Potent: Book 1

Chapter 15: Launch

Ber, Day 11 of Melia, Winking Moons, Year 602

"People tell me sometimes that love is the strongest emotion. I disagree. I think it might be relief." —From The Educator's Practice, by Grandmaster Combatant Colin Slager

* * *

Repht wasn't sure how, but she was both exhausted and overcome with a vibratory nervousness that threatened to paralyze her. She almost didn't feel her pain through the haze of excitement.

This day had been many months in the making.

She absently tapped her fingers against one another in a predictable pattern, from the littlest all the way up to the thumb and back. Again and again. Faster and faster.

She was waiting outside the main hall in Daitak Capital. And she was about to infiltrate.

Repht squared her shoulders and tried to look as though she belonged there. It was an utter sham, though. She had nothing. Could she really gamble with nothing?

I must try, she thought firmly. I've got to try. At least once.

She had grown up in Daitak proper, the daughter of a reputable merchant. But when Mina was lost at sea, her life had changed forever. Suddenly, there was no one to talk to in the evening. No one to cook for. No one to pay for food and firewood, and for the medicines she so desperately needed to be comfortable.

Her community had been very kind, she admitted to herself. All of the good wives had rallied around her, suggesting that she join the market as a vendor and sell herbs or food. Or better yet, she could apply to work at a local inn or tavern as a cook.

Repht sighed. She grew so tired of explaining this to people. She could not do it. Her body would not allow her to.

An illness had ravaged her system when Repht was younger, and it had left her forever changed, thinner, and shadowed somehow—like a hazy reflection of the younger, stronger woman she once had been.

There were times when her muscles would twitch or jerk or simply give out and she would be obliged to lean on someone.

She either slept for days at a time or not at all.

And then there was the pain and tightness that dogged her every step. She could no longer remember what it was like to live without it now.

That made her sad.

But she blinked the tears hastily away and looked up attentively at the guests milling in and out of the hall.

She was ready. She had to be.

Every single day for months now, Repht had worked her fingers bloody cutting, sewing, and trimming this simple but elegant eborel gown. She'd scrimped and saved until she could afford the matching shoes, and had rinsed her hair with cinniswood for the fragrance and sheen it lent her thick, black hair. She'd bleached her teeth with crushed currant berries and gently scrubbed her deep caramel skin until it was soft and smooth.

She studied the cuts of the gowns passing in and out of the keep. Hers was archaic by these standards, a much older style. True, she didn't look exactly like everyone else, but she reasoned that perhaps fitting in completely would defeat the object. It was time to stand out. There was no reason a simple gown couldn't be just as alluring as a fancy one.

Repht took a few deep, shaky breaths, then she lifted her head and attempted to roll her shoulders back and down, wincing when they made audible popping noises at the collarbone.

She fell into step with the rest of the festival guests and made her way inside.

The portcullis had been lifted and remained open for the entirety of the festival, and the torchlight flickered across Repht's thin features as she moved slowly through the tunnel, hearing how the revelers' gay voices suddenly echoed in the round, stony interior.