Page 9 of Beauty

“Thirty,” Shim replies.

Shrewd eyes study them. “Well past the age of bonding.Shouldn’t you be all crazy and stuff? Beck and Ci were. Beck hid it, but Iunderstand now how close to the edge he was. I don’t sense that from either ofyou.”

Lach tenses beside him. “Because we bonded thirteen yearsago.”

I watch as Meg’s eyes register shock, but not quitedisbelief.

“You bonded but you lost her?” she asks.

“We were never physically with her. We bonded only in ourminds,” I explain.

I’m about to continue when a shout goes through the hall.One of the guards runs in, his sword on his hand.

“Your Majesty, the sluagh…” The guard is panting. It’sobvious he ran long and hard from his post. “They’re coming.”

A couple of sluagh coming to the palace isn’t a good sign.The sluagh normally keep to their caves, feasting on the rotten things of theworld.

My father sighs. “How many?”

The guard’s stare tightens. “All of them, Your Majesty.”

I take the cup out of Duffy’s hand. I’m going to need thecourage because it looks like we’re all fucked.

Chapter Three

Bronwyn

I let the sunshine warm my face and the soft sound ofthe wheat swaying in the breeze calm me. It’s nearly time for the threshing,but there are a few days of peace left. When the time comes, I’ll work frommorning ’til after the sun goes down, and then I’ll barely manage to eat beforeI pass out from exhaustion.

I’ll sleep too deeply to dream. I’ll miss them.

How can I miss two men I never met?

“Issy! Issy!” A high voice pierces my solitude.

Even after all these years, I’m still somewhat shocked tohear myself called by another name. Isolde. I selected it when Gillian finallygave up on finding a way off the plane. I can still see Gilly’s face, the tearsstreaking down as she told me I had to give up my name.

This plane is hard on my foster mother.

“Issy!”

“I’m here, Ove!” There’s nothing for it. The brownie willcall out until she finds her quarry. Which today is me. Ove is a tenaciousthing.

The shafts of wheat move and shuffle as the brownie runstoward me. I brace myself for impact.

“Found you.” Ove launches herself into my arms.

“Yes, you did.” I hold her, enjoying the feel of her smallbody. I love the brownies. Their rough faces and scraggly hair evoke atenderness that calls my childhood back. The nannies and housemaids were almostall brownies, working diligently for their cups of cream.

Ove is a youngling, barely past two, but brownies agedifferently. She’s a child but well on her way to her own work. Still, thelight of youth is in her wide black eyes. She clings to me for a moment.Brownies are affectionate creatures when they’re allowed to be. My own nannycarried me until I got too big, and then Flanna stroked my hair and held myhand whenever possible. My mother loved the affection between us, and my fathertolerated it.

Where is sweet Flanna now? Probably buried in the wide massgraves I saw Torin’s men digging as we fled the palace.

I shake off the thought and look down at Ove. “So tell me,little one, why were you looking for me?”

“The mayor’s coming.”

Three words and my whole day is wrecked. Micha O’Sullivan isa pompous ass who eyes me with far too much familiarity for a man twice my age.Unfortunately, he’s a pompous ass with too much power in this backwater part ofthe world. This village might be the ass end of the plane, but Torin still hassome measure of control through the officials even here.