Page 5 of Homeward for a Spell

She’s even dressed for the Rookery. Araphi runs an uncharacteristically bare hand (all of her jewels, including her engagement ring, are tucked into the purse tied under her skirts) over her simple emerald-green dress. She can’t help that it’s made of silk. Where does one get dresses not made of silk? The embroidered leather vest she’s laced atop it is doing amazing things for her cleavage—a fact clearly not lost on the curvy barmaid behind the counter, who keeps meeting Araphi’s eyes in ways that make her stomach tighten further.

“Are you playing tonight?” the barmaid asks, setting a fresh ale in front of Araphi. The woman, who can’t be more than a few years older than Araphi’s twenty-two, has a golden freckle in each of her blue irises. Her dark hair is pulled back in a long braid, and there’s a canyon between her breasts that Araphi would very much like to—

No.

She isn’t here to bed a barmaid. She’s an engaged woman, after all. Though she’s certain her fiancé wouldn’t mind. A great block of a man, Denby hasn’t been slowed by their engagement in his very public pursuits of other lovers. But it’s the principle of the thing. The principle being: Araphi is adjusting herself to the idea of being married by reluctantly refusing one beautiful person’s bed at a time.

It’s miserable. She’s miserable. But that’s perfect practice for marriage, she supposes.

Anyway, she’s here for music, not mischief.

“I am playing next, I think,” she answers lightly, meeting the barmaid’s eyes. “Last one of the night.”

Gods, the eyelashes on this girl. Araphi can almost feel them against her cheek. Or feathering her thighs.

No.

She. Is. Here. For. Music.

“Well, good luck,” says the barmaid, unleashing the full force of her smile on Araphi, who nearly falls out of her chair as desire races through her.

“Thanks,” she manages. “Maybe I’ll see you after?” She certainly won’t.

“Maybe,” says the barmaid. “Ask for Ruby.”

“Beautiful name,” Araphi says before she can stop herself. It’s been five weeks since she had anything besides a few cool cheek kisses from Denby. Surely she’s allowed to flirt just a little bit?

Ruby’s gaze slides over Araphi. “I’m full of lots of lovely things—as are you, I’d imagine.”

Now Araphi does fall off her chair. Not from Ruby’s words, though they certainly unbalance her, but rather because the absolute haystack of a man next to her shoves up dramatically as the onstage bard’s last notes ring out. He cheers exuberantly, swinging his arms in a wide arc and nearly taking Araphi’s head off in the process.

She ducks, saving her lute before it smashes to the ground. When she pops back up, Ruby is gone, and the ale she’d left for Araphi has been picked up by the brute who’s still on his feet, clapping. Next to him, another patron spills a tankard of ale, and a fight breaks out. A clay mug crashes onto the floor. Swords are drawn.

Is Araphi really going to try out a ballad on this crowd?

This was a terrible idea—one that’s certainly going to get her killed. Or trampled at least. Or perhaps someone will throw a tankard at her head. The thought sends a frisson of excitement through her—a feeling not unlike that time her cousin Yael dared her to touch an electric eel in the waters off the private beach at Hazelbend, their mother’s ancestral estate.

Standing on the precipice of failure or greatness in the Dragon’s Bane makes Araphi feel more alive than she has in months—ever since her engagement to Denby was deemed the best thing for the Clauneck family. It would erase any debt they felt they owed the Oreborns after Denby’s father kept his mouth closed about Yael’s first vanishing act this past winter. Now, it will serve as a distracting spectacle while Yael, freed from the family for good, continues to stir up trouble. It’s a solid plan, and Araphi knows it. She’s been raised her whole life to be nothing more than a vibrant socialite whose wedding and eventual children will shore up the Clauneck dynasty. She’s excelled at this so far, but increasingly, she finds herself uninterested, or perhaps unable to pretend that’s all she wants.

Which is silly, of course, because the Claunecks need an heir—no, specifically, they need her. They have fallen just a little from their place of untouchable power, as Yael’s exploits have chipped away at the family’s investments and footholds, which means there’s more pressure on Araphi to act the part. And that includes marrying Denby.

At the front of the tavern, Clara rises to her feet, consulting the list in her hand, where Araphi had signed her name when she first arrived. Raising a hand and whistling shrilly, which makes a hush fall over the crowd, Clara calls out, “Next up, we have the bard Phi Runesong!”

Araphi swallows hard, but a surge of joy goes through her to hear her stage name called out (because she certainly cannot use her family’s name).

Yes, she might be booed off the stage or have to dodge a few bottles or tankards, but at least Phi Runesong is doing something other than making conversation at a dreary engagement party, or listening to Denby rattle on about the weights of different ores and the mine carts his father just bought.

Danger is not something Araphi is supposed to love—not according to her mother and fathers—but gods help her, she craves it. And it doesn’t hurt that Ruby is looking at her from the other side of the bar with anticipation.

Araphi can’t help but send her a wink as she walks toward the front of the tavern.

The crowd whistles as she climbs the three steps to the stage, which makes Araphi grin. She’s used to admiration for her looks, but never in anticipation of her talent. Her fingers are sweaty, and she wraps them around the small, silver, lemon-shaped charm she’s worn since childhood. She’s switched out its usual gold chain for a leather cord to better fit in here tonight. As she holds the charm, the scent of lemons wafts around her, bright and familiar. The smell calms her as it always does, but the charm itself is more than it seems. Passed down through her mother’s family, it’s a powerful amplifier for bardic magic. The charm makes it that much more likely that Araphi’s song will reach the ears of a friendly deity willing to listen and give her a boon in exchange. Not that it would help much if she weren’t skilled with a lute, which she certainly is. Inhaling sharply, she lets the smell of lemons chase her nerves away.

She’s ready for this.

Releasing the lemon charm, she strums her lute, making sure it’s still in tune.

“This song is a little different from the others you’ve heard tonight,” her voice rings out. It’s a drawing room voice, like the one her Aunt Menorath uses to whittle people into little pieces, but now it catches the crowd, holding them captive to her words.