Chapter 9 #2
There’s no clock up here to mark the passage of the day, only the steady dip of the sun. The cave entrance shows a whisky-colored glow in the sky and the golden puff of cotton-clouds.
Take a break. A small one.
The drip of blood from my split knuckle has turned sluggish. Those are the devil’s whispers.
I glance around for any sign of Mrs. Milkin or one of her spies, coming to check on me, but dump the empty bucket into one of the drainage gullies for the fifth time and settle with my spine to stone.
My mother wouldn’t recognize me if she could see me now. She’d trained me to lead, to fight, to protect others. She never prepared me for this—kneeling in dragon dung, scrubbing stone until my hands bleed.
I had an organized chaos to life that only I understood.
I didn’t want this chaos. I wanted my books, my weapons, my letters from Father—all tied with red twine and kept safe in my room. The room that’s ash now.
Nostalgia blooms in my chest at the memory of a better time. The sun might be different here, but if I close my eyes, if I bathe in the golden light, then maybe I’ll be able to convince myself—this is a dream.
I’ll wake up from it one day.
One second at a time, I force myself back into my agonized body. Force my hands to loosen, scabs tearing open, and carry the empty bucket to the spigot with the boiling water. Force my aching knee joints to handle each step at a time back to the perch and pick up where I left off.
Small blessing? The dragons are out for the day.
They’d only left their stench and their mess behind for me.
“Wow, princess, this is a good look for you. How the mighty have fallen.”
I jolt and my heart races without warning. That voice.
The rich, deep baritone cuts through every mental defense I’ve put into place since Fallkirk and when I turn, staring over my shoulder, there’s the dark and stormy dragon riding jerk.
I smirk but there’s no heat in the gesture, only shame. A retort is right there and prepared to be launched and I hold it back. What good will it do?
Kieran pushes away from the wall and stomps forward, the sound of his footsteps echoing off the cavernous walls of the perch. “What’s the matter, princess? Where’s that sharp tongue now? Or did they scrub that away along with your dignity?”
How long has he been watching me?
“Less than a week ago, you had more than enough to say,” he adds.
“I don’t know why you’re giving her the time of day, Kieran. Look at her. She’s practically an animal. She doesn’t understand you.”
Kieran didn’t come alone, and the simple fact that I’d missed his companion sits poorly with me.
The blonde is pretty, I realize with a start. Pretty, direct, and vicious. Her laughter peals out of her and shrinks her turquoise-colored eyes.
I hate her immediately. She’s the type of beautiful who has never had to get her hands dirty in her life unless she wants to. Right now, she’s focusing on me, and my skin tightens in wretched anticipation.
“I mean, seriously. She’s trying to clean the perches with the same mixture as one would the marble floors.” Her sneer is a thing of beauty and no warmth reaches those eyes.
My stomach drops. No one told me there was a different mixture for different surfaces. But then, no one told me a lot of things. They just gave me a bucket and pointed the way. Like they are purposely setting me up to fail.
The blonde hinges at the waist to bring herself eye level with me. “Stupid little thing, isn’t she?”
My fingers curl into fists, hidden in the water, as Kieran clucks his tongue.
“Evie, enough.”
Categorizing her type out loud will only inspire more insipid taunts. The blonde is a spiteful witch. They act like their physical characteristics gave them some sort of inherent superiority.
I duck my head to keep her from seeing the rage, which always shows itself on my face.
Elspeth used to say I wear my anger like a shield on the battlefield. No matter what I do, there’s no hiding it.
“Stupid and plain,” the blonde adds. “That dress is perfect for you—shapeless, colorless, defeated. It matches your prospects beautifully.” She sniffs. “And you reek of dung.”
“I said enough.”
Kieran’s warning is clear.
“Come on, I’m having some fun,” Evie says with a singsong trill.
She pauses, indulgent, anticipating how Kieran will take her side. And why won’t he? They’re the same, cut from the same cloth.
They look good together. I spare a glance at them, the blonde closer to me and Kieran a storm cloud in the distance.
