A Different Sort of Guest
Elemiel's breath fogged the chill of the winter's night, and her shoes made sharp clicks against the flagstones as she walked towards the gatehouse.
"Still no sign of the Duke's carriage, madame," the footman said as Elemiel approached him across the mews, favoring her with an apologetic smile.
"Am I so predictable, Charles?" she asked, forming the fullness of her lips into a prepossessing pout. She'd decided not to go overboard on the lip paint for tonight's party, opting instead to enhance the natural strawberry tint of her lips with a bit of simple shine. A goblin apothecary sold tubes of the glossy mixture out of a little shop down in Golden Point District. Elemiel had liked it so much she'd ordered a crate of it on the spot, much to the goblin woman's excitement.
"No one would ever accuse you of that, madame," Charles said with a small bow, his greying whiskers twitching into a smile. Elemiel chuckled, but her mirth dimmed when she peered out of the gilded bars of the back gate. The cobblestone street remained frustratingly empty, and she gave a little huff of displeasure that steamed from her lips in the cold.
"I'll be certain to send a runner as soon as the Duke arrives," Charles assured her. "Why not go back and enjoy the party? I know how much effort it took to put it together."
"Hm," she said, "and what if I just came out to see you, eh Charles?" Elemiel batted her thick, dark lashes at the liveried servant. The jewels hanging from her long, gracefully-pointed ears made a silvery tinkling noise as she put her arms on her hips and cocked her head at the man, but Charles had worked for her late husband before deciding to stay on with Elemiel. He'd had plenty of time to grow accustomed to the elven woman's constant, shameless flirting.
"In that case, I'd say you could've saved yourself a sackful of gold by not importing those barrels of Synstrian wine; I'm an ale man, myself," he replied, stroking his iron-grey whiskers. When she laughed again, the footman made a shooing motion at Elemiel. "Go on now, madame. No cause for us both to shiver under the winter moon while we wait for the Duke of Tardiness to arrive."
Elemiel left Charles with a promise to send a servant out with a cup of hot cocoa for him, then headed back across the flagstone-paved mews towards her house.
'House,' might've been too humble a word for the structure composed of graceful stone arches, gabled, blue-tiled roofs, and a collection of towers and minarets that wouldn't have been out of place on a castle. Elemiel still sometimes got turned around in the place.
Even in the company of the many other grande manses located in the Sapphire District, all housing the rich and titled of Yvlynes, the ancient
hôtel
Elemiel owned had nothing to be ashamed of. Elemiel's late husband, a devilishly clever human merchant who made one fortune in shipping, then another in textiles, had bought the place shortly after he'd proposed to his elven paramour.
"This pile of old stones can hardly hold a candle to the shining sun of your beauty, my love," he'd explained to Elemiel as he'd signed the deed to the
hôtel
, "but the only other place in this city fit for you to rest your head is the Royal Palace, and sadly, that's not for sale. I checked."
That had been Erik for you; the man could've charmed the pants off a cleric of the Chase God. He'd certainly charmed them right off of Elemiel, who'd been playing a show in a bawdy house down in the Iron Ward when they'd first met.
Smiling at the memory, Elemiel almost missed the flicker of movement along the periphery of her vision. She froze, standing stock-still next to the long pool of clear water edged in creamy marble which dominated the back garden. The elven woman watched in disbelief as a shadowy figure hauled itself up and over the stone wall, then dropped down into the hedgerow with a muffled curse.
"By Solana's heaving bosom," Elemiel murmured, "I do believe I've got a party crasher." The elf stepped deeper into the shadows of a cherry tree to avoid being seen. It was winter and the branches of the tree were bare of leaves or blossoms, but Elemiel was an elf. Even if she had been walking the human lands for many long years without returning to the groves of Bromelion, an elf didn't forget how to move through the trees. Despite her flashy dress, Elemiel had little trouble blending in with her arboreal cover.
She watched the figure push its way out of the bushes, brushing off leaves and twigs from its shoulders. When the party-crasher finally stepped up to the edge of the pool, the light spilling from the party on the distant veranda stripped away the shadows covering its face, and Elemiel finally got a look at who had been so bold as to attend her soiree without invitation or announcement.
He was male and perhaps in the middle of his second decade as the humans measured it, although it was still too dim for even Elemiel's elven eyes to pick out the details of his features. She could tell that the man was dressed sharply, and the way his fine black suit hung from his frame was a testament either to his physique or to the expertise of his tailor.
He fastened the top button of his jacket and brushed a few more leaves from the stiff white collar of his undershirt, then glanced around. He acted, not nervously as to be expected from someone who'd just cheekily scaled the wall of a private residence, but with an irritating air of confidence as if he owned the place himself.
