Free The Seven Markets by David Hoffman Page B

thing, a halo of dark, moving flame.
    “Your right arm. Now your left. Deep breath and then exhale, please. Hold.”
    She froze in place as he adjusted the gown around her. He frowned, dove in with a needle and thread, adjusting the dagged sleeve so it matched its sibling, coming to a point where Ellie’s knuckle met the base of her longest finger on each hand.
    Ellie allowed him to work almost without interruption. He’d satisfied himself with the length of the gown, the complicated lacing on the back, the shoulders and the sleeves. The hips accentuated her form in a startling fashion, tricking Ellie once again, in the mirror, into thinking the girl looking out at her was a stranger.
    When he moved to enhance her bustline, moving the blood-red gem aside, Ellie jerked back and rose a hand to caution him.
    “My dear?”
    “Have a care, sir.”
    A curious expression passed over his face.
    He is recalling my lack of modesty when he’d first arrived and asking what this sudden shyness might be.
    “It is not for me,” she said.
    “No?”
    “I am the Prince’s. I beg you to have a care.”
    He studied her expression, searching for falsehood and finding none.
    “Your necklace?” he said. “I’m afraid it does not match the color well. I was hoping we could—”
    “The gem will not come off, but that was not my concern. For some, for some men I mean to say, it may not be . . . safe.”
    Sartha roared with laughter. “I assure you, my dear, your virtue is at no risk in my presence.”
    “Even so. You have been kind and labored hard and I would not have you come to any harm it is in my power to prevent.”
    He thought a moment before asking her to spin the necklace so the gem hung down her back, nestled and slumbering in her cascade of hair. Next he summoned Esme and Resme and directed them in the final adjustments to her gown.
    “I’m still not happy with the color,” he said, when they were complete.
    “My necklace?”
    “Yes.”
    Ellie found the stranger again in the mirror. She concentrated on the shimmering red eye at the center of the girl’s chest. She thought of the Prince and how pleased he would be to see her arrive in such finery. It beat in time with her own heart; first a deeper red, then nearly black, then lightening to blue. When she let it rest between her breasts, the gem was the same shade of blue as her gown.

    Ellie danced. The orchestra played and the Prince twirled her and dipped her and lifted her. His stamina was, as always, unending. And she matched him step for step and move for move. When the music sped up, they flung their arms and kicked their feet. When it slowed down, the dance floor dropped away and they floated through the night air under the watchful gaze of a dozen moons. It was the perfect night, the perfect homecoming after nearly a century of travel.
    Until the shooting started.
    It was during an airwaltz. Slow reeds and soft strings as the Prince held her in his arms. The wilds of Ellie’s hair swam, weightless, through the star-filled sky of the ballroom. She felt the Prince’s satisfaction, his enjoyment, as they turned in space. He’d always been fond of dancing. It was one of the first things she’d learned about him.
    The assassin dove down at them, appearing overhead with a bang and a flash of light. He was hooded, dressed all in black, with a long, tattered scarf tied around his neck, streaming behind him as he flew. In one hand, the assassin gripped the bone handle of a curved blade that reached back past his elbow. An oiled pistol stared at them from his other hand, an angry red eye flickering as he fired again and again.
    The Prince, nonplussed, twirled Ellie away in a dervish of movement. She gasped and soared through the air over the ballroom, coming to a rest next to a bearded couple by the far wall.
    He sidestepped, placing himself outside the arc of the assassin’s blade. The way he moved, one might forget his feet were so far from solid