Eliuteria

Chapter 21

The walk back to the paestra was devastatingly quiet. Ro walked two steps ahead of me, his chin held high while I kept my eyes downcast. Appearances were everything and Ro knew how to keep up the appearance he needed to project. From the moment I'd walked out of the shower, he and Tau put up their characters and held them firmly in place. There hadn't even been a hint on Ro's face of everything I'd said to him.

That, I knew, was what made the silence on the walk back so unbearable for me.

"Lena," he said just before we parted. I brought my eyes up to his unsure what to expect. He smiled and gave a slight nod. "See you."

That was it.

It was all that there could be, but it still made me want to kick a wall.

In my wine-infused state I hadn't wanted to hear his response, wanted to give him the chance to tell me if he felt the same. I shouldn't have been thinking about it at all. There were so many other things going on, so many horrible things happening around me and I, like a fool, was wishing a man would have made some romantic declaration. But the more time between my admission and the present, the more I wished I knew what he would have said.

I wanted to sleep. Seeing my bed made it all the more difficult to resist, it may not have been as comfortable as what was in Ro's suite, but it was mine and had been for years. But it was only early afternoon and I couldn't be caught napping in the middle of the day. Instead of giving in to the anxiety and the wine, I spent several long minutes trying to get the lens back out of my eye and into its case and then reported to the kitchen to assist Marlee. No call came from Juleen and I didn't know if I should be relieved or scared that I had yet to be summoned. As it grew closer to evening and our dismissal, I requested to attend to Juleen. He had stricken me before, for not reporting to him with information. The request went refused and I left feeling jumpy and on edge until some time after the sun had set. It was only when the hall lights were cut that I relaxed against my pillow and fell into sleep before Analiese could question me about the day.

Shouting roused me from my sleep sometime later, but well before the sun had risen. I sat to meet Analiese's sleepy gaze.

"Do you know what's going on?" she asked through a yawn.

I shook my head and listened to our veetrala's shouts in the hall. She banged on doors, waking every girl and demanding we dress and hurry to the kitchen. My eyebrows pinched together in concern. This had happened one other time that I could remember, where Veetrala Faedra had actually deigned to come down to our quarters and woken us all. The last time had been because food was being stolen. It had been several of the girls, but only one had taken the fall and been reassigned to the lupaenar, one of the pleasure houses.

"It's not good." I stood, and straightened my dress out before patting my leg, reassuring myself that the blade Ro had given me was still there. "Get dressed quickly."

Analiese stood and quickly began to change into the dress she'd only draped over the end of her bed a few hours before. I didn't have to change, but I did find the mirror and run my fingers through my hair before pulling it back into a loose bun. After she'd changed, I helped my roommate do the same.

"Is this about you?" she whispered.

"I don't know."

Veetrala Faedra's fisted pounded on our door causing both Analiese and I to jump. Her shouting followed, ordering us up to the kitchen and then grew softer as she continued down the hall. Analiese and I quickly filed out of our room and into a hall crowded with other girls. It was silent, except for all of the footsteps and the occasional whispering as everyone tried to figure out what happened to cause this.