Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Because I want Lark to be happy with us, I lift my beer and take a sip. And then I cough. By Asteria, that is the worst flavor. It tastes like piss, a far cry from the expensive wines of my father’s hold. But I smile between coughs and take another drink—or pretend to. Gwenna seems unbothered, taking a large swig and then swiping at her foamy lip.
“I went to the guild meeting this morning,” I tell Lark. “Just like the guild pamphlets say to do. And before I could even sit down, they kicked me out. Said I didn’t belong because I was a woman. That I’d be distracting to the others in the tunnels.”
“Cocks,” Lark swears viciously. “Cocks, all of them.”
I’m a little startled by her vehemence, but Gwenna giggles and takes a larger drink of her beer. “I like her,” she says, leaning over to me.
“I’ve met several, and they’re all cocks,” Lark continues, swiping my mug and taking a drink. She really is quite drunk, if her glassy eyes are any indication. “Specially the leader. He’s the biggest cock of them all.”
“Is his name Rooster?” I ask.
She pounds on the table and then points at me. “Yes! How did you know?”
“Because that’s who I met.” My heart sinks and I start to worry this is going to be all for nothing. Not that Lark isn’t fun. Gwenna’s having a great time, and Lark seems nice, if a little beer-happy. “He’s the one who told me I couldn’t join.”
“That cock,” Lark says again with a shake of her head. She waves at the innkeeper. “More beer for us! We’ve dealt with too many COCKS today.” She shouts the word across the inn.
Gwenna just snort-giggles into her beer.
“I don’t know what to do,” I confess, my hands curling around my half-full mug of beer. “This was the plan—to show up and get accepted into the guild trainee program. I don’t have the funds to bribe someone.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Lark says. “You can join my fledgling group. We need five and right now we’ve got four. The two of you join and that makes five!”
“That makes six,” Gwenna corrects.
Lark squints at her.
Gwenna shakes her head and reaches over to pat Lark’s hand. “Just keep drinking. So how do you know we can join your class if the guild leader said no?”
“And how is it you can join and you’re a woman?” I protest. This doesn’t seem fair. Lark’s going to be a trainee?
Lark beams at the innkeeper when she arrives with three more mugs of beer. She pays the woman and hugs her beer to her chest, sighing happily. “I’m going to miss you,” she tells it. “So, so much.”
“Is it going somewhere?” I ask.
“Can’t drink when you’re a fledgling,” she says, and then takes another hearty swig. “That’s why I’m celebrating tonight.”
“So you are a fledgling.” Lark belches an affirmative, and I cover my nose with my sleeve. “How did you get in when they turned me away?”
“Oh, that’s an easy one. It’s my aunt’s class and she promised my mother. I figure we won’t be distracting all the cocks if we’re a party of girls.” She wiggles her eyebrows and then looks thoughtful. “Though there is a slitherskin in the class. Oh, and a man, actually. But once he finds out there’s more women, I bet he leaves. He won’t be able to stand the shame of us walking around with lady parts in his presence.”
“Men do get weird around women,” Gwenna agrees.
I’m about to agree, too, when I realize what Lark’s just said. “Wait…you said it was your aunt’s class? But only guild masters can teach. How is this possible? Magpie is the only woman in the current roster.”
Lark swipes at her mouth and then beams at us. “Magpie’s my aunt. She’s gonna be my teacher. Our teacher.”
Surely…surely I can’t be that lucky? For the first time since arriving here in Vastwarren City, I feel a surge of excitement.
FIVE
HAWK
Knowing Magpie as I do, I shouldn’t be surprised that someone pounds on the door in the middle of the night.
It’s already been a particularly awful day today. Magpie didn’t show up for fledgling day, being too drunk to crawl out of her bed, which left me to recruit a class of five. Given that I’m a minotaur, and humans are naturally afraid of anything that looks different or could destroy them with a single swipe, it was a spectacular failure.
I only had to recruit three, since Magpie has already given two seats away. One’s for Lark, her headstrong niece, and the other is for a priestess of some kind. All Magpie would say is that she lost a bet, and I’m concerned the priestess is going to be as hard a drinker as Magpie is. But humans don’t trust Taurians or even particularly like us. All I managed to recruit was a slitherskin who looks barely old enough to leave his family’s hatching grounds, and a young merchant’s son named Guillam who already looks as if he’s going to bolt once he has a better offer.