Empires of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 2) Read Free Page B

to you, my half-brother.
I hide for now in shadow, a yezyana named Madori, but I do not forget
you. I do not forget your sin. So long as I can wield this sword,
deep within me I am still Koyee of Oshy . . . and I remember."
    Shouts rose from downstairs in
the common room.
    "Madori! Madori Mai! You
will play your flute now. Madori Mai!"
    She blinked and squared her
shoulders. She lifted her clay mask from her bed—the mask of Madori,
a hidden musician, a living doll. She hid her scars behind it. She
placed down her sword and lifted her flute. It was a costly silver
instrument and it played beautifully, but she often thought it worth
less than her old bone flute, which she kept hidden under her
mattress. She had played that bone flute upon the streets, an urchin
in rags, and it had saved her life; perhaps it was now too precious
to play.
    As she stepped downstairs and
entered the smoky common room, men cheered and tossed coins her way.
They were soldiers of Timandra seeking ale, song, and women to leer
at. She stepped onto her stage, and she played her silver flute for
these men, but behind her mask she thought of Ferius, and she thought
of her sword.

    * * * * *

    Torin frowned at his book and
struggled to form the words.
    " Ceshe — shee —"
he said, wincing.
    " Ceshuey !"
said Koyee, tapping the book with her fingernail. "Shuey . . .
like . . . seleshuey
fen , remember?"
She frowned at him. " Ceshuey ."
    Sitting on the bed beside her,
Torin placed the book down on his lap, groaned, and shook his head.
It seemed a remarkably complicated word for such a small, humble
creature as a spider; he wondered when he'd even need to say 'spider'
in Qaelish, the tongue of this city.
    They sat in her bedchamber in
The Green Geode, the pleasure den where she played her flute. From
downstairs in the common room, Torin could hear the sounds of
singers, musicians, and drunken crowds; Koyee herself had only
finished playing moments ago. It sounded like a good time, and Torin
longed to step downstairs and join the fun, but Koyee glared at him
and slapped the book again.
    "Look at book!" She
spoke in his tongue of Ardish, her accent heavy. "Try again. Or
you never learn."
    Torin sighed. "These words
are too difficult to pronounce," he said, reverting to Ardish
too, his tongue of sunlit lands. "Was Qaelish invented to break
men's teeth?"
    Koyee rolled her eyes and
slapped his shoulder. "No! Qaelish is beautiful. Qaelish is . .
. how you say . . . words of poem?"
    "Poetic?" Torin
suggested.
    She nodded. "Poetic. In
Qaelish we say laerin .
Like . . ." She made a movement with her hand. "Like wind
and water. Laerin .
Like flute music."
    Torin looked at her in wonder.
Her accent was thick and her speech slow, but in only six months she
had picked up a remarkable amount of his language. He had taught her
some himself; she had learned the rest by simply keeping her ears
open on the streets, listening to the soldiers occupying her home.
Meanwhile, Torin had spent these six months struggling to learn her
tongue—the language of this empire Torin found himself lost in.
    " Laerin ,"
he said hesitantly, struggling to wrap his tongue around the foreign
word. " Qaelish
laerin tesinda. Qaelish is a musical language."
    She groaned and shook her head,
hair swaying. "No! Qaelish
tesinda laerin. Like
that. Not like in Ardish. First the . . . how you say? The main word.
Then the . . . other word."
    "First the noun, then the
adjective," he said, feeling rather clever now that he was
speaking Ardish again. "I understand. In your tongue I would
say: Qaelish language musical."
    She nodded and finally allowed
herself to smile. "Yes! You learn. Slowly. You little stupid.
But I teach you."
    Her words were sharp but her
eyes were soft. As much as Torin marveled at her skill with
languages, he marveled at everything else about her. Her lavender
eyes gleamed, as large and oval as chicken eggs. Her skin was snowy
white, her hair long and smooth like cascading