Seventeen
A good little slut listens to her king.
Especially when he tells her to eat.
- Arienna
Beaming, I leave the Council Room with Richard. As soon as the door opens, I throw myself at Fabia. “I did it!” I squeal.
“You have to stop hugging me,” she whispers in my ear so Richard can’t hear. “I need my hands to protect you.”
“Oh, right.” Releasing her, I step back. “Sorry.”
She smiles, then gestures for me to walk ahead of her. Richard pulls me down the hall, but I crane my head around to talk.
“I finally helped someone!”
“Was it about sex?” Her eyes skirt around us, checking for any danger.
“Nope! Though I did offer my toys to Bailey – Oh, that’s her!” I point at the teal-haired woman stepping out of the Council Room. She nods at me, making the stud piercings in her cheeks twinkle in the light. “She needs help getting off.”
She coughs, blushing hard, but my attention moves to Marrabel. A smile is gracing her lips, and my heart aches with relief.
“How’s Saragese?” I ask, so happy that she’s made it through the night. I wasn’t sure at breakfast this morning –Marrabel still looked so sad– but someone must have told her that her sister was okay while we were in the Council Room.
“Oh! Can we go see her?” I ask, turning to Richard.
“Do we have time before dinner with the ladies and lords?” When he told me what our duties for the day were going to be, he mentioned we’d be eating with them after we met with the Court.
It would be a time for me to mingle with the nobles and gain their support.
“No,” he says softly.
“Can we see her after?”
“Your Majesty,” Marrabel says, and I turn to her with a smile.
Only to have it fall.
Gone is the humour that lit her eyes earlier. Now there is a wetness. The same wetness, it seems, that is clawing its way up my throat.
My lip wobbles.
Richard grabs my hand.
I squeeze him for all I’m worth.
My heart aching, I stumble down the hall, waiting for her to speak. To tell me that what I’m fearing isn’t true.
“Saragese is dead,” she says flatly, no emotion in her words. And I realise she carries that same shield inside her that Richard does. That Jace did as he held me in his arms last night, telling me he did not cry because he was too familiar with death.
Is that what we’re supposed to do here? Wear armour so heavily inside us that swords of grief can’t cut us down?
I look at my king. He doesn’t look at me.
I look at Fabia. She glances away.
I look at Jace. He’s so utterly quiet.
I look at Marrabel. She holds my gaze, but there is a darkness there. No. It’s an emptiness. A freezing of the soul.
“I…” I swallow hard. ‘I’m sorry,’ feels so shallow. How can that possibly make her feel any better? How did I ever think that those two simple words could fix anything at all?
They won’t bring her back.
They won’t relieve the pain.
They’re just heartless words, and Saragese deserves more than that. Marrabel deserves more.
I look back at Richard, pleading with him to help me. I do not know how to deal with such grief. My throat feels like it’s closing as tight as a fist, ready to pull me down into a darkness of despair.
He pulls me into a room. “Fabia,” Richard says as we step inside. Everyone else but her and Jace stays in the hall, guarding the door.
When it shuts behind us, he pulls me into his arms. I cling to him, pressing my cheek against his chest. A mad, little giggle escapes me. I bite my cheek, trying to keep it in. Armoured like they all do.
“Let it out,” he murmurs, and I look up at him.
“You all don’t,” I say through teeth clenched tight to stop the laughter.
“You are not like us.”
“But I want to be.”
“No…” Richard leans down to kiss my lips. “Don’t ever change, Arienna. Raza needs you just how you are.”
“But it hurts.” A little laugh breaks free.
“I know. That is why I’m trying to change it.”
“So you’re going to bring her back? Resurrect her? We can get Deirdre –”
“No,” he cuts in.
“But –”
“So has a DNR,” he says.
“What?” I giggle.
“A Do Not Resurrect. Everyone in the Royal Guard gets the choice of whether they wish to be resurrected, should they be in a condition to be brought back.” He hugs me tighter.
“Saragese asked not to be. Raza is not a kind place; she’ll have a better chance at a good life if she’s reincarnated by the gods. ”
“But her sister –”
“It is not her choice.”
A burst of laughter rips free. I shake against him. He rubs my back, pushing out even more high-pitched giggles. “It... hurts.” I can’t breathe.
“I know. Keep letting it out.”
I do not know how long he holds me, but I laugh until my cheeks hurt. Until I’m hiccupping against his solid chest, my stomach so tight, it hurts to stand.
“Breathe with me,” he murmurs, the first thing he’s said in a while. I chase the movements of his chest as I try to understand the grief that no one else seems to feel.
