24 | Kiandah
Shadow Keep
“Where’s Yaron?” I ask Lady Radmilla for the third time that day.
She gives me a face, lots of lines twisting down, as if she’s not happy with what she’s said to me already and what she’s going to say to me now. “He’s elected to sleep in his chambers off of the throne room. He wanted me to relay a message.”
She clears her throat, looking decidedly uncomfortable as she stands at the foot of the bed after having turned it down — a thing I didn’t even know servants did for Lords and Ladies and still don’t understand why. My hands aren’t broken. It’s not like I can’t fold a sheet. If I’m going to be living here in the long term, I’m going to need to talk to Yaron about making some changes to the scope of work of the…
…staff.
I realize I’m staring when Radmilla’s expression changes. Her mouth is open, prepared to tell me whatever it was she was going to tell me, but at the last moment, she cocks her head to the side. “Are you alright, my Lady?”
I shake my head and grip the back of the low-profile armchair before me. I’d been standing behind it, folding some of my new clothes and debating where to put them. Yaron has a closet the size of a shoe box on the other side of the room, behind and to the right of the bed. His armoire is massive, don’t get me wrong, but it’s entirely filled with cloaks, armor and weapons. The smallest shelf has a few pairs of thick boot socks, trousers and tunics scattered across it in a way that surprises me for a male who does everything else with precision. Except fuck me. I blush at the thought of how…crazed he was at the inn. It was nice. Fun.
Returning my thoughts to the closet, I find myself struggling not to smile. Hanging my pretty dresses in the mix of leather and steel didn’t seem quite right, though I will need a place to put them in the short to medium term. And now I realize I’ve done it again.
Just by folding my clothes and inspecting Yaron’s closet, I’ve already made a decision, haven’t I? But maybe, now that Yaron’s had me again, he’s changed his mind. He didn’t seem quite right after the Sea Witch. Perhaps, he really is much angrier with me than I thought he was for leaving his bed in the night. Or worse, maybe I really did overstep and what I wrote to some of the Berserkers of other cities was wrong.
“My Lady?”
“Kiandah,” I say, almost at a bark, instinctively.
“Of course,” Radmilla responds.
“Sorry, I’m just a little confused. I thought that Yaron would be coming back.”
Radmilla shakes her head again, her gaze flitting to the side. “He has requested you remain in your chambers. He will be remaining in the throne room until the threat of Trash City has passed.”
I almost choke. “What? That could be months.” That could be never.
“I um…my Lady — Kiandah. I…I think once we hold the Red Moon Festival and he has bonded you, he will feel differently.”
“Does he even still want that?” I balk. “After we left the inn and returned to the keep, he’s been nothing but distant. I know that he’s stressed about the crisis on the North Island, but I can help. He wouldn’t have even known so soon that Ruby City fell if I hadn’t told him.” Anger ticks at my temples and I struggle to keep it from infecting my tone.
“And he knows that. He doesn’t value you any less now that you’ve returned to the keep…”
“Then what is it, Radmilla? I’m tired of him treating me like a prisoner…”
“He doesn’t view you as a prisoner. You are precious to him…”
“Yes. A thing too precious to release from its cage.”
Radmilla swallows her next words. She swipes her fingers across her grey hair, tucking its thick mass behind her ear. Outside the door is a slight commotion. Though the sound is perfectly ignorable, she sighs, as if relieved for the interruption. She goes to the door to peek outside and then opens it fully.
“Come in.” She gestures for Zelie and a girl I don’t know to enter — wait…I do know her, I realize on closer inspection. She’s the young girl that arrived from Ruby City with her grandparents. I’m surprised at the sight of her and don’t immediately respond when Radmilla tells me to eat and that she’ll request a more satisfactory response from Lord Yaron.
I nod noncommittally, too distracted by the sight of my sister with this little girl. Radmilla shuts the door and I can see Cyprus standing outside, a curious expression on his face as the door clicks shut between us.
“Hey, Kia, are you alright?” Zelie sets her tray down on the low table in front of the armchair I’m standing behind. I round it and am only partially distracted by the thick, spongy rolls of n’jorra bread beneath piles of n’sheer and gora — decadent delicacies more often cooked by our relatives further east in Undoline and beyond. N’jorra bread is the staple base diet of Gold City.
“Yeah,” I sigh. “It’s just tense with this…news.” I give Zelie a quick hug before gesturing for the two women to sit with me and enjoy the food — most of our foods, though they’re served on one tray, are meant to be shared. “Please. I can’t eat it all by myself.”
The two females don’t hesitate more than a second — Zelie less than that. Together, we dive in with our hands, the young girl eyeing us both skeptically at first before diving in with zeal. My heart clenches at the sight of her tattered black hair hanging by her knees as she bends over them to reach the table.
