The Last Phi Hunter by Salinee Goldenberg

Author:Salinee Goldenberg
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781915998156
Published: 2024-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

And the Consort

Into the evening, Jinburi blurred into a hive of lights, flickering like frozen fireflies across the land and the two rivers. People carried lanterns as they went about the streets, the crossroads town still bustling and active under the newly waning moon. Trade goods were hawked over in the night markets, flesh and favors in the brothels. Music played in the streets, punctuated by intermittent cheers from gambling houses and boxing matches.

Sitting on the roof of Narissa’s house, Ex could just make out the center of town, crowned by the steepled roof of the famous Pearl Temple, the non-traditional designs and murals making it more of an art exhibit than a place of worship. Narissa lived closest to the Namleng River, where men sat in their boats smoking cigarettes, casting about nets for nocturnal fish without fear of the dark.

These rivers had once been the main passage for the Crocodile Kingdom, and a battleground between their disputing tribes before man moved in. Before man burned back the swamp and turned the rightful residents into boots and purses. Ex wondered what it might have looked like back then – their underground cities below the river, citizens laying about the banks to sunbathe with their families.

What would they say if they knew what they’d be reduced to? Mindless creatures in pens more plant than beast, piled on top of one another like stacks of raw goods, waiting for discarded meat or death… He thought their monarchs would have drowned their entire kingdoms before living that way.

What would they talk about, if the two types ever met? Would they despise each other? Feel pity? Would they become friends? It was hard to make friends when you were worlds apart, practically a different species.

The only friends Ex had growing up were the groundskeepers’ sons, Piglet and Swan, nicknamed for their resemblance to the animals. He played with some of the hunters’ children from time to time, but they didn’t come to the grounds often enough to make any real connection. They stayed in town with their parents.

But Piglet and Swan lived on the compound too. They had a few years on him and didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn every day to train, so he didn’t go with them on their excursions into the city very often. Once Ex grew a little older, they convinced him to go out. They liked to gamble on cockfights and visit opium dens, both of which made him more than a little ill. On his fifteenth birthday, they brought him along to the brothel. At first, he was eager, falling over himself as he ogled all the beautiful women. It amused them to buy him a room. He sat on the dingy, canopied bed, already hard and drooling, and in walked the biggest, brawniest lady he’d ever seen. He was terrified. Before he could back out, she threw him around like a rag doll, and after it was all over, he felt as if he’d just been beaten down for fumbling a spell.

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