire never gave gifts freely.

And you couldn’t own anything if you were owned yourself.

That thought strangled Touraine’s excitement.

“Thank you, Your Highness. Very much.” No jokes this time. “Shall I go for your book now, then?”

“Yes. Come with me.”

Touraine followed her back to the desk in the sitting room, where Luca scrawled something on a piece of paper. Then she pulled a small pouch from a lockbox and handed it to Touraine, along with the pieces of paper. The pouch clinked with a few coins and crunched with paper.

“I don’t know how much he’ll ask for.” For a second, the princess looked troubled. “If he has it, pay whatever he wants.”

“As you say, Your Highness.”

The Puddle District smelled like a puddle of piss, for sure. The pass Luca had given Touraine had gotten her a carriage that had taken her from the Quartier all the way across the Mile-Long Bridge arching over the rich farmland and the irrigation ditches that spread from the river’s banks. Along with the piss, she could smell the fresh fishy smell of the river, the stale fishy smell of fish carcasses in the garbage, and the cooked fishy smell of fish soups and fish pies and fish fry. Qazāli fishing boats and shipping vessels from Balladaire creaked, and their masters shouted. After the carriage left her—intentionally, this time—at the entrance to the warren of the dock district, Touraine wandered on foot.

She squelched through the winding street and glared at anyone who sized her up. The glare, plus the bare muscles of her arms and the knife at her belt, was a good deterrent.

She stopped at the address written on Luca’s note. An open door showed a man sitting on a pillow, leaning over a book on a low table. A stack of books rose messily beside him. The small shop looked a lot like the princess’s sitting room, but the extra books were in crates, not on shelves. Not to mention the books were water stained and ragged, swollen with moisture or wrinkled from drying out. A waste.

He welcomed her in Shālan when she stepped in, a waterfall of incomprehensible syllables. Then, after he’d actually looked up from his book: “Shāl take my eyes. You really do look like her.”

Touraine stopped in her tracks. She didn’t have to ask whom. She’d spent too long trying to forget the sound of the woman’s name. She’d spent the last week trying to forget about the woman everyone seemed to think was her mother.

“Are you here to see Jagh—”

“Do you have this book?” She thrust out the paper Luca had scrawled on in Shālan. The ink was smeared a little from sweat but still legible—if you could read Shālan. It was nothing but swirls and dots and slashes to her.

He grunted. “Act like her, too.” His excitement turned to an ironic smile that put Touraine even more on edge. She had never liked people assuming they knew her.

He stood to take the paper. He was a big man and looked like he belonged in a wrestling circle. He didn’t move like a fighter, though. Too slow. Tibeau would beat him a hundred times over.

He read the note, studied her from under his thick eyebrows, then shook his head. “Why do you want this? Can you even read it?”

“I’m here to buy it if you have it. I’ll go if you don’t.”

“Tell your princess I don’t have it.”

Touraine’s mouth dropped open. “How—”

“Not hard to see if you think.” He grinned. “You look very nice. Madame Abdelnour does excellent work. Expensive work.”

Touraine huffed. “Is there anything like it she might want?”

“No. If she wants this, she’s serious. A real scholar. Haven’t seen her like in years. If it’s not sold, it’s across the river.”

“Across the river?”

“In Briga.