A Glass of Tsilk by Julie Steimle (best ebook reader txt) 📕

what he thought his pal was doing wrong.

“Zormna only likes to show off to the Alpha district now-a-days,” she heard Cadet Marsek say to Aver Bren, still laughing at her. The girls laughed even more, peeking glances at Zormna to see if she was blushing from embarrassment.

Trying hard to ignore the jabs at her expense, she still kept watching the players. The dark haired undercity boy had now left the pronuk hall and sat down on the steps near the door, ready for the game to start. But just as Alea Prantz was about to serve the ball for the next set, someone walked up to the undercity player’s pal in the shadowy steps outside the door and whispered in his ear. Zormna watched as the boy’s silhouette directed that person toward the game room, talking as if with a friend but on urgent business. His silhouette was taller than the Orr’quarr, with an undercity mop of hair—male, yet still a teenager. Since the distance and darkness made it hard to make him out, that was all she could figure until he walked to the game room door, opened it and stuck his head into the hall calling to the blond player. Here she could see his features lit clearly. He was Orras—Seer Class hair color of midnight black.

Alea Prantz caught his serve mid air.

“Who is this?” Salvar gestured toward the boy that just stepped into the room.

“Some jerk that probably forgot his identi-card and needs to mooch off of his buddy, probably. He’s dressed undercity,” Aver Bren said.

Cadet Marsek nodded.

Undercity. But Zormna stared at the boy’s face, which she could see clearly despite the distance. She peered at him for about a minute before his identity clicked in her head.

She stood up and marched straight down the steps.

Recognition

With instinct too accurate not to be psychic, the boy pulled out his head from the room and looked right at her with his fathomless eyes. Zormna quickened her pace, but before she could get any closer, he bolted from the door and out of the pronuk stands.

Zormna darted after him. “Stop right there!”

She leapt down the last steps and landed on the floor. Springing up, she sprinted past the door, skidding right around the corner where the slick haired boy was sitting, causing him to tumble back into the seat behind him. He gaped after her as she dashed into the corridor outside the pronuk halls where she halted. It was filled with all sorts of people, several with hats on, all of them gaming, and none that she could pick out as him. He was gone.

Dragging her feet back to the pronuk stands, Zormna gave the slick haired boy a sidelong glance as she passed by. He stared up at her uneasily, adjusting himself back into his seat with flustered blinks. She shook her head and walked back up the stands to join her friends.

Salvar greeted her, standing up and lifting his hands open to ask what gives?

“What was that?” one of the girls said to the others with a look to Zormna.

Zormna sat down, frowning. “Just a boy that got away the other day.”

Salvar’s date leaned towards her with little friendly desire. “What were you going to do with him? Talk to him?”

“I dunno,” Zormna muttered with a shrug. “Maybe.”

But as she thought about it she really did not know what she was going to do or say. Seeing him just frustrated her. It was as if the P.M.’s major insult the other day had come back to haunt her.

“Where did you pick up this P.M.?” Salvar’s date said to him.

Zormna popped up. “Call me that again and I’ll flatten you!”

The girl dropped back.

But Zormna didn’t lay a finger on her. Instead, Zormna stomped down the steps all the way to the door of the pronuk room then leaned against the wall, crossing her arms and stuffing her hands underneath them in fists, growling under her breath all the nasty things she wished she could say to that civilian for hanging all over her best friend the way she was. The slick haired boy averted his eyes when he saw her standing there just a few feet away. And though he tried to watch the game he eventually cleared his throat and said with a wave of his hand for her to move, “Would you mind sitting? I can’t see.”

Blinking at him, her face flushed. But she hesitated. Then pushing off the wall, Zormna walked over to the bench he was sitting on and sat down next to him. She stared at the game blankly for a bit, and then looked at the boy. Now that they were close up she could see he was about a full Arrassian year older than her, if not a bit more. And though he was putting forth admirable effort to watch the game, he leaned slowly away from her, shifting in his seat with a squirm.

“I’m joining the Surface Patrol today,” he abruptly said with a weak rasp to his voice. He cleared his throat and looked over at her, blinking his cool blue eyes.

Zormna gave him a faint smile then nodded.

“My friend here is taking me over since my dad won’t come,” he continued, trying to make conversation, though she could tell she was still making him uncomfortable.

“Sorry to hear it,” Zormna managed, trying to keep her eyes on the game and her mind off of her negative thoughts.

Glanced back into the stands, she noticed Salvar watching her with an annoyed yet curious gaze, his eyes especially fixed on that dark haired undercity boy. He was ignoring his date, causing that girl to flush red as if ready to explode into a tizzy. Zormna smirked.

