Wordcount: 1300
Accomplished: Added in more foreshadowing. Nonhle spent some time thinking about Marathey and Lynnis.
Excerpt:
“Clever, Marathey,” the Queen said. Her long hair was bound up in an elaborate knot, hung with garnets the color of blood. The crowd around them melted away; it was unwise to get too close to the Queen and her consort when Lynnis wore that look in her eyes. Nonhle didn’t have the option. Her only recourse was to stare at the stone floor of the balcony and hope that she was not noticed.
“And what have I done this time?” Marathey asked. He was of an age with the Queen, and handsome in a coastal way. In the Empire, he would have been called noon-skin and rock-faced for the way his features were angled. By far Nonhle’s favorite thing about him was his voice; he was a trained singer, and his voice washed over her like water over a stone. “I do not recall misbehaving recently.”
The Queen drew something from the sleeve of her robe. Hune’s light cast flattering, warm shadows on her dark skin. Nonhle watched her out of the corner of her eye, as always rendered silent and shy before her beauty. The thing in Lynnis’s hand was small, about the size and shape of a kildeer egg, and it was engraved in complicated designs on its metallic surface. “Your man made a botch of things,” she said, her voice sharp. “And a mess in my solar. I’m going to have to have the walls repainted. His blood soaked into the plaster.”
