Chapter 7 #2
I had gotten terribly used to it back in Falkyr.
Savouring my breakfast while watching the city waking up was one of my favourite things to do.
I hadn’t really paid much attention to the view I had from the cream stone terrace that ran around two sides of my room when I had been trying to get some sleep, but now I wanted to see it.
I wanted to see what this court looked like and study it, putting all the avenues, buildings, and escape routes to memory.
Both females nodded and took my breakfast trays to the terrace as I opened the curtains to let light flood into the room, unlatched the doors and pushed them open.
The handmaidens arranged everything neatly on a small table that had two painted wrought iron chairs positioned beside it.
“We shall return within the hour to dress you.” The older one bowed her head again and ushered the younger one away.
I waited for the door to close before I turned to my breakfast and my view.
I missed Falkyr.
The view was stunning, full of vivid green and colourful blooms, but the city was so far away I couldn’t really see it.
Below me, a huge garden encircled the castle, tree-lined avenues separating the greener areas.
Each section was different, a mixture of meadows with seating or arbours, and ones where formal hedging enclosed a riot of blooms of different colours.
In the hearts of those hedged areas were fountains and small paths that cut between the fountain and the main avenues.
Beyond the spokes of the formal gardens, pale stone buildings towered two or three storeys tall, the pitched roofs a mixture of verdigris and bronze.
Their walled gardens extended towards the castle, meeting a wide road that formed a ring.
High, fortified stone walls loomed behind them, and I spied at least one gatehouse in the distance to my left, towards the front of the castle.
That wall concealed the rest of the city, stealing it from view.
Everything here was so pristine. So clean. So bright.
I supposed it was beautiful, and the room behind me was so opulent that many would be happy here, soaking up all this sunshine and breathing in the blossoming fruit trees, and enjoying the luxury offered here.
Not me.
I missed the darker beauty of the Shadow Court.
That panorama stretching before me, so much greener and more vivid than the one I was used to, lacked excitement and interest. Very few people moved around, all of them so distant from me, and it was so quiet and still that I felt as if I was trapped within a bubble, cut off from everything.
That strange calm unsettled me most of all.
No crashing waves beyond the safety of the harbour walls. No thundering waterfall. No birds calling as they drifted and danced on the sea breeze, or voices being raised at them in anger whenever they swooped to steal a fish from the market on the docks.
This place felt cold. Soulless.
Falkyr was ruled by an iron fist, its people subjected to isolation that was slowly lifting thanks to me, but there had been music, and merry conversations, and life.
I watched the highborn milling around the grounds below me as I ate a breakfast that lacked the buttery toast and mountains of bacon I had taken for granted in my time at the Shadow Court, and then lifted my gaze, settling it on that high wall beyond the houses of the lords and ladies of this court that hid the city from view.
As if the nobles wanted to keep it away from them.
Another knock sounded and this time the handmaiden didn’t wait for me to tell her to enter. She bustled into the room, stopping only when she reached the door at my back.
“My lady, the steward wishes to see you.”
I froze with some sort of circular bread that had been slathered with a fruit preserve halfway to my mouth and slowly looked over my shoulder at her. Her grave look didn’t fill me with confidence.
“Did he say why?” I set the bread down on the plate and pushed to my feet.
“No, my lady.” She shook her head. “Only that I am to get you dressed and the guards will take you there directly.”
I smiled, hiding the nerves that rose within me as I nodded.
Maybe he wanted to talk to me about my time at the Shadow Court like he had threatened at the presentation.
I had the feeling I was going to have to lie a lot, and well, if I was going to survive this place.
If Sylvan suspected I was a spy of sorts, sent here by the Shadow King, he would make an example of me, and I was under no illusion that I would be alive at the end of it.
My handmaiden set to work, and I didn’t fuss as she removed my robe and nightdress, leaving me bare before she stuffed me into another gaudy dress, this time one of pure gold that had been stitched with embroidery that depicted flowers.
The skirt of this one wasn’t as full, and it felt lighter, giving me more freedom of movement. Good.
She went to touch my hair.
