Since Esmera was abandoned on a stranger's doorstep as a baby, the only person who has looked out for her is herself.
Until a lark starts visiting her, leaving behind exotic flowers and iridescent pebbles that the internet doesn't recognise.
Esmera...
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Esmera locked her knees to keep her legs steady, but all it did was make her walk like a robot past the yaoguai flanking the doorway. Even so, she was still shaky as she entered the dining room on Ruagu's murderous arm, and the unexpected weight of the beautiful outfit on her frame didn't help.
Even so, she noticed the curtains framing the windows like clouds with silver linings and the benches forming a rectangle around the table, topped by silver and bronze seat pads like the coat of the snow leopard figurine at the centre of the table. Like Zaha, its eyes were completely white. Esmera fancied that the goddess was watching over her even as she felt dreadfully and undeniably alone.
Fortunately, the tyrant beside Esmera didn't notice her discomfort. He was too occupied with smirking at Tauram, who stood by the window with his hands clasped in front of him and his eyes on the floor while two yaoguai stood on either side of him, their gazes trained on him.
Why had Ruagu even brought Tauram here? To make him a servant? To mock him with the power he had stolen from him? It was a bold and possibly stupid move to invite the man whose throne he had stolen and whose family he had destroyed, but it spoke of the faith Ruagu had in his terrible power. A faith that Esmera might be able to use against him. She just didn't know how yet.
Ruagu led her to the table, his viper brushing against her as it slithered alongside them with a hiss. He stood by the head of the table, claiming the seat there as Esmera had expected he would. What she didn't expect was that he would hold out a cold, gnarled hand to help her step over the bench and sit down. Then again, maybe she should've expected it, that Ruagu would feign a gentleness he didn't naturally possess just to lure her in.
Esmera took her place with a hasty, murmured thanks while the king took his. Between them, his viper rested in a coil, eyeing Esmera with slitted, distrusting eyes. She wondered what his power was, if he could know what she was planning.
That was unlikely. At least, Esmera tried to convince herself of that as she looked away from his unsettling eyes.
The viper flicked his black tongue in Esmera's direction before turning to Ruagu, hissing. The usurper merely waved his hand, making no reply that gave Esmera an idea of what his familiar was saying about her. Tauram drifted nearer at Ruagu's beckoning, still avoiding eye contact with everyone seated at the table.
"Some jiaozi, please." Ruagu gave Tauram a mere glance before turning back to Esmera.
With hands as beautiful and mesmerising and graceful as always, Tauram lifted a steaming dish from the centre of the table. He uncovered it and, sliding the chopsticks out from their holder on the side of the dish, he held a dumpling over Esmera's plate.
It looked a bit different from momos, narrow as if they had been squeezed into their shape by a closed hand rather than the round dumplings she was so familiar with. Hopefully they tasted as good despite how different they looked.