“Don’t be sorry, I want to join. I’ve wanted to join since I found out I could join,” she heard the undercity boy to her side say.

Zormna gazed back at him, giving him a funny look as her mouth curled up in a smirk. “What was it? The ships or the surface?”

“What was what?” he asked, now a little flustered that she asked him a question.

“What lured you there? The ships or the surface? Very few nuts want to join the Patrol.” Zormna waited for his answer as he realized that she called him a nut.

He cleared his throat, “Uh, both I guess. What was it for you?”

Zormna smirked, pulling on the mourning strands of her hair that spiraled somewhat along her cheeks. “Did I have a choice?”

He nodded, gaining more confidence. “Yeah, you did. I hear you guys don’t have to join if you don’t want. You guys can just get regular jobs once you pass the adult test, can’t you. They give you all the training you need.”

With a smile, she blushed with a shrug. “Admitted. I would have been a police officer had I not joined the Patrol.”

She glanced back at the game with a smile, feeling a little better. The blonde was still winning, twenty up, and Alea Prantz was sweating drops the size of bullets.

“I’d be a cop too, but they don’t have long lives in the undercity,” the undercity boy said.

Zormna peered at him and wondered. “My uncle was a policeman. But he was shot when dealing with a night mob.”

The boy nodded gravely, drawing in a breath as if he understood. “You undercity?”

Zormna shook her head. “Middlecity. My father was a doctor.”

He looked at her and made a face that was half pity, half wariness. “How’d he die?”

The game had ended. The blonde had won. The crowd stood up, and Zormna did likewise. She looked at the boy who still waited her answer.

“P.M. mob attack, though in the records it wasn’t called that,” she said, straight faced.

“Zormna!” Salvar called over the rumble of the crowd, walking down the steps through them to join her. His date followed him, though she looked likely to kick him. “Ready to go to the dance hall?”

Zormna nodded and then glanced back at her new acquaintance. His friend had just stepped out of the pronuk room, dabbing his sweaty neck with a towel. The tall undercity blonde gazed at Zormna with eyes that she could only read as careful. In a way it reminded her of Alea Arden. Alea Prantz walked out right after him. He stopped once he saw Zormna and her motley crew.

“Aver Zormna Clendar, what are you doing here?” he asked with a tinge of superior pain in his voice.

“That’s Anzer now Alea Prantz,” she said, still giving the blond boy sidelong peeks. 

The undercity blonde started to leave, whispering to his slick haired friend as he walked off.

“And I’m watching your game,” she added.

“You are, are you?” Alea Prantz replied. “I thought you gave up on pronuk.”

Zormna narrowed her eyes then shook it off. “I might take it up again just to see if I still have it in me to beat your opponent here.” She motioned to where the blonde had been standing, but the boy had already walked down the hall and out the door. Peering down the corridor Zormna called out to him, “Hey you!”

The blonde turned around, but not without some coaxing from his dark haired friend that walked next to him.

“You played a good game,” she said, nodding in his direction.

The tall boy took the compliment after a second, his eyes flickering on her face like he was memorizing it.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said. He then turned down the hall and walked away. His friend was watching after him with a puzzled expression but he also started to follow.

Seeing this, Zormna squeezed out of her crowd and ran up to the slick haired boy. “Hey, I didn’t get your name.”

The slick haired boy smiled at her, blushing somewhat with a glance at his friend who had already put a good number of people between them, that blonde head standing taller than them all. The blond undercity boy looked back to see if his pal was coming, his eyes fixing on Zormna with a blink. Exhaling loudly, he slumped his shoulders with a roll of his eyes.

The slick haired undercity boy shook his head and turned again towards Zormna. “I’m Dzhon. Dzhon Niizek.”

Zormna smiled. “Anzer Zormna Clendar.”

Salvar and the rest crossed the rest of the distance with their dates in tow, though the girls were now glaring at Zormna behind their backs. It was clear they would not act that way in front of their faces, since by now they knew the Salvar and his buddies would not go without her, and if they wanted free passes to the dance hall they had to keep playing along. Salvar seemed the most insistent to get to her side.

Seeing the undercity blonde’s annoyed glances at his friend, Zormna walked backward to her group. “You’d better go. Your friend is getting impatient.”

Dzhon nodded with a laugh and turned to join him. “Yeah.”

Zormna walked back to Salvar’s side as she gave a goodbye wave. “See you in the Alpha district.”

Dzhon was half way down the hall to join his friend when he gave her an enthusiastic wave. He spun around with a skip in his step as the two pals disappeared into the throng.

Zormna heard Salvar’s date grumble. She glanced back at them, her eyes flickering on Salvar’s