This gorgeous romance from World Fantasy Award finalist Kate Elliott is a prequel to Court of Fives, the epic story of Jessamy and her struggle to do what she loves in a society suffocated by rules of class and privilege. Kiya is a Commoner who has just arrived in the bustling city of Saryenia. Esladas is a member of the Patron ruling class and determined to prove himself in the army. His plans are disrupted by the outgoing and beautiful girl who sells him fruit in the market, though, despite the fact that neither of them speaks a word of the others language. Brief conversations and stolen moments together soon become something more, but when their divided cultures clash, Kiya and Esladas must decide if their blossoming love is worth becoming outsiders for the rest of their lives. Read the beginning of their legendary love story in this Court of Fives companion novella!
Release date:
December 8, 2015
Publisher:
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Print pages:
60
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Esladas stood at the railing of the ship that had brought him across the Fire Sea to the land of Efea. In the distance lay the noble city of Saryenia with its twinned royal hills and the gleaming roofs of monumental temples and expansive palaces. The famous lighthouse, clad in marble, shone in the afternoon sun from a promontory at the mouth of the harbor. The city was magnificent—and daunting.
“Cities shouldn’t be this large,” griped one of his companions, a tall youth named Cahas. “Where will we find a place to stay? What if people cheat newcomers like us on the price of food and lodging? I spent all my savings to get here. I can’t go home if it doesn’t work out.”
The young men around them murmured anxiously in agreement: they were eight in all who had met and stuck together during the course of the long overland and overseas journey. Esladas had their same fears, but he had ruthlessly trained himself to show an impenetrably serious facade to the world no matter how nervous he was feeling. “You know why we came. As the poets say, in Efea a man from Saro can be anything he wants. Even lowborn men like us.”
“Sounds like Esladas has an idea,” remarked one of the twins mockingly, and his brother added, “More than I can say for you, Beros.”
“Hear me out. What if we eight enlist in the army as one group? So we can stay together? We can give ourselves a name and even a badge to mark our fellowship.”
“Wouldn’t it be impious to give ourselves a badge like lords do?” Cahas asked.
“We have flown from Saro and the laws that choke men like us while rich lords profit off our work. Why shouldn’t we give ourselves a badge? We’ll call ourselves the Firebirds, for everyone knows they are courageous and never tire, no matter how far the journey. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to have familiar faces around me. Like Cahas said, the city looks cursedly big and strange, and I wouldn’t want to find myself lost and alone.”
He paused, hoping his voice disguised how intimidated he felt by the colossal splendor of the city they were about to enter, for it was utterly unlike the single main street, modest temple to the gods, and market held only once a week in the town where he’d grown up.
But they all agreed eagerly. They were scared too, even though not one of them would ever have said so out loud.
The newly pledged Firebirds disembarked into a harbor of wonders that included sailors from all around the Three Seas as well as men of Saroese ancestry who had made Efea their home generations before. Esladas tried not to stare; he really did. But there were people with skin in shades like every color of soil: yellow, red, brown, black, and even a few as white as goat’s milk. Never in his life had he seen people without straight black hair like his own, and yet here walked folk with hair that was coiled or wavy, hair the color of ripe wheat, of fire, of tree bark.
The heat was tremendous, but it was the light that really staggered him: so strong and so pure.
He asked directions to the customhouse. This two-story building stood at the midpoint of the wharves, where its wraparound porch and big open windows gave a full view of the harbor traffic.
“Why are we going in here?” asked Cahas as they climbed the steps and got in line.
“Because the ship captain told me it’s the only place we can change money.”
“What’s wrong with our Saroese money?”
“The laws are different here. We have to use the local money.”
When Esladas’s turn came he stepped up to the counter, where a clerk waited beside a slate board with the exchange rates. The clerk was clearly Saroese by ancestry, but he looked unmanly with his clean-shaven face and his hair cut short.
“Greetings of the day. I want to change my money. Can you also direct my friends and me to the office where we can enlist in the army?”
The clerk blinked several times, then laughed. “Good Goat, man! I can barely understand you with that thick accent. Where are you from?”
“The town of Heyeng in the province of Everlasting Janon.”
“Never heard of either. Which kingdom?”
“Saro-Urok.”
“Ah.” He began counting out coins, making sure Esladas saw every part of the transaction so he would know he wasn’t being cheated. “A piece of advice, if you want it.”
“I’ll always listen.”
The man smiled. “Don’t take rooms in the Harbor District, because prices are much higher. If you are determined to enlist in the army, then you can find accommodation by the East Gate that will be cheaper as well as closer to the camp where you’ll train.”
“My thanks.”
“Another thing. With that long hair and those beards, you and your friends might as well shout that you are fresh off the boat and ripe for getting taken advantage of by dishonest people who prey on newcomers. If I were you, the first thing I would do is go to a barbershop and get your hair cut and beards shaved off.”
“It’s an offense against the gods for a man to cut his hair!” objected Cahas from behind Es. . .
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