Fledgling: Parts 4-6

Raisa must be in pain; maybe she wanted to talk about it, but Nada couldn’t hear about anything painful without immediately wanting to rectify it.

Musaid began relaxing now, a smile finally spreading, his characteristic mirth returning.

She had none of the artful ways of royalty, none of their artifice — and certainly not the stone-faced callousness of prisoners and guards alike.

He ignored the man’s fist rocking as he moved toward Nayf, ignored that the lout had his gaze aimed at his privates.

She’d seen women with scarred faces on the motley caravans that passed the smaller villages her family sometimes traveled to to collect records.

It soon caught on in the villages, the idea that humiliating women by scarring them forever was an apt method for dealing with “rule-breakers” for good.

The Tangled Servant had everything arranged so it was possible for someone to live here for years and years undetected, as he had. The bespoke stuffed cushions obviously sewn by hand to fit the contours of the walls; the layers of woven mats that provided a padded sleep surface in a more secluded part of the cave, behind a rock wall; and the clever use of several stone shelves to artfully store an array of utensils and tools.

“Is this how you talk about cooking when you meet each other? A train of compliments trying to supplant the other?”

He was dogged, determined; he saw things through.

I refuse to think Papa has one, too, like Nada was trying to insinuate.

An Update for the General Public No. 4451: Jubilant Crowds Gather at Rabaa Gate of Verg Palace to Welcome the Fledgling

She had an undeniable charisma, a genuineness that drew you in.

She shook her head and looked morosely into her tea, as though it was a big flaw of hers, her lack of murderous rage.

Naglaa was admirable in more ways than one, it seemed, handling her hot tea with such aplomb.

“This guide to Upper Earth’s tactics mentions someone named Salwe as one of the main contributors to the study.”