I stand up and push her chair further in. She thanks me, wiping her brown hand across her mouth. She’s still a bit dirty, even though I can see that someone tried to clean her up the best they could. I take another few bites before going to the door and opening it. I tell Cyprus to find whoever he needs to find to bring fresh clothes for her. I plan to let her bathe in our quarters and she needs fresh clothes afterwards.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
I nod. “The girl needs some care.”
“She’s from Ruby City?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s she doing here with Zelie?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m about to find out. I’ll tell you when you’re back. Just knock.”
Cyprus looks like he’s going to say something, then doesn’t. He nods, and I step out of the room and grab the edge of his cloak. He jerks away from me like my hands have been covered in acid then dipped in shards of glass. “What?” I say, feeling my frustration mount with Yaron, with the day, with the refugees and the troubling news that they bring.
“Fuck. Did you just touch me?”
“Yeah.” I glance to the left and to the right, feeling dumb — feeling like he’s dumb. “You’re my brother.”
He’s not listening to my reply, but rubbing at his shoulder roughly. “Fuck. Kiandah, you can’t touch me. Or any Alpha. Or anyone at all, really. Yaron’s fucking losing it.” He drops his tone so he can’t be overheard, though there isn’t anyone in the small stone alcove, anyway. “He’s given a castle-wide edict that anyone that touches you will lose a hand.”
I blink at him, stupefied, wondering if this isn’t some kind of joke. “Is this a joke?”
“Do I look like I’m joking? I’m going to have to burn this fucking cloak. He’s already pissed at me for taking you out of his room at that inn. He told me personally that if he didn’t need me here while he’s out, he’d string me up in the dungeons by my heels.”
“Wait. What? He’s out?”
“Yes. He left as soon as we returned. He and a small war party are in Paradise Hole, trying to root out where the undead are being stored. Apparently he scented the undead on some of the refugees and a few more of the port workers came forward, admitting to having seen some of the undead loitering in the woods of Paradise Hole. I think that people are actually starting to panic about the undead now that the news of Ruby City’s fall has spread and the threat feels more real. When it was just a matter for those northern idiots to take care of, people were fine staying quiet about the undead and the Fates. But now that they’ve taken Ruby City? Our closest ally to the north? It must have people spooked.”
I nod, but I’m still too shocked to properly digest his words. “Yaron…Radmilla told me he was in his chambers in the throne room.”
“He was. He left them a short time ago.”
I feel a little unseated, like the floor beneath my feet is sloped and I’m falling towards something. A trap. The thought blitzes me and I shake my head, unsure of what I’m feeling and why I’m feeling it. It’s just Yaron being erratic, I conclude as I softly shut the door behind me. I’m feeling betrayed by him. We shared…what we shared…after he took lashes for my family and asked me to be his bride and I confessed that I was falling…am falling…fell months ago…years…
Then poof. Gone in the light of day. Like a dream. Or a nightmare. Only because the feelings he made me feel were so very real and now they feel like they’re no longer reciprocated.
“Kandia? You all good?” Cyprus says. He puts his hand on my shoulder then cringes and curses at his palm as he lifts it. The whole episode makes me snort-laugh.
Cyprus glares at me. “Laugh all you want. It’s only my hand we’re dealing with.”
“Get out of here, crazy.” I kick him in the butt.
He points at me sternly from the top of the stairs. “You never used to talk to me like this before you became the Lady of the Shadowlands. Don’t forget, you’re still the same girl who laughed so hard when that bag of flour burst all over me, she peed herself!”
“I’m not Lady of anything yet! Now, get out of here!” I say, turning my back on him as he slips down the staircase and returning to my sister and new friend.
“Kiandah? Are you okay? Come eat,” Zelie says, gesturing me back over to them. I see they’ve finished off about half of the tray in my absence and I quickly dive in before it’s no longer warm.
I glance at the little girl who now lies back in her chair, looking like she’s going to fall asleep right there. I smirk.
“Hi there,” I say to her.
“Kiandah, this is Margarite,” Zelie offers.
I give the girl a gentle smile, trying to ignore the strange feeling I get while watching her. It’s like…I know her — not just from the inn, but from somewhere else. “Hi there.”
The girl’s eyes get big and then she sits up. “Hi. I’m Margarite,” she says in her Ruby City drawl. It’s such a cute accent, cuter in her voice, which I’m starting to think may be even younger than I initially thought.
“What do you think about the food?”
“It’s so yummy. I wish my people could cook like this.”
Huh. A strange phrasing, I prompt her on it. “You mean your parents?”
“That’s right.” She nods, eyes lighting up as she smiles.
