Chapter 2 #3
“That sounds very pre-empted, Magdor. I don't think Kahn would happen across anything of the sort unless you gave him directions. Even then, I'm pretty sure he'd mix up his left and right. And does he still keep that note in his pocket which helps him tell the time?”
Magdor's eyes darkened to deepest nightshade, and I knew I was close to making her snap. She indulged my defiance to a certain degree but if I took it too far, she was always more than ready to make me pay for my insolence.
“My son is the finest suitor in the kingdom. To even suggest such a boy who was birthed from an accomplished woman such as myself could be anything but worthy is an insult to me and the gods who willed his life.”
She often said things like that, claiming the favour of the gods who had abandoned our kind to our destruction. It was nonsense and she knew it as well as I did, yet her eyes always lit with this devout kind of fervour whenever she mentioned any of the long-departed deities.
“Well, I suppose I just insulted you then.” I shrugged, tugging my silver locks over my shoulders and running my fingers through them, knowing I was going to pay for it.
My hair was like a friend that never spoke but was always there, which was kind of sad really.
Magdor had tried to cut it once, calling it too long and untameable.
But when she’d pinned me down and attempted to slice through it with scissors, they’d broken right in her hand.
I guessed it had something to do with my metal Affinity, every strand on my head as tough as steel, yet somehow as soft as feathers at the same time.
“Kahn will be the strongest competitor in the pageant no matter what you think of him. Your hand is already his, but if you insist on going through the formalities then so be it.” Magdor marched out of the room and I gritted my teeth, a growl building in my throat.
I was so angry about the entire situation that I didn’t even have the energy required to feel relieved at avoiding a punishment from her.
Perhaps I should have agreed to letting her skip the pageant and search for a Prophet to break the curse linked to it.
It might buy me a little time if nothing else while she hunted.
It might even result in Kahn succumbing to the curse if she believed it was broken and forced a marriage upon me.
As tempting as that was, I couldn’t face the risk of her success and I knew it wouldn’t save me anyway – what I wanted was to rule alone, but the only paths possible to me seemed to be lined in a gilded cage of matrimony.
Kahn hadn't inherited his mother's beauty. But what he lacked in looks, he made up for in sheer size. He looked like two wildebeests stitched together. Roughly. It wasn’t even all about vanity, I may have been able to love him despite his appearance if he was a good man, if he had some merit to him beyond smashing skulls and spilling blood. But he was a beast through and through, and I knew I’d get no more love from him than I could claim from a teaspoon.
And I’d likely have a lot to fear from his lust as well.
A savage like that wouldn’t be tender with me and despite my shielded upbringing, I’d grown to understand enough about the way a man and woman were in the marriage bed over the years to be able to fear that with him.
There were secret passages all over the palace which I often used, and I’d heard the guards talking of their conquests on more than one occasion.
Once, I’d even watched the act through a peephole which gave a view into the kitchens.
A guard had been there alone with one of my own handmaids, her skirts pushed up and his huge cock slamming inside her over and over again while she cried out in a way that was hard to tell if it was in pleasure or pain.
Either way, I’d been thoroughly terrified of the idea ever since witnessing that, especially when considering a man such as Kahn using my body for his own pleasure.
“So be it,” I echoed Magdor in a snarl, climbing up onto my window seat and brushing my fingers over the pink silk of the cushions.
I pushed the frosted window open a crack - it only opened a crack anyway.
Two inches. To stop me from throwing myself out?
Maybe. I'd never figured it out. All I knew was that two inches wasn't enough to allow in the full breeze I craved.
I wanted to smell the market, the fish brought back from the river, the herbs and fruit and sizzling spices on an iron pan.
But all I smelled was Magdor's sickly sweet perfume left in her wake and the scent of incense carrying from the bathhouse.
I wanted to see the streets of Osaria for myself, walk down the cobbled roads and pass by my people as they went about their business.
I wanted to stand on the bridges which crossed the Carlell River and watch the water as it raced out into the beyond.
