Chapter 15 Boy
fifteen
Boy
The day hung dull and heavy in the opulent room that was Boy’s latest prison cell.
When the Queen and her Royal Guard had escorted him here earlier, he had kept his head down and his gaze firmly fixed on the floor in front of his feet until he heard the massive doors click shut behind her.
His heart had beat in his throat and stars had danced at the edge of his vision long after she was gone.
This was his final test. She had made that quite clear.
If all the sacks of straw in this room were not spun into golden thread by the next daybreak, he would die.
But if they were, then he would be conscripted into her Collection.
Boy didn’t know what that meant, not really.
She had explained, in her own way, but the depth of her words were still sinking in.
The first thing Boy had done, when his rabbit-heart had calmed enough that he could swallow his saliva without it hurting, was reluctantly raise his chin to locate the sacks. They weren’t hard to find.
The Queen had called this her throne room—and what a room it was.
Bigger than anything Boy had ever known to exist. If he had to guess, he’d say it rivalled the size of the clearing around his family’s mill.
He could almost see it. The run-down building with the old thatching infested with mice would occupy the space where ornate lacquered screens stood sentry around the throne and its dais.
His whole family had shared that building. They’d argued with one another as they hoisted dried grasses into the rafters and had laughed when one of them invariably landed in the weir. How different his life had been then.
The vaulted stone ceiling of the throne room was so high that Boy reckoned he could have stacked one mill on top of another, and they still wouldn’t have touched its apex.
And there, banked high and kept in place by wooden ladders, were countless hessian sacks that spanned the length of one wall, just as they had done in the Fachhallenhaus.
Except this was on a scale much too large to comprehend.
Boy had dropped his head then, and sank to his knees.
Last night, when the Queen’s Shadow had shared his magick with him—had showed him how he spun the straw into gold—it had still taken so long that Boy had drifted to sleep with his head resting against the man’s firm thigh.
Even if his geist were to appear now, in broad daylight, and begin work straightaway, Boy feared there wouldn’t be enough time to spin it all.
Boy was doomed to fail.
He lowered his body until his forehead kissed the cold yet ornately tiled floor. His breaths came in shallow pants. In this gargantuan room, with its overwhelming display of threat, Boy felt very small and very powerless.
But then, he’d never held any power—a fact to which he had adjusted long before he really understood what power truly was.
When his father had told him they were sacrificing him to save the rest of the family, he had accepted it.
When they told him to leave with the tithe collector, he had obeyed.
Accepting and obeying came naturally to Boy, and there had always been a comfort to it.
Without power, like that which his father and the Queen held, he was also free from the responsibility that came with it.
So where was that comfort now? What had changed?
The Queen would come at daybreak, as she always had, and make her decision. If she decided that Boy should die, then he would. And if that was her decision, then it would mean that his geist hadn’t visited. Boy’s heart stilled in his chest, the missed beats stolen by the weight of this realisation.
He would never again find any comfort in the power held over him by others, and especially not as a member of Her Majesty’s Collection, because Boy had given that power to her Shadow.
He had chosen to submit to the geist, chosen to experience all that he could with what was left of his life, had chosen to deceive the Queen, and so he had also chosen the burden of the responsibility that came with that.
If he could go back in time, would he choose differently?
Boy raised himself from the floor and knelt back on his heels.
No. No, he would make the same choice again if he could.
He would choose his Shadow and everything he offered.
He would choose the full and sweet taste of the Royal Garden strawberries, the silky soft touch of sentient shadows as they caressed his skin, and the heady desire of sexual pleasure in the strong and capable hands of the geist who empowered him. He chose this brand of magick.
Fortified, Boy stood then and faced the high bank of hessian sacks.
The Queen had told him that as part of her Collection, he would want for nothing.
He’d kept his eyes lowered in her presence, but had felt the heat of her scathing judgement burn into his well-worn clothing.
Purposefully, he lifted his shirt over his head and dropped it onto the polished floor.
Boy was done being looked down upon for things he had no power over.
He turned his back on the wall of straw. Whether it was to be spun into gold or not, wasn’t anything Boy could control, so he would no longer focus on it. Instead, he fixed his gaze upon the giant hearth at the far end of the room, and stepped over his heaped shirt.
His broken boots hadn’t been on his feet when he had woken in the Merchant’s Quarters, and he hadn’t been permitted time to put them on when the Royal Guard were requested to escort him to the throne room—a guard had simply tossed them in after him before they had closed and locked the door.
Regardless, his bare footsteps over the glossed tiles were sure and firm.
His stride grew alongside his confidence as he neared the intricately carved wooden bench set before the fireplace.
When he drew up alongside it, he loosened the frayed cord of his breeches, and they too fell to the floor. Naked, and yet more free than he had ever felt, he would no longer dwell on the situation he was in—it had taken too much from him already.
Boy trailed his fingertips over the luxurious fabrics Queen Schon had laid out for him.
This could all be his, she had explained.
His skill with the spinning wheel had earned him a place alongside the other magickal beings enthralled into her Collection.
Others, like his Shadow. Boy would be at her beck and call.
Whenever she had the urge to be fitted for a new garment, he would be summoned alongside the tailors and shoemakers.
Much like his life back home, whenever he could serve a use, he should.
He held the black silk shirt against his torso and admired his reflection in the large gilt looking glass above the hearth.
Boy didn’t recognise himself, and he let the material drift to the floor.