But I tilt my head. “Did your parents come with you across the sea?”
“Yes, they did. We were very lucky to stay together.”
“But…” I don’t know how to phrase this politely. “Sorry, it was late and I might have been mistaken. Didn’t you arrive with your grandparents?”
“Oh yes,” she says again, just as adamantly. Then, as if realizing that I’m looking at her funny, she shrinks down in her seat. “Well, they are my parents now. My real parents died.”
I feel like immediate shit. “I am so sorry. Did they…” I was going to ask her if they died in the battle of Ruby City — if they were killed by the undead — but then I remember this girl must be somewhere between six and ten and I don’t have the heart to make her relive it. Changing topics, I say between bites of savory bean curry and sour sponge bread, “I saw you at the inn, didn’t I?”
She nods vigorously.
“You were very brave, crossing Zaoul like you did.”
She frowns abruptly then, looking very small and making me feel even worse. I scoot forward and place my food-free hand on her knee. She doesn’t flinch away from me like I thought she might and I take that as a win. I smile at her and she holds my gaze a little easier.
“Very brave,” I repeat. “How did you meet my sister?”
“Which one?”
She glances at Zelie then, who smiles and says, “Her quarters are close to ours. Much nicer, though.” She sticks out her tongue and pushes her voluminous twists over her shoulder. “You get to stay in the room right next to that cool suit of armor. I call him Harold. He’s pretty nice, don’t you think?”
She giggles and shakes her head. “He can’t talk.”
“Oh yes he can. Harold and I chat every day. I’ll introduce you when we go back.”
She giggles again and I smile, feeling a little more relaxed. “Were you helping Zelie in the kitchens?”
Margarite shakes her head. “I just saw her when she was leaving. She looked like the other one who helped us before we got here. So do you.”
“The other one?” Zelie says, sounding as confused as I feel. My pulse has started to increase…
“Your other sister. She said she was the sister of the Lady of the Shadowlands and that the Lady of the Shadowlands would keep me safe. That’s you, isn’t it?” She points at me, but my throat is dry.
I stare at Zelie and shake my head. Zelie’s eyes are equally wide. “You don’t think…” she starts, then swallows hard. “Do you think she met Owenna?”
“What? Where’s Owenna?”
“Remember, after the whipping, she left?”
“That was days ago!” I would have shot up to my feet if I didn’t simultaneously feel like fainting. “Ancestors help her, where is she?”
“I…I don’t really know,” Zelie stutters, waving her hands. “She said she was going shopping and then never came back. One of the Riders reported that Sipho escorted her to Undoline to visit relatives…”
“Why would she go visit relatives?”
Zelie shrugs.
We glance back to the girl in unison. I speak first, trying to keep my voice light, pleasant and calm so I can keep her talking. “Margarite, the woman you saw who said she was my sister…where did you see her? At the ports?”
“No. We didn’t land at the ports. We crashed on a beach beside these big cliffs in the morning. There were caves in the sides of the cliffs. That’s where your sister was.”
“Oblivion?” Zelie says, startled. She looks at me and shakes her head and I know that she’s just as shocked as I am.
“Yes.” Margarite nods enthusiastically, her drawl growing drawlier as she becomes more and more absorbed by the food. “This is very tasty, by the way. I’ve never had anything like it.”
I smile at her when she looks at me, but it’s delayed. It’s hard to keep the worry from my voice as I prod her again, “Was there anyone else with them?”
She looks at me, her mouth full, her eyes bugging out. She smiles. “Oh yes.” The girl nods vigorously. “Lots of people. They wore rags and had big guns and brought us up a path through the cliffs. It was really narrow and steep and it came all the way out onto the top and that’s where I saw your sister and she told the lady with the goggles that she’d take us to the ports, but she lied.”
The girl frowns. “She said I’d get to see my mommy and daddy again, but instead she brought me and my grandparents to that inn. We had to walk so far. It took us until the sun got dark. The woman who owned it didn’t want us there — she wanted us to go to the ports, too — but your sister lied again. She said that she didn’t want us to go to the ports, so she should make us the Lady’s problem. That’s you, isn’t it? The Lady she was talking about?”
I’m so frazzled I don’t answer except with a dull nod. The girl grins up at me. “Your sister wasn’t very nice but she said you would be. And she also gave me a message for you. Just for you. She said I wasn’t allowed to tell anybody else.”
“Can my sister hear it, too?”
The girl glances at Zelie and then, in true little girl fashion, shrugs and smiles and says, “Sure.”
“What did she tell you?”
“She said to tell you not to try to find her. She said she’d be fine, but I don’t know, she sounded very scared, too.”
