The music was soft and soulful, filling the Wretched Heather's with the never-ending dulcet sound of violin. Zlata hung on songs, and only a third of the reason was the beautiful woman who held the bow of the instrument.
She was tall and slender, the type of slender that spoke to lean years recently in her history. Her hair was wild and black, like a cascade of crows falling from her head down her shoulders. She swayed with her music, eyes closed, engrossed in what she was playing.
Zlata wished she could get that lost in the music tonight.
She knew she was playing a dangerous game even coming to the Wretched Heather at all. The Wretched Heather had a reputation, a reputation that Zlata knew even having never been here. It was, in fact, that reputation that brought her tonight.
Not that Zlata was looking for trouble. But, she knew trouble was not far from what she was looking for.
A few months ago, Zlata had heard her superiors in the Church speaking of things they shouldn't be, and they absolutely would not have wanted Zlata to hear them speaking of. Things that soured Zlata's entire view of her church and the people who run it.
It had taken those months, spent in deep contemplation as well as research to confirm that what she'd heard was not just a misunderstanding, but Zlata found herself, once almost profanely loyal to God and Country, turning towards revolution.
The Wretched Heather was supposed to be the place where she could find others who had turned their heads in a similar direction.
She didn't know what, exactly, she was looking for. She actually felt a bit foolish about even coming here.
What?
Was she expecting a sign-up sheet on the door to the back room?
"Want to Rebel? Tired of the Shamay Empire? The Church of the One? Come inside for Revolution Brunch!"
The very thought made her blush, despite herself.
She gave one last glance to the violin player, then pushed away from her table. She stood, drained the last few sips of her mulberry wine in one gulp that would have made Lady Demsa sigh in contempt, and headed towards the door.
As she passed the stage, she pulled a Shamaian Mark from her belt pouch and set it gently in front of the violin player. It was one of the few moments that the musicians brilliant brown eyes were open while she played, and when she saw the coin, she smiled to Zlata.
Zlata blushed again, and hurried outside.
It was just far enough along in spring that the nights still dropped to uncomfortable cold. Her cloak wasn't thick enough to really fend off the temperatures, but it was what Zlata had, so she pulled it tight around herself.
Feeling foolish for wasting a whole night looking for Revolution Brunch, she kept her head down and headed back towards the cloister where she slept.
When she passed between buildings, not far from the Wretched Heather, someone slammed into her, shoving her deep into the dark alley.
The impact was enough to knock her off her feet, and she skid on the damp ground.
From the darkness, a second set of feet, in heavy boots with the type of armor plating on them that spoke poorly to the situation Zlata found herself in.
"You're Zlata," the first man, who had slammed into her to force her into the alley, said.
He was big. Not just tall, but broad as well. Short legs from wide hips, long arms from sloping shoulders, a hairy face hiding round features: all in all he reminded Zlata of a wild bear.
His words were a bit of a growl, too.
Zlata glanced over her shoulder at the second pair of boots. This man was not nearly as large as the other one, but had a dangerous air about him that cemented Zlata conviction that she was, indeed, in trouble.
"The Wretched Heather is an awfully dangerous place for someone who's been poking their nose around the things you have the last few weeks to visit. Bad intentions on your mind, Zlata?"
"Who are you," Zlata asked warily, hand going to the hilt of her sword as she tried to push herself to her feet.
The man behind her kicked her swiftly in the shoulder
"None of that," he said.
"Stay down," the bear man said dangerously. "We're what happen when good Knights stray too far from the One. The Cloister has decided that you're not worth the effort anymore, so we're zeroing the ledger. Fighting isn't going to...."
Before he could finish his statement, his throat exploded with the tip of a dagger.
"What," the second man exclaimed, but Zlata was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
She rolled to her side, grasped him by the leg, and twisted. He called out in pain as his knee bent the wrong way and he tumbled to the ground. Zlata followed his fall, straddled his hips, and brought her fist down on his face.
Then the other.
Again and again until the man stopped moving.
"Brutal," came a voice behind her.
Zlata turned quickly, hand darting to the hilt of her sword, ready to keep the fight going if need be.
Standing over the body of the bear man, who she'd stabbed a half dozen times after opening his throat from the back, was the violinist. She still held the dagger she'd used to kill him.
Not a drop of blood from the assault had gotten on her black dress.
"What's going on," Zlata demanded.
