21 | Kiandah
The Sea Witch
I open my eyes, confused and disoriented but very aware of a cramp in my stomach. My thoughts fire. Where am I? I work in the kitchens. Then, why am I so hungry?
My left leg twitches and I flinch at the sensation of a mostly soft penis slipping out of my soft inner lips. There’s a coolness there every time my legs scissor apart as air brushes over the copious amounts of Berserker cum and Omega slick all over me. I carefully extricate my limbs from the tangle of Yaron’s and squeeze my legs together as hard as I can. I roll away from Yaron to the edge of the bed.
I blink, clearing cobwebs from my eyelashes. My stomach growls again and I bowl over, feeling starved. I haven’t eaten since lunch and that session with Yaron was a real workout. I want to sleep and my head feels foggy… Maybe, I’ll just eat quickly and then return to bed. Or…
I glance at Yaron. He’s out cold, just as Zanele predicted. I turn her words over. Will I ever get a better opportunity to talk to Madame Zenobia? That’s if she’s even still awake. I listen carefully, hearing Yaron’s shallow breath first, and then I extend my hearing father out. Oh yeah, Zenobia’s still awake.
The bar sounds exactly the same as it did before, a muffled chaos, even from two stories away. It doesn’t sound like any time has passed at all. Maybe I was only asleep minutes. I frown. I do really need to sleep. I’ve been exhausted lately, the stress of trying to keep everyone I love alive a lot for me, a wallflower. I frown harder, thinking about how Yaron sees me. How I see myself now, through him.
I might have been happy as a wallflower, but whoever she was, the girl in the kitchens, was set ablaze.
I don’t know who was born of the ashes, this woman that remains, but — I swallow, gaze raking over Yaron’s face, its sharp perfection making me tremble — I know that Yaron seems to like her. I also know that Yaron would not be happy at all with me if I left the room unattended.
I slide out from beneath the covers where our limbs had been intertwined, stuck together by desire and a thin sheen of sweat. It’s cool in the room — the window’s cracked open — and I quickly scamper over to my dress, which is still intact despite Yaron’s best efforts. I pull it on, fastening the corset in the front and then working it around so that the laces hang down in the back. I slip my booties on my feet and close the window, which creaks. I pick a few items off of the tray, but it’s cold now and I feel like warm food. It’s only two floors away…
I head to the door. Yaron’s cloak lies in a heap on the floor. I pick it up and think of throwing it on, then immediately dismiss the idea. While wearing his cloak would not be catastrophic in itself, wearing this cloak would be treasonous as it is held together at the throat by his sigil. I pull the clasp around and give it a close inspection. My thumb runs over the worn metal as I take in all the darkened grooves and the patterns they make. I smile shakily.
I’d expected a beast, his Berserker’s form, a snout, fangs, claws, his axe…instead, what I see shocks me… Well, it should…but it doesn’t at all. His sigil, the clasp he’s worn ever since I first saw him and well before that, the moment he ascended and his cloak and clasp were given to him in silver and in black—
It’s covered in flames. Twin logs engulfed in fire, flames rising up to consume the rest of the clasp. It’s beautiful. It’s mine, just like the male who wears it.
Feeling ballsy and light, I drop the clasp and the cloak, head for the door and step through it out into the hall. I take a deep breath and lean my weight against the door at my back, my heart full of longing and hope. I glance towards the stairs and reaffirm my resolution to get answers, to help. I take a step. A throat clears loudly behind me. I turn, expecting to see another inn patron only to see my brother standing there with his arms crossed, a surly expression on his face.
The way he’s looking at me breaks me out of the spell Yaron had me under and I immediately laugh, then choke as I try to restrain it. I clap a hand over my mouth and collapse against the wall, working hard to calm myself.
My brother’s expression tightens, but his shoulders are slumped in defeat and when he pushes off of the wall and stalks towards me, his smile is a little too forced for me to think he’s really mad. “You think I don’t know what you two were doing in there?”
“Do I seem ashamed?” I’m not ashamed. Not in the least. As my brother’s frown deepens, I laugh some more, then reach forward and pat his chest only a little condescendingly. “Sorry, I don’t mean to provoke you. And I’m sorry if you heard anything.”
“The whole fucking inn heard everything.” He steps up close to me and glances at the closed door. “Is he at least protecting you?” he says more softly.
I struggle to meet my brother’s gaze when he says that, understanding the implication of his words. Lord Yaron told me that he’s taking the wormwood root elixir and I believe him. “Yes,” I nod.
