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"Nonsense," Shamavah said "Mistress Leesha has a body to rival even the Damajah Let Shar’Daned" She held up a wrap of cloth so diaphanous and scant Leesha wondered if she should bother to dress at all

"Enough," she snapped, pulling the dress Elona had chosen over her head and throwing it to the floor She took a cloth and began to wipe away the paints and powders Shamavah had applied to her face while Elona looked over her shoulder and bickered over the colors

"Wonda, go and fetch irl’s face and sent her scurrying

"That plain old thing?" Elona asked "You’ll look--"

"Like ierian whore" Both wolared at theht better of it

"At least leave your hair," Elona said "I worked allon it, and it won’t kill you to look nice"

Leesha turned, ad the job herit in curling cascades down her back with a rebellious cut across her forehead She smiled

Wonda returned with Leesha’s blue dress, but Leesha looked at it and tsked "On second thought, fetch my festival dress" She threw her mother a wink "No reason I can’t look nice"

Leesha paced back and forth in her cha for Jardir to arrive She had sent the other wohten further

There was a knock at her door, and Leesha iving her breasts a last lift before opening the door

But it was not Jardir waiting on the other side, only Abban, his eyes down as he held a tiny bottle and a tinier glass

"A gift for courage," he said holding the ite the bottle and sniffing Her nose curled "S I’d brew to disinfect a wound"

Abban laughed "No doubt it has been used for that purpose many times It is called couzi, a drink my people often use to calive the off to fight?" Leesha asked, incredulous

Abban shrugged "There is a…clarity in the haze of couzi, mistress One cup, and you will be ware Three, and you’ll feel you can dance on the edge of Nie’s abyss without falling in"

Leesha raised an eyebrow at him, but the corner of herthe tiny cup "I wouldn’t ht now" She put it to her lips and tossed it back, coughing at the burn

Abban bowed "Every cup is easier than the last, mistress" He left, and Leesha poured herself a second cup Indeed, it went down more smoothly

The third tasted just like cinnaht about the couzi Leesha could feel it wrapped around her like her warded cloak, war voices in her mind had fallen silent, and in that quiet was a clarity she had never known

The room felt hot, even in her low-necked festival dress She fanned her breasts, and noted with an disinterest

The Evejah lay open between theed on silken pillows, but Jardir had not read a passage to her in soe skills, his life in the Kaji’sharaj and her apprenticeship to Bruna, how his hters

"My hter, either," Leesha said

"A daughter like you is worth a dozen sons," Jardir said "But what of your brothers? That they are with Everahed "My mother lied about that, Ahic dice by which to proht lift from her As with her clothes, let hi "It will be as Everairls first, I will cherish thein, either," Leesha blurted, and held her breath