Read Online Aveline by Lizzy Ford - Free Book Online Page B

George, sighed. “I told you. You
need to try to fit in, if you can. Do not gawk.”
    “Shallllll I tallllk like thissssss?” she
retorted, exaggerating his accent.
    The slave who met her after her carriage
ride to the outer city was old enough for his hair to be white and
spoke with the same cultured lisp as the other outer city dwellers.
He had not seemed particularly pleased to see her and even now, his
gaze was skeptical. Rather than taking her to her new ward at once,
he had sent her in for a medical exam, where they injected her with
medicine to counter the numbing agent. She had then been scrubbed
down and given clothing traditional to the slaves: gray, cotton
shirts and pants, sturdy black boots and a dark gray cloak.
    The clothing was more comfortable than she
expected.
    “What is this?” she asked. She plucked the
sash he wore across his chest.
    He pushed her hand away. “I told my master
you would never pass as one of us,” George complained.
    “I’m not here to pass as one of you,” she
replied. “I’m here to do what I do best.”
    “You do not touch another slave’s family
mark,” he said firmly. “This denotes who owns me. Every slave is
identified this way.”
    She glanced down. “Why don’t –”
    “It’s in your left pocket,” he snapped.
    Aveline had yet to explore this pocket,
though she placed the envelope with her father’s treasure in her
right pocket. She pulled a green sash and a leather necklace from
the left pocket. She set about examining the necklace to determine
how much she could sell it for. The leather rope was simple, the
wooden locket round and clunky and decidedly worthless.
    No longer interested, she pulled on both
sash and necklace.
    “Not like that.” George
sighed again. He moved forward and expertly arranged the sash so it
was not twisted or wrinkled. “You must try to fit in!”
    “Why don’t you have a locket?” she asked,
ignoring him.
    “Because your locket is meant to look like
it belongs to someone from the street caste. It contains a special
concoction.”
    “Really?” Her curiosity renewed, she picked
it up. “Is it poison?”
    “I do not know what it is. My master
insisted you wear it. He gave specific directions for you never to
open it.”
    Aveline smiled, and the older slave pursed
his lips.
    “ On the streets, you can do
what you want. Here, every one of these people would kill to be on
the floor above them, and all of them want to be there.” He pointed
to the very tip of the pyramid. “You cannot behave with brashness
or thoughtlessness or disobedience and survive here for long. Some
of these families have been plotting their ascension for
generations and manipulating everyone who crosses their
path.”
    “I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine,” she said and
shook her head. “These people wouldn’t last a day on the streets.
What do they have to worry about? Being served one pad of butter
instead of two?”
    “Not all danger is physical,” he said with
impatience. “You were warned.”
    Aveline snorted, amused he
thought to warn her about danger. What in this obscenely wealthy enclave was a
threat to the daughter of the assassin guild’s leader, the bearer
of the Devil’s blood? She began learning to use her first machete
when she was three. These privileged, overdressed, weakling snobs
had never seen a knife let alone knew how to use one. Not one
person in the pyramid, except for the occasional Shield soldier,
remotely posed any danger.
    “What am I doing here?” she asked.
    “What my master hired you to do.” Resigned,
George led her down a quiet hallway populated solely by slaves that
led around the base of the pyramid. He stopped at the first corner,
and they stood waiting.
    Aveline watched the scurrying slaves, each
of whom wore a different color sash from the rest.
    “If you find yourself in trouble, which I am
certain you will, come to me,” George said when they were alone.
“But otherwise, you will have to earn