My brother slides closer and drops his tone even more. I can smell his skin, so familiar and yet…different now that we’re out of the kitchens, out of Orias, out of our home. His cloak carries a scent of its own, something woody and fresh, like moss. “And you’re…it’s…” he clears his throat. “You’re willing?”
“Yep. Yes. Yes, Cyprus. Yes, it is. I am. I promise.”
He straightens up, moving away from me at the same time that I move away from him. We both cough and kind of chuckle and shuffle awkwardly in the hallway.
“And so uhh…”
“Did you hear…”
We both start at the same time. He shakes his head and waves me to continue.
“Did you abandon Mara?”
“I told her I needed some air. That was a while ago. I haven’t…it’s…close quarters…” Cyprus’s voice breaks and I laugh.
“Cyprus, are you blushing?”
“No,” he scowls, glancing again at my door. “And I could ask you the same question anyways. What are you doing out of your room? He send you to fetch him another flagon of wine or did he just demand space from you after he finished?”
“Don’t be crass, Cyprus, and keep your voice down. He’s asleep now but he has exceptional hearing. Come on.” I wave him to follow me, a little relieved if I’m being honest with myself. I hadn’t realized I’d been scared to approach Madame Zenobia alone until Cyprus appeared. Now, I’m not scared. Now, I feel brave.
We head down the stairs while I explain the salient points of my conversation with Zanele to Cyprus. He’s nodding along by the time we reach the bustling bar floor. Again, I’m grateful he’s with me when he pushes ahead, his height and Alpha pheromones helping carve a path through the drunken, singing, dancing chaos to the long stretch of bar. Zenobia is the only person working the entire establishment, it would seem, though I know that can’t be right.
My brother and I make surprisingly easy small talk as we wait for her to make it to our end of the bar. It takes her a while. I’d have thought that the color of his cloak or the fact that we traveled here with Lord Yaron might have piqued her interest, but Madame Zenobia treats us just like she treats every other drunk at the bar.
A band plays loudly and when she arrives before us, we have to shout to be heard. Before I place an order for food, I ask her what they have.
“We have what we have.”
“Alright, I’ll have whatever you have.”
“We might not have that by the time I get back there. You’re not the only ones here if you haven’t noticed. I might have to give you the other thing.” She cocks her head and her jet-black hair slips over her shoulder in thick locs. It’s streaked with grey, her round face and lighter brown skin covered in lines that betray age and hardship and laughter.
“We’ll take two of the other thing,” Cyprus says.
Madame Zenobia gives him a funny look and waddles off without saying anything else. She returns a short eternity later, in which time I am shocked we haven’t been found out by either Yaron or Mara, but I suppose Mara must also find their quarters close and Yaron most certainly needs the rest.
“Enjoy. Though you better pay properly for this,” she says as she slides our plates across the table along with several overflowing glasses of wine. “Not like your precious Lord skimping on coin by taking two rooms instead of four.”
“I thought there were only two rooms left?” I say, pulling my plate closer. The smells are decadent. Goose, I think. The cuts are odd and I’m certain there’s a portion of neck in there, too, but the cardamom and cranberries she’s spiced it with made up for everything else, I conclude as I take my first bite and moan appreciatively.
Zenobia smirks, either at my words or the sound I’ve made. “That what your precious Lord told you, because I distinctly remember telling you otherwise, little lady?” She speaks the moniker with a lowercase L, I can feel it.
“It is.” My voice lifts, like my eyebrows, questioningly.
She chuckles and runs an already filthy rag over the wooden bar, patchy with gloss. “Almost the entire third floor where you and your Lord are staying is empty. Those are the pricey suites. Patrons come here for the booze and the whoring. They don’t want to waste precious coin on starched sheets.”
“That fucking…” Cyprus starts, then grumbles something about Yaron not trusting him enough to let him sleep in his own room, but I’m too distracted by the expression on Zenobia’s face. It appears menacing, somehow.
“Why do you keep calling him my Lord?” I ask, probably only because I have a little bit of wine and food in me now. “Isn’t he our Lord?”
Zenobia’s look deadens. The edges of my vision go dark and she somehow sucks not just the light, but the sound out of the room with it. “No man is Lord over me, witch.”
“Hey.” Cyprus bangs his fist on the counter. Zenobia looks unimpressed. “Watch your…”
“What makes you think he lords over me?” I shoot Cyprus a look to shut the fuck up.
