Chapter 24 #2
“Would you like any help carrying those to the laundry room?” I ask delicately.
I have to get the right tone or else I’ll come off as disingenuous.
My heart skips a beat waiting for acknowledgment. The darker haired woman in her mid-forties opens her mouth to answer and her friend elbows her in the side.
Both shake their heads like mimics of the other. “Just get the broom.”
The demand is made in no uncertain terms. Another skipped beat, another slight wave of dizziness from the uneasy rhythm, and I watch the two disappear.
Dismissed, just like that. I think about kicking the dirty bucket for an outlet but that’s only going to make more work for myself. I shove it gently into the corner and take up the broom, forcing my fingers to mold around the handle.
It’s a break from cleaning off the tabletops but not by much. I push the dress sleeves up to the crook of my elbows.
And the longer the day goes, the more I realize—it’s hopeless. This type of work, each menial task, bleeds into the next. There’s no way to prove myself or to stand out. Not like this. There’s no way to show how useful I can be when none of these activities play to my strengths.
I drag the top bristles of the broom through the mess of crumbs and forgotten bits of potatoes. The motion does nothing but spread the mess. I’m certainly not making any headway with the debris.
I pause, running my fingers along the bristles. Cut. Of course they’re cut—not obviously, just enough to make them useless for actually sweeping. The ends are uneven, shortened, destroyed.
Another gift from Daisy and her little followers. Just like the leaking bucket. Just like every other “accident” that’s made my work impossible.
My grip tightens on the handle. Fine. She wants to play games? Let’s see how creative I can get with a sabotaged broom.
One of the kitchen workers setting out fresh candle tapers pauses to look at me, and I realize I’m gritting my teeth at the ruined broom.
I force what I hope passes for a smile, but it only seems to scare him more. He scurries off, and I’m left alone with Daisy’s latest handiwork.
So this is her game. Make the tools fail, make the tasks impossible, then sit back and watch me struggle. Well, I refused to give her the satisfaction earlier, and I’m not about to start now.
I may not be able to prove what she’s doing, but I can still find a way to get this job done. Somehow.
Sabotaged on all fronts, but not defeated. Not yet.
I growl at the broom handle and the messy mandala of dirt and food in a circle at my feet.
“Aw, this is adorable.” Evie claps slowly and steps into the dining hall. “Is our wittle Morgan having trouble sweeping? We came at the right time, ladies.”
Her affected tone makes the clique of girls behind her giggle uproariously.
I critique the scene in an instant. Evie, wearing her black DragonSpear tunic, her hair done up.
No weapons. Her friends are dressed similarly and I wonder if they trail her in a gaggle on a normal basis or if she somehow had a gut feeling she’d need backup today.
“I find you knowing my name adorable,” I toss back. “How many people did you have to ask?”
Evie pulls up short, her pretty nose twisted up toward the ceiling. Her sneer is a thing of practiced beauty and I halfway wonder if she looks this polished and perfect when she isn’t wearing it.
Like armor. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses and make up for the latter in strange ways.
“It’s not a compliment, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she replies. “I try to know the names of every annoyance so I can look them in the eye when I crush them. I like to make it personal.”
I lean heavily on the broom handle, bending the bristles. “Whatever helps you sleep at night. It’s good to know I’ve gotten under your skin with so little effort. I didn’t have to try.”
Evie must be the type of woman who never goes anywhere without a group at her back. Is it a learned thing or is it a practice she’s adopted since she came to DragonSpear? Is it validation, or strategy?
Maybe she can’t be on her own.
Maybe she doesn’t know how to hack it without sycophants surrounding her.
Or maybe she understands that in a place like this, it’s better to have allies than enemies.
Evie lets out a snide laugh and steps directly in the center of the meager pile of debris I’ve gathered. She grinds it into the floor with her boot. “It’s not you personally. I’m sure you want to believe it is. It’s your existence. You should not be here.”
I stand my ground, refusing to let her sway me. “Trust me, I know.”
Today, her hair bothers me. The perfection of every glowing golden strand, the diadem around her smooth forehead, everything.
