Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Fenix
One hundred years earlier…
“Inspection!”
It hasn’t happened in a while. The order still fills me with dread. I wish I’d been elsewhere. Feeding the prisoners. Taking the scraps out to the pigs. Anywhere but in the kitchen when the guards round up the ‘young ones’.
Overseer Barnes is grim-lipped, his club at the ready as he supports the guards. Something that might be empathy lingers in his eyes—gone a beat later when he snaps at the young kitchen lass, Molly. “Be quick about it!”
Her pretty brown eyes are wide and startled as we are ushered out of the kitchen and into the corridor beyond. She’s a year older than me and only arrived a month ago, snatched from some distant land and a happy life on a farm.
I know nothing of life elsewhere, but I envy that she does.
Our line joins with other lines of servants from other parts of the great citadel until we arrive at a familiar hall. Weak winter sun spills in from the high vaulted windows, glistening against the dark woodwork and stone floors.
We’re told to line up along the wall, shoulder to shoulder, hands at our sides. No one asks why. Those who have lived here long enough already know the answer. The new ones glance around—they’ll find out soon enough.
A few dare to whisper questions. A sharp look from a nearby overseer, and silence descends.
The guards suddenly snap to attention. A prickling starts under my skin. Next comes the odor, sickly sweet, like something rotting, poorly masked.
Does evil have a scent? Is that why the hairs at the back of my neck rise and my heart quickens?
My eyes lock on the flagstones before me.
He glides—barely a sound of his footsteps.
A few paces away from me, his attention is caught by the young scullery lad. A pause. And then he is moving again.
His long blue cloak flaps around black, shiny boots that fill the space where my gaze has been locked. The fabric looks heavy, worked with fine embroidery. I imagine it is warm and soft. Softer than anything I have ever touched.
He is standing before me.
He has not moved on.
The urge to run, to get out, away from the monster with the beautiful cloak is so strong, for a moment, I think I have.
But no, he has walked on. I breathe—gulping air as sweat breaks out across the surface of my skin.
The prickling sensation is back. My head remains lowered, but my eyes lift on their own to find him paused beside Molly.
General Adharde cuts an imposing figure. I’ve only seen the dark fae lord from a distance before. Tall and slender, with alabaster skin that glimmers under the weak sunlight. A long, pointed ear, delicate and a little twisted at the tip, pokes between the locks of his coal-black hair.
His nose is a thin, regal slash.
Beautiful.
Cruel.
“Look at me.” His voice is quiet yet still carries.
“She is lovely,” he says at length. “Yes. She will do.”
He moves off.
A guard steps up to the line, taking Molly by the arm.
She stammers a protest.
“Silence,” he snaps.
The fae lord is already moving off.
Molly begins to cry, her sobs going with her as she is taken away, and the rest of us are dismissed.
She has only been here a month. Perhaps not long enough to hear the tales.
I ask myself if it is better or worse that she does not know.