I wanted to feel the full heat of the blazing sun which always beat down on us in this oasis set within the Lyrian Desert, and see the white walls which crisscrossed the twelve rings of our city as the setting sun gilded them in tones of orange.
Books proved to me that there was so much vast and endless beauty in this world, and none of it cared for the set of my face.
I wanted to stare at something truly breath-taking and witness the radiance of nature which was undoubtedly far more stunning than any single Fae could ever be.
But here I was, caged and veiled, waiting to be revealed to countless eyes which could have beheld all the views and wonders I couldn’t, and yet it was me they would queue up to observe.
The only time I ever got to go outside the palace walls was when I was veiled, sat on top of a cushioned platform and carried on the shoulders of my royal guards, paraded through the city’s streets to be gawped at.
The people wondered at what lay beneath the veil, they marvelled at the glimpse of my hands within layers of silk which were so stifling under the midday sun that I was always tempted to rip them off.
Maybe I should have. Maybe next time I was carried about like a prized monkey, I'd take my veil off and see what the people really thought of me then.
Because what the hell did it matter anyway?
Okay, I liked my face. And yes, I had to admit the setting of my features were remarkably symmetrical.
My lips were full, and my amber eyes were enormous.
But by the Fallen, who cared? I mean really, it was just a face. Just a body. Just flesh.
I'd seen women out in those streets who had much more allure about them.
All shapes and sizes, curvy, flat-chested, small-lipped, big breasted, every piece of skin pierced or tattooed.
They were all beautiful in different ways.
So why was I being prized? I'd trade in my unusual silver hair in a heartbeat to just walk outside these palace walls as a normal, unshackled girl.
My scalp tingled at that thought and I stroked my hair.
Alright, I wouldn’t really give you up. But I’d do nearly anything else for my freedom.
I’d fight a dragon or cut off some fingers, anything but stay here.
To have a chance at a real life. Without a man.
Who needed a man anyway? I'd survived almost twenty-one years without one. And my father did not count seeing as he had been under the thumb of Magdor for almost a decade. Since she'd taken up my mother’s position as his empress, she only had to suggest a change to the kingdom's laws, and he fell on it ravenously like he didn't have a brain of his own anymore. It wasn’t her place at all as the emperor’s consort, and yet he somehow allowed it, though I doubted I’d have as much sway with whichever man I was forced to marry.
That said, I didn’t even know what most men beyond my father were like because I rarely got to speak with the opposite sex to find out.
I released a huff, giving up on trying to decipher men until I'd be forced to do so during the pageant.
Until then, I'd have to settle for the tripe that came out of my attendants' mouths.
There was only one of them who ever held a decent conversation with me, and she was like a shining ray of light amongst the drivel pouring from the mouths of the other girls.
Constant compliments. I'd liked it when I was younger, now I despised it.
A compliment was only worth something if it was made about who you were, not what you were.
But they all dwelled on the superficial things I'd heard a million times.
One of my newest attendants had been getting pretty creative with her compliments recently.
“ Your hair is as silver as a thousand moons, pouring into a river like liquid light.”
Calm down, Jacinda.
I sighed, eyeing the tiny glimpse of the city which I could see through the gap in the frosted window.
One day, I'm going to go outside these walls and no emperor, no man and no empress is ever going to tell me no again.
“She wants to be left alone, my love,” Magdor’s voice came from beyond the door.
“I want to see my daughter,” Father’s voice answered and hope rippled through my chest.
He rarely came to see me anymore, and the child in me perked up, wishing for the embrace of her sweet father, the man he’d been before Empress Maggot had stolen him from me.
He opened the door, striding into my room in dark blue robes that swept out behind him as he moved.
His long grey hair hung around his shoulders at a contrast to his dark skin and his deep brown eyes fell on me with an echo of love in them from the past. Magdor hurried along at his heels, a frown on her face as she looked to me in irritation.
“Tell your father he needs to rest, Austyn. He slept poorly last night.”
“I’ll do no such thing, Magdor,” I said. “Maybe you should go for a long walk? I’d like to talk to my father alone.”