He selected the neatly folded breeches next.
The fabric was the same as that which wrapped the muscular thighs of the Queen’s Shadow.
Thighs Boy loved to kneel between and rub his cheeks against. Thighs he had fallen asleep upon last night.
Boy pressed them tight to his own hips, but it wasn’t the same, and those breeches too fell away.
Whether his Shadow appeared and spun the straw into gold or not, whether Boy wore the fine clothes or not, it was only a matter of time before the Queen would summon him to assist in creating her fashion and discover his deceit.
Discover their deceit. He knew already it would be the cause of his death, but Boy found it a more sickening thought to imagine the consequences for the geist.
He still hadn’t worked out what hold it was the Queen had over his Shadow, but he was confident that if given a choice, the geist wouldn’t be beholden to anyone. It wasn’t who he was.
Despite the darkened image of his reflection in the golden-framed looking glass above the hearth, Boy’s skin looked healthier than he had ever known it.
In the glow of the low firelight, and with the stained-glass windows lighting him from behind, he looked almost ethereal.
Boy wondered if this was what the Queen’s Shadow saw when he looked upon him.
He tried to see himself through his Shadow’s eyes and his skin flushed with heat. He trailed his fingers down the contour of his slender torso, tracing over the same path those leather-clad hands had forged the night before.
Wished it wasn’t his fingers that edged steadily lower.
The more he imagined it, the stronger the sensation grew.
He visualised those thick, gloved fingers as he slipped his own into the first few curls of hair at the base of his cock.
Boy stretched his neck, exposing the sensitive column as if he could feel the geist’s stubble scraping against his throat.
His cock thickened, and he wrapped his fingers around his hardening length.
Lost in the sensations, Boy flattened his other hand over his heart.
The dark eyes of his Shadow appeared over the shoulder of Boy’s reflection in the looking glass, that predatory gaze fixed firmly on Boy’s fingertips that now lazily circled his navel of their own accord.
Boy tried to remain calm and collected, but he couldn’t help the weakness in his legs, nor maintain the pretence of confidence under the geist’s undisguised avarice, so he let his hands drop to his sides and lowered his gaze.
A firm, gloved hand rested possessively on Boy’s hip, and his back arched into the touch.
When the hand withdrew, Boy glanced back up at their reflection through his lashes, but the geist was gone.
In his place was a length of delicate golden thread.
His Shadow, who had since materialised behind Boy as if summoned by his thoughts, held the simple piece between his leather-clad hands as if it were precious jewellery.
Wordlessly, and with a reverence that silenced the burgeoning question on Boy’s tongue, the man secured it around Boy’s neck.
Intrigued, Boy raised his fingers to touch it, but before he could, that low and deep voice ordered him, “Turn around.”
Without hesitation, Boy did as instructed.
Immediately, he was transfixed by the flyaway wisps of inky black hair that had escaped the ribbon that held them fixed at the nape of his neck and brushed over the soft material that graced his broad shoulders.
So quick was Boy’s pulse, and so thorough was the gaze that raked over his body, that he became lost in the heady scent of smoke and leather, and when he next looked around, shadow magick had transformed the throne room into something from a gothic fairytale.
A thick wall of shadows completely hid the imposing wall of hessian sacks from view.
The screened-off throne, too, had disappeared, and in its place was a black wooden table so long it commanded the remaining space with ease.
The ornate table could have seated Boy’s entire family twice over and still had room to spare.
Upon it, lit by elaborate and towering candelabras, were striking red serving platters laden with mouthwatering dishes.
The decadent aroma of well-seasoned, slow-roasted meat filled the air.
Boy’s stomach rumbled, and he swallowed down the excess saliva that had formed in his mouth.
The beautifully set table had plates piled high with fresh fruits.
Boy immediately recognised the bright glossy red of the Royal Garden strawberries he had fallen so in love with, but also succulent blueberries, shiny apples, and fresh round figs drizzled in honey that glistened in the candlelight.
His Shadow had helped Boy discover his sweet tooth—among other things—and he was absolutely ready to indulge.
He would even accept eating more of the soft curds he wasn’t so fond of, as long as he could eat it directly from the man’s hand.
That was fast becoming his favourite way to eat any and all food.
“Follow me.”
Boy’s body buzzed under the weight of the command.
He’d never felt more alive than when his Shadow hooked his gloved finger under that same golden thread he had secured in place around Boy’s neck and led him across the expansive throne room by it.
It wasn’t until they came to a stop beside the vast table that Boy realised there was only one chair—positioned at the head of the long table. The black and red throne-like seat was raised upon a dais, and he considered that his Shadow may want him to kneel, as he had on all other occasions.
“Please,” Boy whispered.
“Please?” the geist echoed as he pressed closer, eliminating all space between them.
Boy wanted his touch, his control, but he struggled to articulate his desire. Shadows draped around him like a second skin, and it was there that he found his voice. “I want to kneel for you.”
His Shadow closed his black eyes and raised his face to the fading light that filtered in through the stained-glass window high above them. “Say it again.”
“I want to kneel for you.” This time, the words felt like a vow that bound them together.
The geist stepped up onto the dais, but instead of making space for Boy between his legs, he hoisted him by the backs of his thighs to sit on the edge of the table.
Still, he towered over Boy, and his sensuous mouth curved into a small smile that promised the world. It washed over Boy like a fever.