“You think we couldn’t hear the sounds you two made? Ha. I had several patrons concerned you’d bring the entire inn down.” She laughs and I don’t tell her that Lord Yaron was prepared to do just that. I also don’t ask why she doesn’t tend to her other patrons and stays here with us.
I feel a tingling in my palms. My sore bones are renewed by that energy. I lean forward and meet her gaze steadily. I am sure when I tell her, “If you think it is me who bows to him when we are behind closed doors, you are mistaken.”
Her eyes round slightly, and her lips slacken. She looks older for a moment, a little kinder. More like an ember and less like a flame. And then she snaps back with a frown. “You are his whore and you are his whipping boy. There are none in the Shadowlands who defy him.”
“We did,” Cyprus says.
Zenobia hisses, “A few bodies here and there? I doubt Trash City paid well for that.”
“And that’s all that matters, isn’t it, the coin?” I answer back.
She gives me a scathing, assessing look. “You should know better than anyone. A woman and an Omega? You were born to be owned.”
“I am my own.”
Zenobia glares. Our faces press closer and closer together. “The Omegas that rule the North Island would do well to teach you their ways.”
“They bring only destruction. Is that what you want?”
“I want off of this cold rock ruled by men and horses.”
“You think another master would be better because she’s a woman?”
She scoffs, “You think payment is the only thing I’m taking from them in exchange for what I provide? If that was all you received, then you truly are a useless family. They will cast you aside like all the rest after you have served their purpose. You had your chance to be at their right hand and denied it.” She makes a disgusted sound, reaches beneath the bar and pulls out a bottle of amber liquid and three murky glasses. She fills them to the brim. “You two should treasure this, because you’ll be dust like all the rest of them under the light of the red moon. Your fire will not save you when war comes to your little Lord’s doorstep.”
I’m surprised to hear her speak so openly of war. Like she knows what’s coming — like she knows so much more than Lord Yaron or any of his allies. “War may come, but what makes you think that the Fates are destined to win?” I rise up in my seat, feeling an irrational rage that she would dare threaten me and Lord Yaron and turn her back on the Shadowlands so easily. “They struck at Dark City and were defeated in Paradise Hole by two Omegas and two Berserkers and their warriors. Lord Yaron was among them, or have you forgotten that? They didn’t even manage to take that city and it’s the youngest of them.”
Zenobia blinks at me once, twice, and on the third time she grins. Her pink tongue peeks out to wet her lips. She laughs and it’s a hollow, hateful-sounding thing. “My girl, has your Lord truly so little faith in you that he’s not sharing what he knows? Or…by the Fates…”
She hacks out a laugh, then reaches back beneath the bar and pours us each another amber glass. She slings hers back. Her eyes sparkle with glee when she rights herself, her black and silver locs glittering like onyx under the orange torchlight.
“Were the ports and traders truly so easily corrupted? Lord Yaron’s allegiances were thin, that I knew, but this thin, I did not. If he does not know, then the South Island has lost already. You’d do well to take your little traitorous family and head to Hjiel. Maybe, if the Fates have forgotten your treachery, by the time they make it down there, they’ll have forgotten you and you’ll be spared — your family, anyway. I don’t doubt they’ll be able to make great use of your gifts…”
I refuse to be riled by her threats. She has information and I need it. “Know what?”
But Zenobia shakes her head and starts to turn. Cyprus stands, his seat falling back and crashing into a patron who tries to confront him, but I won’t stand for that. I lift a hand and sparks flare between my fingertips. The man hastens away from me, his Alpha essence cowering, rather than compelled.
“Know what, you old crone?” Cyprus shouts after her.
Zenobia rises to the bait, her hatred of us, of everything, of the world, causing her to give in. Or perhaps, simply her interest in my gifts. She’s still watching my fingers even though the light has flared and gone, and almost absently says, “The Fates and their undead army are positioned to take the ports. Should be any day now. Then they’ll have successfully separated the North and South Islands.”
I shake my head but it’s Cyprus who snarls, “Mirage City may control the closest ports, but Ruby City controls the other. Everyone knows Ruby City is an ally to our Lord.”
Her eyes are large when she blinks at us in disbelief. “My dear, sweet, sweet children…” She shakes her head and wipes amber liquid from her bottom lip. “I do not even know how it is possible that you have not heard.”
I start to get a sick, sick, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and I no longer feel so confident as I whisper, “Heard what?”
“Ruby City has already fallen.”