Andrea Höst - The Towers, the Moon

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France, under the rule of the Court of the Moon, is a country of cyclical change, where the true rulers arrive every night to compete among themselves, and humans are backdrop, witnesses, inessential – and yet inextricably intertwined.
It is the reign of the Gilded Tower, and fashions are daring.
Two Wings Forfeit Death and the Moon

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"Can I give him Tears?" she asked, failing to quite repress a heavy sigh.

The arbiter nodded.

Rian had started the last hand with eighty-five Tears of the Moon, and had gained one hundred and forty-four, along with the Tear of the Sun, which was worth a hundred Tears of the Moon. After everything she’d just spent, she now had a hundred and fourteen Tears left. If she used a hundred to buy back Henri’s debt, and gave him five to pay the cost of the deals, she would be left with nine.

It would mean abandoning any hope of finding this Lionel person and attempting to gain the mask back with another forfeit. Not that night.

Resigned, Rian paid over the Tears. She couldn’t decide what to do about the mask until she knew more about the man who had it, but she was absolutely sure that drastically increasing Henri’s debt was a bad idea.

Not expecting gratitude, Rian was unsurprised when he merely swept up the five Tears with a grunt – and possibly an irritated click of his tongue. Rian retrieved her tiny remainder, said to the Court member: "That is all, thank you," and had barely finished the sentence before she found herself back in the great, curving room, seated at the original table.

Henri, the only other occupant, flung himself out of his chair and stalked off. Rian, after a moment’s pause, took herself to the conveniences to wash her face and rid herself of the question of how long it would have taken to earn the money she had just thrown away on a man she despised.

Étienne was waiting on her return, his entire stance a question.

"Lionel D’Argent," she said, wasting no time, for the break had only been fifteen minutes. "Do you know who that is?"

His reaction told her the news was bad.

"Oh, yes," he said. "I’d heard he comes to the lower tier sometimes."

"And?"

"One of Princess Heloise’s myrmidons. He’s been lurking around the Sun Court the last few years, and there’s not much more I can tell you, since the name’s obviously an alias. I can look about for him, if you wish, but chances are, if you want to find him tonight, you’d need to get to–"

"The middle tier."

(v)

Wealth was a very relative concept. Large portions of Rian’s life had been lived hand-to-mouth: at first because her parents' income had been inconsistent and badly managed. Her father would buy extravagances, or work for apples, and her mother’s reputation as a sculptor had not quite balanced the amount of time her pieces took to produce.

After their deaths, Rian had chosen to travel, and in many countries unmarried women had very limited choices when it came to earning money, few of which paid at all well. But through careful research, and a network of friends and relatives, she had found steady employment as everything from grape picker to archivist, occasionally falling back on Tante Sabet to give her maid work at the family hotel. Even so, nearly two decades of saving and careful investment had barely built up an income to cover Rian’s basic expenses, let alone those of the nephew and two nieces left to her care.

Since her vampiric master had arranged for her the position of Keeper of the Deep Grove – a role that had come with an enormous house, a formidable yearly stipend, and even a hidden stockpile of money and valuables – Rian could not see herself as anything but wealthy. But it would drain her reserves to purchase the Tears of the Night Étienne told her were used on the Towers' middle tier, even if she had all that money with her.

And it would still not be enough, because to enter the middle tier, you had to be invited.

Rian, who more than once had had demonstrated to her matters of place and standing, knew perfectly well that the truly rich would consider her generous competence play money, and that as the undistinguished child of a pair of notable artists, she did not receive invitations to anything. As Keeper of the Deep Grove…well, in France that counted for nothing in particular.

As a Lourien, however, she had connections she could draw upon. Tante Sabet would be able to tell her of anyone in their extended family who had access to the Sun Palace, and might be able to reach this Lionel D’Argent. There had to be a way to arrange a meeting: if nothing else, palaces never exhausted their need for someone to clean them.

Preoccupied, Rian played through the last set with barely a glance at her cards, since she didn’t have the Tears to win any hand where the other players did not immediately fold. She felt only vague relief when Henri did the same.

When the set ended, she looked about for Étienne, who had promised to scout the area for D’Argent. He caught her eye, and raised empty hands. Nothing.

"I will claim from Mademoiselle Serpent."

It took several beats for Rian to connect this quiet statement with herself. She looked away from Étienne and focused on the Court member in the firebird mask. Again she caught no hint of what lay behind the vivid feathers, and the woman’s pulse didn’t quicken.

Well, Rian had only lost five – no, ten, for Henri had been using Rian’s Tears – ten Tears during the set. And it was, at least, not the fox-masked man who had won them.

The same arbiters descended, and a touch on Rian’s shoulder again shifted the room about her. Another small room, a different table, and a ten-Tear drop lying between them, along with the four Tears Rian had not yet lost.

"I am very curious," the member of the Court said, mantling her wings briefly, and giving Rian a glimpse not of the red she had expected, but of milk and crystal and diamond.

"A burden you must bear," replied the arbiter, and it was Rian’s own pulse that began to race.

The forfeit had clearly been pre-arranged between the two Court members. Had Rian’s abilities contravened the laws of the Towers? Or was this another consequence of godly allegiance, dragging her into games where no-one explained the rules?

"Go with this one, then," the white-winged woman said, flicking fingers at the arbiter. "That is my forfeit."

Rian said nothing as the ten-Tear rose from the table and vanished. Instead, she reattached her remaining four Tears to her veil, and stood. Both Court members preceded her out of the room, and the woman from the Snow Tower departed down the corridor with a flick of her pale wings.

The curve of the floor told Rian a little. It glowed with the light of the outer walls, but came the closest to horizontal that Rian had seen since she’d ascended the Gilded Tower. They must be near the central Tower, the Tower of Balance. The corridor itself was enormous: wide and tall and clear.

The arbiter, her pale hair winding around her like smoke, held out a hand and Rian, feeling childlike beside this seven-foot woman, took it as the arbiter stretched her wings. Their fragile leather membranes brought to mind rain-specked windows looking onto a city at night: dark and jewelled and glimmering.

Then the arbiter tugged Rian a little closer, turned her, and transferred her clasp to a prosaic grip under Rian’s armpits. Two lazy beats sent them soaring rapidly down the corridor.

Rian, who had very recently been flying with another powerful and impressive woman, sucked in her breath and wished, suddenly, that Aerinndís Gwyn Lynn was with her. Not for protection, but simply for the wonder of it.

But Aerinndís, bound by rule to Prytennia, could not travel with Rian even if she cared to, and Rian had best put aside distraction. Whatever the purpose of this excursion, it was unlikely to be without consequences.

They were approaching a tall archway. The arbiter didn’t slow, and they glided through it at what felt like a lazy pace, but was far faster than Rian would be able to walk-bounce. Beyond was an emptiness, a cup-like space circled by similar arches, and rising to a vast dome filled with shimmering twists of colour. Red, gold, blue, and milk-white. Not rainbows, but threads of liquid light.

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