Scorio grimaced and glared out over the city.
“I’m sorry.” The voice was quietly amused, feminine, familiar. “Is this a bad time?”
Scorio glanced over his shoulder.
Ravenna Acardi stood there, two glasses of golden elixir in hand, one eyebrow raised as she met his stare with her smoky blue eyes.
Chapter 27
“Ravenna.” Scorio took the glass of golden elixir reflexively as she held it out to him. “No. I’m fine. How are you?”
“Most convincing.” She stepped past him to the railing where she stood tall, shoulders squared, chin raised. For a moment the humid winds blew her jaw-length hair into her face, then she turned to stare back at him. “I’m fine. I signed up with House Kraken.”
“So I see.” Scorio stood beside her. For a moment they just stood thus, in silence. Then, “Why did you come talk to me? This is already more than we ever said to each other back in the Academy.”
“Curiosity. You’re the man of the hour, Scorio.” Was that amusement in her voice? “You’ve transformed the darkly handsome stranger we were all told to revile into a celebrity. Fair warning: Autocrator Octavia has learned that you’re here. She’ll arrive soon to attempt to recruit you.”
“Do you think I should accept?”
Ravenna smiled. “I’d be disappointed if you did.”
“Kraken was good enough for you.”
“More like I was good enough for Kraken. The jury is still out on how high you will go.”
“I don’t recall you being a slouch.”
“I don’t recall winning the Gauntlet. Nor all the other faintly ridiculous things you’ve done.” Her smile turned wry, a brief flicker, then disappeared. Carefully she pulled a strand of black hair from her lips. “Whereas I am still but an Emberling, throwing my stones at targets I can’t quite define.”
Scorio studied her profile. She appeared calm, composed, as certain as ever. “Kraken hasn’t given you the answers?”
“The answers? No. Answers in general? Aplenty.” She sipped from her elixir, draining it smoothly by half. “I’m not even sure what the questions should be. Whereas you seem so certain. Have you figured them out?”
Scorio glanced down at his own drink. “I thought I had. Or at least realized enough to know I needed to search out the real questions so that I could understand what’s really going on.”
“And?”
“Have I found them? Not yet.”
“But you’ll keep looking?”
“What choice do I have?”
“The same choice the rest of us exercise.” She leaned on one elbow, turning toward him. “To join a House. Receive praise and treasures. Promises of Imperadom and the Pit. To gaze vacuously at the puppet show while ignoring what’s really going on behind the curtain.”
Scorio tasted his drink. It was exquisite, soothing his aching heart like a cool evening shower. “Sounds like you made a mistake.”
“More than I can count.” Her gaze turned speculative, direct. “Gets to where making another makes little difference at all.”
Scorio drained his drink, almost choked, and swallowed the last gulp down.
Smooth.
Ravenna signaled and a servant was there, a tray of drinks in hand. She placed their empty glasses upon it, took two new ones and handed one to Scorio. “A toast? To old friends.”
“We were never friends.”
“No.” She sighed, looking away. “Friendship doesn’t come easily to me. I’m too competitive. But now I find myself warming up to the idea. Camaraderie. Companionship. People you trust and whom you don’t suspect of having ulterior motives. Tell me, have you become friends with Jova?”
Scorio sipped and frowned. “I wouldn’t say so, no.”
“Oh.” She pondered his answer. “Can’t say I’m surprised. But I thought there might be an attraction there. Something I missed. For her to follow your lead like that after losing to you in the Gauntlet?”
“An attraction?” Scorio all but laughed and raised his drink. “By the ten hells, no.”
“Huh.” Ravenna ran the rim of her glass over her lower lip as she considered him. “Interesting.”
Scorio drank, unsure as to where to look.
“So there’s nobody in your group with whom you’re… involved?”
Scorio resisted the urge to cough into his fist. The elixir was heady stuff, made him feel… floaty and warm, expansive and good. “Why do you ask?”
“As I said.” She canted her head to one side. “You’re the man of the hour, Scorio. And you made quite the impression on me when you told Praximar to go to the Pit. Can you blame me for being curious?”
“Blame you?” He drained his glass. “I mean…”
“You mean what?”
He forced himself to stare right back at her. Her smoky blue eyes were flecked with gold, he saw, dark around the rims. Her lips were dry, the edge of her bangs uneven as if she’d cut them with a knife. A stark beauty, and the look in her eyes, half daring, half uncaring, provocative, disinterested… he couldn’t get a read on the gleam that burned in their depths.
“I mean, no. I’m not involved with anybody.”
“Hmm.” She pursed her lips and drained her glass, throat working smoothly, then extended it to a new servant who stepped forward to replace it with effortless grace. “What are your plans from here? I assume Octavia will fail at recruiting you, no matter what she offers?”
The servant simply stared at Scorio, so he downed the rest of his glass and took another. “We’re leaving Bastion. We being myself, my friends, Jova, Zala, and Juniper. With Manticore. Tomorrow. For the Chasm.”
“You don’t consider Jova and her roommates your friends?”
“I don’t really know them, not like I do Leonis, Lianshi, and Naomi.”
Her voice took on a husky edge. “And you can’t be friends with someone you don’t know well?”
“I—of course. I really like them. They’re great. It’s just that, compared to my first friends, we, I mean—yes. They’re my friends. Is what I meant to say.”
Ravenna nodded, looking away over the city again, her expression dreamy, distracted, as if he’d not just stumbled over his words like a fool. “And what awaits you at the Chasm? Oh, don’t tell me if you don’t want to.” She flashed her wry smile again. “This is hardly an attempt at House espionage. I’m just curious. I’ve got a year of working in the offices a floor below us till I’m allowed to do guard duty on the Plains. The Chasm sounds… fascinating.”
“It is fascinating, I think.” Scorio felt them to be back on firmer ground. “It’s a huge hole that goes down forever, or as good as. Apparently, Imogen’s attack caused all kinds of weird mana fluctuations to erupt from its depths. Manticore is exploring it for some reason. We’ve not been told why yet, but I imagine we’ll be investigating what happened there when we do.”
Ravenna sipped her elixir. “That sounds dangerous.”
Scorio laughed. “We’ll be with Dread Blazes. I’m sure we’ll be fine. And it’s just the Rascor Plains.”
“But the White Queen will be gone. Who will ride to your rescue if something serious goes awry?”
“I guess we’ll just have to figure it out as we go.”
“Well, that’s something you’ve clearly proved yourself adept at. Adapting. Making the most of any situation.”
“Right. I’ve, ah, been lucky.”
“To luck, then.” She raised her glass and clinked it against his.
Scorio inclined his head and matched her in draining it. The gold drink slid down his gullet like a benediction, a sweet blessing. There was so little Gold mana in the drink that it was barely even present, but even that was overwhelming, the tiniest fleck making his Heart pound, his body pleasantly feverish, his chest tight.
Ravenna tilted her head and gazed at him through half-lidded eyes. “How lucky are you, Scorio?”