Evie has outlined her almond-shaped blue eyes with some sort of black kohl liner to emphasize their depth and color. Her tunic, her leather armor—if one can call it that—is cut to show off the lean lines of muscles as well as her cleavage.
She is built for attention. And the girls behind her are shadowy wraiths in her light.
How was she chosen by a mount instead of me? Do circumstances play a part or is it all about money? Who you know, what your family does… reputation.
The thought flashes through me and dies. It doesn’t matter. None of it does.
I drop my head and break eye contact first, going back to sweeping. Ignore her and she’ll go away. Head down. No more waves.
“I suppose it really does go to show you how right the General is,” Evie continues. “His campaign to cleanse the world of filth is the first step toward balance and peace. There’s no way for our kind to survive when there are riffraff overpowering the world.”
“You’re too right,” one of her clique answers in soothing tones.
“General Ryson is so wise to thin the herd. To cull the disloyal filth from the stables of Manifest.” Evie steps close enough for me to feel the pressing heat from her body.
She waits, marking her target, poised to spring. “The lives lost are not a waste. They’re a step in the right direction.”
She’s goading me on purpose. Pushing me where she knows I’ll go.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
She pinches my shoulder between her index finger and thumb. “Don’t what? Tell you it was necessary for your village to be burned? Any enemies to the campaign deserve to die. It’s the only way for the truly worthy to thrive.”
My restraint fractures inside me like glass under pressure. Every word about my family’s death becomes a hammer blow, until I shatter completely.
Everything hits me at once with enough of a rush to send the last thoughts scattering out of my head, replaced with a roaring wind.
Scorch it.
Scorch everything standing in my way and scorch Evie right along with it. I straighten, breathing in sharply, and throw the broom down.
I can’t escape the mines. There’s no way out of it no matter how many escape routes I’ve plotted or how many half-reasoned plans I form. I might as well make it count. I will go down my way instead of tiptoeing over glass shards.
Evie and her gang erupt in peals of laughter and the sound cuts off the moment I bury my knuckles in her throat.
Her eyes widen, her hands rising to her throat as she chokes. The rest of her friends stop laughing and, in their hush, I launch myself at her, our chests colliding.
I’ll bury her.
I’ll make Evie regret ever seeking me out or any foul words she’d waited to launch at me. My mother is dead. My sister, Fallkirk, everyone I’ve ever cared about is gone.
And she wants to call it a necessary culling? A cleaning out of a dirty stable?
I punch her again in the temple and her head snaps to the side satisfyingly. But Evie recovers quickly and rushes forward, her arms coming around my midsection. She uses her weight to send us both to the floor and I land hard on my spine, the wind knocked out of me.
The fight goes from zero to intense in the span of a heartbeat. Evie slams her head against mine hard enough to have broken my nose if I hadn’t twisted to the side at the last minute. Her skull cracks against my ear, white-hot pain exploding through my head.
She’s quick, landing some serious blows. I taste blood.
Quick, small, and a little unhinged. Her perfected and utterly fake smile is gone, replaced by something wide and real and toothy. Her eyes are wild as she goes for my neck to squeeze the air out of my lungs.
I buck underneath her, throwing her off balance before she has a chance to get her knees on either side of my hips. The motion sways her and her fingers lock around my neck. I roll her to her side, grinding my elbow into her ribs until she yelps.
Instead of backing off, Evie pummels, landing three rapid punches to my ribs hard enough to break them.
“I’ve been training for years!” She laughs again. “Don’t you get it?”
What I know is that she fights like a little tornado. She might have the training, but she doesn’t understand loss or rage or emptiness. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be an orphan.
“You. Can’t. Beat. Me!”
Evie’s got the look of the well coddled.
Not for long.
I throw my frustration and fury into my next punch and the skin over her cheekbone splits. Blood gushes from the wound.
I push off of her, our positions reversed, and grind my knees down. Locking them over her and using my bodyweight to keep Evie pinned to the floor. Everything comes pouring out of me, directly into the other girl’s face in a hail of punches.
There’s nothing and no one except for Evie’s bloody face. Her laughter dissolves slowly. I can’t hear it. Not outside of the storm in my ears.
Then I lose myself to the rage.