I breathe in and out and in again.
“Fabia,” I rasp.
Her hand squeezes my shoulder.
“Does it not hurt for you?”
“Of course it does,” she says. “But I do not love as freely as you.”
“So that’s a bad thing?” She’s always telling me I give my heart away too easily.
“No,” she and Richard say at the same time.
“I want Raza to become more like you,” my king says softly. “Where we are not afraid to… love. Where we do not fear its loss when the wars take it from us.”
Jace moves away from us, a small triangular knife in his hand. Richard glances at him, his jaw tight, but then he looks back at me.
“I want you to bring your joy to Raza, not lose it like the rest of us.”
“And that’ll help them?” I shudder inside his arms.
“I hope so.”
Swallowing, I nod. A last, gasping giggle bubbles up my throat. “Then should I throw a funeral for her? And the others who died at the market?”
“No,” Fabia cuts in quickly. “Brownie funerals are not… No.”
I frown. “But they’re fun.”
“No.”
“I am confused.”
“Just trust me on this.”
I look at Richard, wanting to be sure.
“We do not have funerals here,” he says gently.
“Then what do you do with the bodies?”
“We feed them to the birds.”
My mouth opens; his tightens. “That’s so…”
“Barbaric?” he asks tightly.
“Kind.”
He blinks.
“Birds love eating, and hunting is so hard. It’s nice to know that something… kind comes from this pain. Did Saragese have her own crow? Like Maeve?”
He shakes his head. “She’ll be carried to the top of our tree and left for the wild birds. Then we will carve her name along the branch.”
I nod. It doesn’t sound as fun as a funeral carnival and orgy, but it does sound peaceful. Keeping her as a part of the cycle of life; perhaps seeing her soul in all the birds that fly overhead.
Kissing me, my king strokes his tongue inside my mouth. His hands run up my back to cup my face. “I’m proud of what you did in the Council Room,” he says against my lips.
I smile, a little bit of warmth easing into me. It’s not going to be easy, learning to make this place a home. But at least I’m doing some things right.
When we step back into the hall, I throw my arms around Marrabel. She stands stiffly for a second, then she’s hugging me back, and I know the strength my king gave me in that room is now flowing into her.
Laughter and hugs – there is no healing wand or rock that can compete with that.
When I step back, Richard leads us down the hall. I glance at Fabia as she walks behind us. I lost Saragese already; I will not lose her too.
My heart hammering, I look at Jace. Nor him. Nor Marrabel or Irin or… My blood pounding, I look at my king. No.
I have to learn how to keep myself safe so they will never need to again.
As we round a bend in the winding corridor, two large doors face us. Together, they arch into a point beneath an ornately carved doorframe. A guard stands on either side of it, but as soon as they see us, they move to open the doors. A murmur of voices echo from inside. Bowing, they gesture us in.
“His Majesty, King Richard Asherton Morningstar, the Demon of Raza,” a man bellows as we step inside, “and his wife, Arienna Morningstar, our soon to be queen.”
“And Fabia, the bestest writer ever,” I say, just as loudly as the guy who introduced us. “And Jace –” I stop as I turn to him. “What is your full name?”
He grins. “Isabet Terfuck Tan Mehussand.”
“And Jace Isa –”
Richard loops an arm through mine and tugs me across the balcony. “That is not his name.”
“It’s not? Then why did he –” I suck in a breath as the room finally snags my attention.
We’ve entered at the top of a grand staircase.
The ceiling spreads high above us, double what it is in most of the other rooms. Instead of the rich brown wood I have come to expect though, the walls have been painted with a collage of scenes depicting fairy life.
Large purple-rimmed cage-shaped terrariums hang from the ceiling.
The glowing teal of firefox moss spreads out amongst their glass floors as other plants rise into the air.
Beambugs flitter about inside them, their dark-blue wings opening up to show their glowing yellow butts beneath.
But they cannot compete with the ceiling itself.
Seemingly having soaked up the power of the sun, the ceiling glows with the soft rays of dawn. It lights the room up, every nook and cranny, filling it with a warmth that leaves me breathless.
As we descend the stairs, with Jace in front, albeit off to the side, and our other guards behind us, my head swivels in every direction.
I try to take it all in, but it’s impossible.
We’re only a few steps from the bottom, and already people are waiting for us to reach them.
They’ll want to talk to us when all I want to do is sit and stare in awe.
“Dinner will be in an hour,” Richard murmurs to me. “Do you want a snack?”