Chapter 43
One year later
“Another shot, please.”
Phaedra looks me over with judgement in her eyes as she pours me another glass of clear liquid.
I couldn’t care less.
“Thanks,” I mumble. I’d do it myself, but she usually hides it from me. Today I begged her for a few drinks until she grew so sick of me she finally relented.
I down it, then rummage through the kitchen in search of a snack. I settle for the first loaf of bread I find. Anything is better than fish.
“Are you going to get dressed today, princess? Perhaps we could do your hair?”
“What the fuck for?”
The tiniest twinge of guilt eats at me as the words fall out of my mouth. I know I shouldn’t be rude to Phaedra. It’s not like she wants to be stuck on this island either.
“Sorry, Phaedra,” I mumble, spinning to face her. And then I have to shut my eyes for a moment to steady myself. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. You’re trapped on this island the same as I am.”
We’ve both been stuck here for a year. She arrived on the same boat as me, tasked with being handmaiden to the exiled princess. She wasn’t technically forced, but they offered her a deal she couldn’t refuse. Money to help her family and her dying mother back in Ellyar.
She nods. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not. We’re fucking prisoners here.”
She doesn’t agree, but she doesn’t argue either.
“It’s quite ironic, really… being trapped by a sea of water when we’re both supposed to command the element.
” I examine the two cuffs secured around my wrists.
They’re impossible to get off. I’ve tried.
At first, I thought they were metal, but upon closer inspection, they’re not metal at all.
They’re something else entirely. Something crafted out of cruelty.
“Ironic is one word. A cruel, sick joke is another way to put it.”
Yes, she was sent here with me to be my handmaiden.
But since no one ever pays attention to what we do here, I said fuck that.
She is a person, just like me. There’s nothing I would require assistance with here anyway.
I go nowhere and I do nothing. We have an abysmally small library, a small room with instruments and painting supplies, and that’s about it.
You’d think being stuck here we’d have formed a closer bond, but I keep to myself most days.
I search for my drinks that are never hidden well, peruse the library, and sleep the rest of the time.
“I’m going for a walk on the beach. Want to join?”
My face falls. “No.”
I turn from her and exit the kitchen. “I’ll be in the library,” I call back to her.
One thing I will never do here is walk along that ashy brown sand.
It reminds me of broken promises.
I wait around the corner, listening for her retreating footsteps, then I sneak back into the kitchen and grab the bottle she hid, right next to where she was standing. It’s like she doesn’t even try.
I take it to the library, then grab a book at random. I don’t even care what it’s about, so long as it’s not romance.
I drink a few big swigs out of the bottle as I settle in to read about gardening.
Before I know it, my eyes are glazing over. I take another drink and rest my head on the book, folding my arms on the table.
How is it that the taupe-colored sand is the exact same shade of his hair color?