Asunder: A Gathering of Chaos by Cameron Hopkin (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

There was really only one way to find out. She took a deep breath and faced the doors. I’m not ready for this. She unlaced her cloak and let it fall to the carpet. She set her hand to the latch, wishing Kest could come with her.

“Be safe,” he whispered. “I’ll keep the servants away from this hall.” She nodded and opened the door, stepping inside before she could stop herself. She shut the door quietly behind her.

“Whazzalla noise out there?” came a peevish voice from the far side of the darkened room. The vidrin in the windows was tinted a dark red, giving a crimson cast to everything and leaving the suite muddled in darkness despite the bright day outside. It reminded her of how things had looked after Renna had used her seed cure on her broken rib. “Tellem a shuddup.”

Her eyes adjusted to the dimness and picked out the strange shapes in the room. There was no furniture, only a profusion of pillows in all sizes and colors. Some were heaped up like beds, and others were strewn across the floor. A pungent, heady smoke filled the air, drawing her attention and clouding her thoughts. She couldn’t quite make out any people in the room. She saw a slender arm sticking up out of a nest of cushions as tall as her head and as wide around as a towering tree trunk, but the arm looked too female to belong to the voice, which had the timbre and strength of a whiny young man.

A disheveled mop of blonde curls poked up from far side of the nest of pillows. It was too far away from the arm to belong to the same person. “Well? Do it!” The pale, round-faced fellow seemed to be having trouble holding his head upright on his bare, narrow shoulders, and he wobbled back and forth as he tried to glare at her. “D’ya know who I am?” His eyes glinted a sunny yellow in the dimness, glowing with their own light. It was deeply intimidating.

She fell into a deep curtsy – or at least what she imagined a deep curtsy ought to look like. She had never practiced the move before. She leaned as far forward in the genuflection as she could. The black bustier she was wearing showed her modest endowments to their greatest advantage, and she knew it would catch this young wastrel’s eye. That, together with her bare stomach and a short skirt of diaphanous scarves, was her gambit in this endeavor. ‘Honey to catch the bee,’ was how Renna had put it. She’d smirked as she said the words, and Nira wanted to slap the woman just thinking of it.

“Sorry, my lord. Yes, my lord. I’ve told them to be quiet. They’re very sorry.” She made her voice as breathless and sweet as she could. The boy blinked at her woozily, those shining orbs unfocused and clouded. Even in the dim light she could see that the sclera were bloodshot. Still bent in her curtsy, she arched her back and gave him a coy look. I look like an idiot. This isn’t working. He’s going to laugh at me and then he’s going to make my head explode.

But he didn’t laugh. He goggled at her, looking as if he’d discovered a new species. “Did I send for you?” He sounded confused. “I don’t really like country girls.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” she purred, standing back up with her chest thrust forward, hands on cocked hips. “We have the most fun.” The line was a pathetic one, and she cringed as she heard the words come from her mouth, but the young chaos wielder seemed intrigued.

“I already called for two others, though,” he said with a disappointed pout, gesturing into his feather down fort. “I’m worn out.” He brightened. “But there’s plenty of peat-hash left! You should have some and stick around for a while. I’m sure we can have more fun a little later. I could use some fun.” He seemed oddly eager for her approval. She wondered just how much of the powerful narcotic he had smoked today and what he might be like with a clear head.

The last thing she wanted was to hang around in the hash den of a ridiculously powerful chaos wielder while he was out of his mind on drugs. Sooner or later, someone was going to find those unconscious guards and a pile of dead centipedes, and she wanted to be long gone by then. “I think a big boy like you has a little more energy than that,” she crooned, swaying toward him. It felt like her hips were going to pop out of their sockets with every step, but his eyes were glued to the twitching rhythm of her filmy skirt. “You just lay back and let me take care of everything.”

Those strangely yellow eyes went wide, and he nodded obediently. “How do you get the comets to circle your head like that?” he asked in wondering tones as he tumbled back into the pillows. That gave her a moment’s pause. Seeing things? Just how far gone is this kid? I didn’t know hash could do that. What’s a comet? She decided her safest bet was not to answer. All I have to do is get close enough. She fingered the little packet in her bustier, trying to make it look as if she were teasing him, trying to hide how her skin was crawling. She wanted to be done with this.

His head popped back up suddenly. “No, wait!” he cried eagerly, drawing muffled protests from the doped-up prostitutes sharing his pillows. She was clambering through the pillow pile toward him. It was worse than walking in sand – she wallowed up to her hips, struggling to crest the pile to where Guyrin was sitting. “I said wait,” he repeated, his voice suddenly ugly. “Didn’t they tell you