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Gods, my head hurt as well as my throat from holding off a flood of tears. But I swallowed down the pain because I knew if I’d give in to them they’d never stop.
Somewhere behind me a woman whispered, causing me to startle.
“Miss.”
I whipped around, causing the nearest rack of hats to wobble precariously before the young woman righted it.
It was the woman from the street outside the theraspa yesterday. She was wearing that same strange headdress of tasseled flag-like decorations in her midnight dark hair. Her eyes were like a doe’s, wide, round and a dark brown like burnt molasses.
I almost laughed at her sudden appearance, here in this shop no less. What were the odds?
“I followed you,” she said, as if she’d read my thoughts. She nudged her head to the back room that was cordoned off by a plum-colored curtain. “I can get you out of here through there and take you somewhere private.”
I glanced back to the front of the store. The proprietress was just closing the door as the snow picked up. Outside on the street, I saw men walking fast, turning their heads this way and that. One of whom looked like Pateus.
“All right.” I could kill two birds with one stone, see what this woman wanted and get away from the others, who I wasn’t ready to face just yet.
We walked past the back curtain and into a darkened room, where a door led to what I assumed was a back alley. I followed her out and through the narrow walkway as she skirted empty carts and rubbish, our feet crunching light snow.
“This way,” she replied, waving me toward a hidden archway that led into a very narrow strip of dirt.
I was shivering, teeth chattering from the wet snowflakes that fell on my bare arms and neck by the time we entered through a slim door that barely reached my chest. We scrunched down, and once we were inside, she fell back to latch the little door.
We were in a blessedly warm room that was well lit with torches on the wall. The room smelled like camphor and sage, and indeed, when I surveyed the small space, I realized it was an herbalist’s workroom.
“Come with me, and I’ll make us some tea.” She led the way through a curtained-off bedroom, where a small cot sat under a window. A dresser and table and chairs occupied the space. As she put the kettle on in the tiny wall hearth, I sat down on one of the chairs and tried to catch my breath.
I felt hollowed out, physically drained, my mind floating in a blue numbness.
“I’m Esta, by the way.”
I think I nodded, but I wasn’t sure. All I could see in my head was a bleeding of images: Fadon’s expression when he’d seen my osnat, Lucius’ face when I said he’d lied to me, and then Phobius, who was now way more than he’d seemed. All of it was too much, and when I tasted hot tea in my mouth, I sputtered, not aware that I had been sitting here so lost in my thoughts, my body taking over as if to give my mind a break from it.
I needed to pull myself together.
“Thank you, Esta.” The tea was rich and perfect, reviving me. “Now, who are you?”
She was sitting across from me at the small table, where a lovely vase of pearly marble held a short bundle of dried flowers. The window behind me cast her delicate features in soft white light from the snow that was no doubt dusting the pane. She set down her tea and folded her hands on the table.
“I’m an omega like you, but part of a sisterhood, a vast network, if you will, that has been preparing for your arrival for a long, long time.”
For the first time in the past hour or two, my mind cleared. Omega? “How old are you?” She looked younger than me, which would have her at seventeen years or so.
Her smile lit her whole face. “One hundred fifty-two. Amazing, isn’t it?”
Tea forgotten, I leaned forward, wanting to know everything. I had so many questions. Finally, I was meeting another omega.
Her laugh was a tinkling sound. “I can see by your expression that you have a lot you want to ask me, and I’ll be glad to answer, but first things first. The Sapera of Ordelpho said you would be coming here.”
Oh. That. I had almost forgotten all the Ongahri elder had said. “She wanted me to give you something. But I’m sorry, I don’t have it with me.” I didn’t want to be rude and tell her that I had no such intention, since arriving in Ghypsom City, to oblige the old woman. I wanted nothing to do with any of that.
“That’s quite all right. Diana can be very myopic. Which makes sense: she’s only lived within the tribes, never outside of it.”
“Diana? Is that the Sapera’s name?”
She nodded, and the little adornments in her hair, which I noticed were strips of shiny cloth with tiny beads threaded in, danced. “Yes. I’m sure it all sounds like nonsense, but you are the woman in the Ongahri’s prophecy. And really, after learning you’re Omega, and all the fantastical things that result in that…” She motioned to my hair and face. “Well, surely there are other things that are possible in the world.”
That was true. “But a queen of the Ongahri?”