The man took a deep breath, then set off down the side of the pool, making his way towards the veranda Elemiel had been headed to earlier, clearly intent on joining the party.
"Cheeky bugger," Elemiel muttered. Her first instinct was to reach for the dagger at her side, but the skintight sheath of her party dress didn't have pockets, let alone somewhere where she could stash a knife. The reflex was a habit from her days as an adventuring minstrel. That life had been one of excitement liberally spiced with danger, necessitating that the elf pick up skills with brawling to complement her musical talents.
Elemiel's second instinct was to call for her guards. Serena and Fenx were both former Beast Takers, and Elemiel did not doubt that if the warriors were capable of killing the likes of trollgloths and fenwalkers, they could handle a party crasher in a nice suit.
But despite her instincts, the elf didn't shout. She didn't raise the alarm that would have brought her guards rushing in, and which would have surely resulted in this party crasher being tossed unceremoniously out on his rump to the street cobbles.
Later, Elemiel couldn't quite put her finger on why she didn't holler for Serana and Fenx and be done with it. Perhaps it was the way the man moved, so confident and self-assured, striding purposefully towards the lights and sounds of the party as if he were the guest of honor. Perhaps the elf was simply looking for a diversion, something to distract her from the fact that the actual guest of honor, the Duke, hadn't shown up yet.
Most likely though, it was simple curiosity. Elemiel was positively bursting with questions, most of which could be boiled down to a single, simple query;
why
crash her party? Elemiel prided herself in throwing a hell of a revelry, but her reputation hadn't gotten to the point that folk would try to break into her house just to attend.
Had it?
Perhaps the man simply wanted to steal something. Elemiel was wealthy, certainly; after her husband's death, the elf had proved to be rather adept at increasing the already considerable fortune Erik had amassed.
But if her uninvited guest simply wanted to pilfer her possessions, why pick a night like tonight, when there would be so many extra eyes that might see him do it? Elemiel took plenty of trips up to Cerulean to visit her holdings (and the white sand beaches) there. Why not wait until her household had been depleted by one of her many voyages? Not to mention, there were many fine manses in the surrounding neighborhood and the Sapphire District at large for him to pick from.
What did
she
have that any of them didn't?
The elf looked down at the plunging neckline of her dress, which did a remarkable job of showcasing the ample gift of her chest.
Well, aside from the obvious,
she thought.
Regardless of his reasons, crashing her party was an absolutely brazen act, but tantalizingly so. Elemiel found that she wanted to learn more about the why of it.
"I can always call the guards later," Elemiel told herself. "Let's see what he's up to."
* * * * *
Keeping her distance, Elemiel followed the man onto the veranda. She watched him carefully as he passed between a pair of pillars covered in climbing ivy. It was a chilly winter's night and there weren't many guests willing to brave the cold, especially not when Elemiel herself had made sure to stock the inside of the house with a bevy of such sumptuous opulence that a Sunlander sultan might've remarked at the excess.
The elf watched her uninvited guest pass through the glass doors and into the ballroom beyond. When the door opened, the sound of music and laughter poured out, along with the scent of spiced meats and a medley of the sweet perfumes worn by the throng of Yvlyenian worthies dancing, laughing, and drinking inside.
Elemiel made to follow the mysterious man, but a voice brought her up short. "The Duke still hasn't shown up, has he?"
The elf turned to see a woman dressed in a wool and silk bliaut embroidered with songbirds leaning against a carved marble balustrade. The dress was far more appropriate to the winter weather than Elemiel's low-cut, paper-thin sheath dress of glittering scales, but Talina had always been a practical sort.
Elemiel blew out a breath and joined her friend, leaning back against the railing and crossing her arms underneath the generous swell of her breasts. "No, not yet," she said sourly. "I'm guessing punctuality wasn't one of the attributes that led to his success on the far side of the Godswall."
"You got the kingdom's most eligible bachelor to accept an invitation to your party," Talina replied, "something that every unattached woman of means in the capital has been trying to do, unsuccessfully I might add, ever since he returned from the wildlands with heaps of treasure and still no wife. Take the victory, girl."
"Oh, you're probably right," Elemiel said, tucking a strand of her long, dark hair back into place behind a pointed ear. "Anyway," she continued brightly, her moroseness at the Duke's lack of punctuality already fading from her mind, "I've got something exciting to tell you." The elf bit her lower lip as if trying to restrain herself from spoiling the surprise, and her dark, violet-tinged eyes shone with excitement.
Talina looked at her skeptically. "El, you look like you're about to explode. What's got you all-"
