On the top floor, tables were laden with delicacies. Fruits and nuts, ocean creatures drizzled in sauces or begging to be dipped in spicy concoctions, bitter greens, noodles swimming in red beans sauce, shrimps fried to a crisp, fish and meat dumplings floating in broth. A feast singing in all flavours of a tasty serenade.
The servers, all dressed in white tunics, a smile glued on their weary lips, moved wordlessly and courteously to and fro from the tables.
Kiyomi and Emika sat on the balcony which ran along the entire top floor, their table overlooking a peaceful garden. Today the golden arcing rays gave vivacious hues to the tree leaves and the blades of grass. Emika's lips curved into a small smile. It was as if pure joy danced in the light.
Kiyomi observed how the sunlight, alighting softly on her alabaster skin, painted Emika's lips and cheeks with honeyed tones. The light gave her emerald eyes just the right glimmer as she rested her gaze upon a wisp of cloud flowing in the soft breeze. Something about those eyes was very captivating and pulled him closer to her.
While she observed the cloudscape taking the shape of osmanthus cakes, murmurs of admiration from three young women staring at her prince peppered Emika's surroundings. She shifted her gaze to the left and examined each one of the women with unnaturally fixed attention.
One of them wore a flat moon-bright pearl into each earlobe. Her earlobes lengthened and drooped, Emika thought she looked like Buddha's big ears, and not in a good way. The three women had shaved their brows and drew three horizontal purple lines above their eyes, their teeth were also painted in black.
"What sect do they belong to?" Emika questioned herself aloud.
Kiyomi leaned a bit forward with an amused smile. "It is the new fashion all over the city. A look called the Bloody Makeup."
She turned to him and nodded with a grimace. "Ah, so it is..."
Kiyomi gave her a meaningful look. "Mmm… you are not from around here, are you?"
At once Emika bowed her head timidly. In truth her brain was on high alert, busy concocting a lie.
Indeed, there was no mistaken her blue blood rank. Though this young woman seemed in her whole person to be from a good family, she was not a well-brought-up girl as indicated by her flirtatious behaviour.
Her eyes were of an exotic and unusual colour—green, slightly slanted up at the corners, languid but with a definite glint of friendly imperiousness lurking in the corners.
He observed that her luxurious attire differed from the fashion of all the nobles in the city. Furthermore, her accent was very foreign to the area. And she was trained to grace and elegance in every movement.
Small cups of white peony tea arrived.
She sigh inwardly with relief. 'Perfect timing!'
Kiyomi gently lifted his teacup and began tasting the tea slowly, whereas Emika gulped hers and enjoyed the warmth to her stomach.
"This place serves the best tea. They fetch the water from the Nine Dragon Spring." Kiyomi stated with a matter-of-fact tone.
Actually it was more of a conversation starter but the young woman seemed distracted by the little sparrows swooping in from every direction hoping for a stray crumb to feast on, and squabbling with a pecking pigeon over the smallest speck of what might or might not even be food.
Usually Emika would be amused to watch such a scene but instead she felt bloodthirsty. Those birds had triggered such an unusual and disturbing feeling. Her blazing eyes opened wider and her pupils dilated. Her heart pounded. Her hands twitched. She could no more control her own body than she could persuade the sun not to rise. It was as if the human rope constricting her actions had suddenly loosened up and freed her feline instinct.
Suddenly she hopped off the chair and pounced on the birds. The sparrows swiftly flew off but the fat pigeon got caught in her hands. Each and every one of the customers stared with open-mouth.
Emika couldn't help but shudder of utter embarrassment, her cheeks and ears flushed into a deep shade of scarlet. In a mortifying situation like this, shouldn't one just run away?
But instead she tightly squeezed the fleshy breasted pigeon. Had Kiyomi rightly seen her licking her lips? Only when her eye was taken by a movement over Kiyomi's shoulder that she softened her grip. An elegant man of perhaps thirty looked hastily away as their eyes collided, and hid his face behind a fan.
She released the flustered pigeon who shot into the air like an arrow. Quietly, she returned to her seat.
The hand that lifted the chopsticks had stopped in midair. Kiyomi wasn't sure how to respond to this surreal behaviour. His brows were locked together into one line that she thought it would be impossible to untangle this frown. The silver aureole around his pupils seemed to shine intensely as he studied her. Finally the shrimp squeezed within his chopsticks dropped and plopped into the teacup. At that, he suddenly appeared to regain consciousness and placed down the chopsticks.
"You… you… what …?" He could not manage the words out of his throat. Only a high pitch lift at the end of his tone soared like a strangled cockerel.
At the same time she gifted a smile on him. A long, lovely smile and made it a thousand times more dazzling by flicking her silky eyelashes dreamily. 'Could cuteness cancel this craziness?'
Stunned and clueless as how to behave after her antic, Kiyomi simply reached for the teapot and poured her a cup of tea.
She wondered if her hands would be steady enough to lift her teacup and direct it to her mouth without also spilling the tea.
As soon as two small bowl filled with dumplings and steamed lotus roots greeted them she had forgotten her crazy antic. But as the waiter moved off, her eye caught the man with the fan twisting to the edge of his seat and glancing at her, again.
While Emika was eating one dish she kept on watching out for the next, then the next. Her cheeks were puffed-up like a squirrel stashing away nuts.
'What an insatiable appetite!' With that thought, a smidge of mirth glinted in the prince's gaze.
He realised that this was the only piece of information he had learnt about her for she had not been talkative at all. And how could she, since she opened that exquisite mouth only to stuff it with more food?
Usually when two strangers meet, the silence becomes burdensome; yet, somehow, he was utterly comfortable to laze in this silence. There was no need for chitchat and surprisingly it felt quite natural for him to think that she enjoyed his company.
The prince languidly leaned on the chair and watched her. All her attention was on a piece of cake with a crust so brittle that it cracked when she pressed it with her spoon. Grains of cinnamon sugar bounced off the surface and landed on the table. She licked her red lips, then a smile bloomed that called back her aura of childlike innocence.
Seeing her behaviour, Kiyomi couldn't help but let out a happy grin.
As for the man with the fan, he was watching her with intense eyes for the fourth time. Whoever he was, Emika started to feel chills down her spine.
This man was wearing a slate-blue brocade robe embroidered with golden butterflies underneath which peeked black silk trousers tucked into black boots of a flowered red pattern. Without a doubt he had a great deal of money. His narrow eyes reflected an inner fire and he expressed himself in the exaggerated play of his brows. His long, graceful fingers waved a fan and the other hand rested on his knees, he was leaning backward and watching her with great interest. This time he did not care to conceal his intention.
Emika became dazed and quickly turned her head away. She surreptitiously shifted her chair to be perfectly facing the prince hence hidden from the man's field of vision.
The next moment, the voice behind Kiyomi came from out of the blue, low but distinguishable: "Digging graves is big business." However, as the prince was about to turn around to identify its owner, screams were heard and Emika's heart leapt.
Echoing from the floors below came the sounds of fight, a raucousness of screams and shouts, the clang of swords, the tumble of tables and of shattered cups and plates.