“Leave it. I’ll do it.” I took the brush from her, running it through my silver-white hair before I nimbly plaited it into a long rope that felt right against my back when I was done.
The handmaiden gave my braid a look that I could easily interpret. It wasn’t the right look for an heir. Well, unless I was expected to appear at a formal gathering, this was what I would look like, and the people here would have to get used to it. Surely an heir had some say over their appearance.
She was lucky I wasn’t asking for a blouse and pants.
I sneered at the silk slippers she took from one of my wardrobes. She caught my look and glanced between the shoes and me.
“I don’t suppose you have any boots in there, do you?” I swept across the room, a rustle of silk that grated on my nerves, and wrinkled my nose at the rows of very pretty slippers. “I suppose not.”
“Only your riding boots, my lady,” she said and opened the next wardrobe, revealing terribly formal riding gear in the form of another dress just when I had been hoping riding wear would be trousers and a shirt.
But there was a pair of leather boots.
“They’ll have to do.” I went to reach for them and she beat me to it, taking them up and ushering me back to the dressing table. I sat on the stool and let her put them on my feet for me.
Could I dismiss my handmaidens? Did I have the power to tell Sylvan I wanted to dress myself? I curled a lip. I couldn’t put a dress like this on by myself though. Unless I was given a different sort of dress, one with a front fastening corset.
I made a decision.
Today, I would test the limits of my power.
Phase one of my plan: find out what I could and could not do, and how much power I wielded.
Satisfied with my appearance and my plan, I strode for the bed. I grabbed the dagger from beneath my pillow.
The handmaiden’s eyes widened upon falling on it. “My lady.”
I shook my head, cutting her off before she could voice whatever opinion she had about it. “It comes with me.”
Because Lorien’s threat had rung in my tired mind all night and I wasn’t going to be caught unarmed by him.
I couldn’t shift in this stupid dress, with the corset that felt as if it was squeezing all the air from my lungs drop by drop, and I couldn’t fight easily in it either.
I had enough freedom of movement to wield a blade, but not enough to get into a fist fight without being at a severe disadvantage.
She nodded and scurried to the double doors, opening them for me.
Revealing two males dressed in teal tunics and trousers.
Guards.
I followed them from the room, along the broad corridor that had windows along the left side of it that provided a view of a smaller formal courtyard garden below and the other wing of this part of the castle.
We turned left at the end of it, and halfway along that side of the gallery banked right, heading down the wide stone staircase.
At the next floor, they followed the straight winding staircase down another level.
This time, they branched away from the stairs.
Several fae passed me, all wearing light coloured clothing, and each of them nodded to me.
They reeked of highborn. I peered along the wide corridor in both directions, noting how many wooden doors punctured the cream walls.
Did this level act like the one in Falkyr where Kaeleron had his office?
The dining room and his private drawing room were on that level, as well as several other offices for council members and Jenavyr.
My guards stopped outside a set of wooden double doors that had been carved with a hunting scene.
“Enter.” Sylvan’s deep voice boomed through the barrier between us before one of the guards had even knocked.
The guards stepped to one side, clearing the door, leaned towards each other and took hold of a handle each. They pressed down at the same time, as if they had practiced this move a thousand times, and bowed their heads as they pushed the doors open for me.
I swept into the room with as much grace as I could muster as I gripped my dagger in one hand and twisted the ring on my finger around with the thumb of my other, making it appear as a plain silver band.
Because I couldn’t risk losing it.
It allowed both of us to know the other was safe, and I knew how badly Kaeleron would need that connection to me while we were apart.
I couldn’t risk Sylvan recognising it and taking it from me.
The regal blond male stood from behind his oak desk as I entered, the golden embroidery on his crisp white tunic jacket catching the light that streamed in through the three arched windows on the pale stone wall behind him.
His smile was perfect.
Practiced.
Dreadful.
“Sit.”
He gestured to the gilt-framed padded chair on the other side of his desk.
That viper’s smile widening as he uttered a handful of words that shook my courage.
“I want to know everything about your time in the Shadow Court.”