“What?” I say, voice sounding very far away. I feel my sweaty fingers curl into the nice fabric of my new dress. This one doesn’t have a corset, but built in boning that stabs into my ribs when I jerk abruptly forward. I almost topple the tray as I reach for my glass of wine and down half of it in one swallow.
The young girl stares me in the eyes unflinchingly in a way that unnerves me as she repeats what she said before, word for word. She cocks her head as she finishes. “But if it were my sister, I think I’d want to help her.”
“And you’d be right,” Zelie says, rising to her feet at once. “We have to go.”
“We should tell the Riders,” I say.
“Yes,” the little girl nods. “That would be good. The Riders are friends with the people in the rags, right? They were dressed like refugees, too. And you were so nice to us, maybe you and the Riders will be nice to them, too. Since your sister was with them, they’ll give her a nice room and some good food.” She smiles. Her teeth are so clean compared to the rest of her body. I feel…sick. The girl is nodding along enthusiastically, but I know better than she does. I know the truth of it.
Zelie and I exchange a look. I’m sitting. She’s standing. I drink the rest of my wine and set down my glass, then I stand, too. We don’t need to speak for me to know what she’s thinking. “We can’t. Owenna is a grown woman. She needs to own her decisions.” I try to remain cryptic — the little girl doesn’t need to overhear talks of war and torture.
Zelie doesn’t have such qualms and spits, “If Lord Yaron finds out she’s working with Trash City again, what do you think he’ll do?”
I wince. My heart sinks, shattering into pieces. I can’t picture it, but I know I won’t survive whatever it is…not only because I’ll lose Owenna… I’ll lose Yaron, too. “It’s too dangerous, Zelie.”
“We have to try for her. You know she’d try for you.”
I don’t know that, but Zelie must know as well as I do that my decision is already made. I will have to beg forgiveness from Yaron later, if he finds out, and I have no doubt he will find out. If he was on the fence about me before…then he will certainly forsake me after this. My heart will be broken no matter what. But…Owenna has left me with no choice.
Again.
I look into Zelie’s pretty, familiar eyes and clench my hands into fists, feeling how they heat at the center of each palm. She says, “If we find her, how will we get her out of there?” She scratches the back of her arm, looking so beautiful in her new dress.
“I don’t know. But we need to go to the Cliffs of Oblivion. Now. I just…I don’t think I’m allowed to leave the castle… After what happened last time, the guards will stop me, I’m sure of it.”
“I know a way.” The little girl stands up, her head tilted to the side. “One of the boys who works in the stables showed me when those nice ladies brought us to the castle and gave us our rooms. I got to go play for a little while. That’s how I got all this dirt on me.” She smiles as she shows off her skirts, covered in dirt — or possibly, horse manure. “My grandparents weren’t happy.”
I smile hesitantly. “I couldn’t ask you to risk yourself…”
“No, no, no risk. I will just go right back to my grandparents after this. They don’t even know I’m gone, really.” She gets up and, with the confidence of a much older girl — or perhaps, a much younger infant who doesn’t understand rules or the consequences breaking them can bring — she comes to me and takes my hand. She leads me to the door and then opens it. Cyprus isn’t back yet, which is our first bit of fortune, but what makes me instantly suspicious is that the guards that were at the bottom of the stairs earlier en masse are no longer there, either.
“See here, this way,” she says, taking a servant’s passage hidden behind a pretty tapestry, instead of the central corridor that tapestry hangs in. She walks like she knows her way, like she’s done this a thousand times before, taking twists and turns, leading Zelie and I down suspiciously empty servants’ passages, through a suspiciously empty castle, out of a conveniently placed side door that deposits us right near the stables. “You can just follow that dirt lane to the main highway line there, I think. That’s what the little boy said. Good luck saving your sister! Tell her Margarite said hi when you find her!”
The little girl leaves us, returning the way she came, and Zelie and I stare at one another in her absence. It isn’t cold, but I feel cold as I stand there, prepared to defy Yaron yet again.
“This isn’t a good idea, Zelie.”
She nods. “You’re right. It isn’t.”
“But if we don’t, Owenna’s as good as dead — either killed by Trash City, or by Yaron when he discovers her. Right?”
Zelie nods, glancing back at the castle, grim determination etched into the lines of her expression. “Trash City has guns.” She hugs her elbows, her dress a pretty pattern of bright oranges and purples. Not armor. Not even camouflage.
I scratch the back of my neck. “I’m a Fire Omega. I can protect Owenna.” I think. I hope.
“You know what they say about fighting fire with fire.”
I smile, though it feels shaky. I don’t think my fire can melt bullets, but I don’t dare tell Zelie that. Instead, I lie again, “I can do this.” She nods her head just once, looking longingly back at the castle, towards the small servants’ exit, but we take the other path.