She’s willowy, slender, but strong. The cut of her armor shows off the toned muscles in her arms and legs.
A leather cuirass hugs her curves, bracers holding daggers at her wrists.
The spires of blonde hair are pulled away from her face by a diadem of metal and leather, some strands braided in a plait down to the middle of her back.
“Your kind of fun can be chaotic.” Kieran crosses his arms over his chest but I notice he’s not averse to joining in the taunting. After all—
“Princess?” I finally say.
My lips are swollen and I run my hand across my teeth. My cheeks burn with the movement, a gift from Mrs. Milkin.
Blast if I’ll let those two see my bruises.
“Trust me, he’s not using it as a term of endearment,” the girl corrects.
No, it’s a slur, to remind me of exactly how far I’ve fallen. There are certain things I don’t need spelled out for me and this one is evident.
The perch is emptied of dragons, including the black beast I’d seen Kieran ride during the battle. Determined to ignore them and get this heinous job finished before one of the lizards returns, I shake the droplets from the scrub brush and slice it across a stretch of rock.
The porous material absorbs the moisture and fills the air with the pungent scent of musk.
Pain spirals from the top of my head as the blonde grabs my hair and wrenches me off my knees. I swallow down a screech, flailing for her wrists and slipping over her bracers.
She drags me backward and stops when I’m flat on my spine. In a quick flash, she releases my hair and steps down on my wrist, pinning me. I kick out and knock into the bucket, spilling it everywhere.
Soap and dung leach into my dress and stain the bottom of her shoes.
“Evie.” Kieran says her name in a low warning.
One she ignores.
“I know you,” she tells me in an undertone, her gaze maniacally bright. “I know exactly what you think of me, too.”
“Then why don’t you say it out loud?” I push.
She arches a perfect brow at my whisper. “There’s no need. I’m loyal to the crown, and I’m loyal to General Ryson. You are nothing but the scum he failed to crush beneath his boot. You won’t find DragonSpear a welcoming place for your kind, even if you are on the other side of the line now.”
She presses down on my wrist hard enough for the tendons to protest and my fingers to curl reflexively. I grunt against the pain but hold her gaze.
How bad will it be to take a swing at the sadistic blonde?
Bad, a small voice in my head adds immediately. It will be bad.
Because I know what happens to women at the mines. That’s where I’ll go, where she’ll insist I go. The pits are a necessary part of the infrastructure, or so my tutors always said, but the labor sculpting the minerals and metals from the bowels of the earth isn’t there willingly.
Evie’s smile flickers like she’s indexing the extent of my mental conversation.
“That’s right,” she says. “You understand, don’t you? You’re lucky to be here, because what waits in the mines…”
She pauses, savoring my fear. “Well, let’s just say even death becomes a mercy you’ll beg for.”
Kieran stalks forward but he stops close enough to touch, close enough to push her off of me if he wants to. He doesn’t. He looks down at me and strain paints his features with more shadows. A small dip of his chin is nothing but a quiet acknowledgement of my suffering.
It’s not enough.
We both look away immediately.
“Pretty girls are raped in the mines,” Evie continues with obvious glee. “If not by the other miners then by their guards.”
She snaps her teeth at the last word and her head drops backward in peals of laughter. I squint at her.
She’s worse, so much worse than Tristan. Seems like it’s a character defect that goes along with the hair color. Still, her laughter winds its way into my system and the blood boils in my veins, because she’s not wrong. Not by a mile.
I’ve heard stories even in the village of what happens to prisoners damned to the mines.
Brutalized, tormented, withheld at the brink of death without being allowed the bliss of expiration. There are worse things than burning, and I know it.
Evie knows it, too.
Her laughter continues in my head long after she makes her exit, leaving me in a puddle of musk and soap. Kieran, without a glance in my direction, trails her out.
The spiteful witch has made her point.
There are ways to tamp down the fire of rebellion that don’t involve physical torment. Why break bones when you can break souls so much more efficiently?