"Can I offer you some tea?"
***
"You were very obvious," the violinist said, setting the cup of tea in front of Zlata.
She'd led Zlata to an upstairs apartment near the Wretched Heather. It was small, one room, with a bed and a stove and a small two person table all in the same space.
"Obvious about what?"
"Obvious about all the reasons Cloistered Knights always come to the Wretched Heather wearing civilian clothes."
She set a second cup of tea in front of the second chair, but moved to sit on the corner of the bed instead.
"How did you know I was a Cloistered Knight," Zlata looked down at the cup of tea, but let it steam there for the time being.
"Oh honey," the woman said, "I can spot you lot from a mile away. It's in the way you walk, the way you hold your shoulders. The way you braid your hair and wear your sword and a million other little things you do with every breath. I pegged you for a Cloistered Knight the second you walked in the front door."
"Didn't realize I was so obvious," Zlata blushed.
She watched as the violinist started to unlace her leather boots, from just under her knee, all the way down to the top of her foot.
"Don't be like that," the violinist laughed, slipping the first boot off and setting it aside before moving on to the second boot. "Spotting Cloistered Knights is a survival skill. Every time one of you walks into the Wretched Heather, trouble seems to follow in your wake. Most of the time, I end up having to kill someone."
The second boot came off, and the violinist set it beside the first. She took a moment to rub the ache of the day out of her shins and calves.
Zlata noticed, not for the first time, how incredible the violinist's legs looked behind the slit of the dress.
"You saved my life," Zlata blurted, suddenly taking a sip of her tea so she could hide the color she could feel coming to her cheeks.
"Yeah? They said you were asking questions you shouldn't, and the Cloister was clearing the ledger with you. What questions were you asking?"
Zlata finished her sip and set the cup down.
"Unworthy things," Zlata responded. "Things that... look, thank you for saving my life. I do appreciate it. I really do. But what am I doing here?"
The violinist stood from the bed and untied the knot at the front of her dress, tugging the laces open.
"I got a good feeling about you," she said with a shrug. "You tipped me. Not many Cloistered Knights tip the help."
"You killed a man in the streets because I gave you some coin?"
"Survival skill, darling," the violinist responded with a grin.
Zlata's heart pounded in her chest as the violinist tugged open the front of her dress, giving a tantalizing glimpse of the skin beneath.
The violinist noticed Zlata's hungry eyes, and, with a wink, reached out to pull a privacy screen from the corner of the little apartment.
The screen was just tall enough to give the violinist privacy as she slipped out of her dress, but not tall enough to block Zlata's view of her shoulders and neck. Of those perfectly sculpted, alabaster clavicles that met in a perfect dimple at the base of her throat.
"How long have you been in Cloister, darling," the violinist drew a pink and red chrysanthemum patterned silk robe onto her shoulders, then tied it around her waist.
"Twelve years," Zlata replied, pointedly forcing her eyes back down to the cup of tea.
Or the table.
Or the violinist's shoes beside the bed.
Literally anything that would keep her eyes off of the violinist herself.
"That tracks," she smiled, sliding the screen back into the corner. The robe went all the way to the floor, but when she moved to take the chair across from Zlata, one foot and the calf it was attached to slid out into view.
"What do you mean," Zlata looked up.
"You're blushing, honey," the violinist explained, picking up her tea to take a sip. "You're adorably flustered. And I must say, if one naked woman behind a privacy screen gets you like this, we're going to have a lot of work to do before you're going to be of any use to us."
"Of use to you?"
"Oh, I thought I'd covered that," the violinist said, Cheshire grin peeking over the top of her tea cup. "I'm recruiting you. Turning you to the Rebellion, so to speak. Though, I dare say that I don't think I'm going to have to work very hard. You came into the Wretched Heather for a reason."
"I really don't understand," Zlata admitted.
"It's pretty simple, kitten," the violinist said. "The Rebellion has need of someone with the type of skills that a Cloistered Knight would have. Especially one twelve years into the training. Magic, fighting, knowledge of the inner workings of the courts. All of it. And, when I saw you in the Wretched Heather, I thought you were my opportunity to get something the Rebellion needs. I just didn't think all it would take was taking my shoes off, and giving you tea."
Zlata blushed furiously.
"To be fair, you also took your dress off."
The violinist laughed a lyrical, musical laugh that made Zlata's heart pound all the more than the implied nudity had.
