Chapter 8 The Listener
The Listener
Iam shown to my rooms with nothing to do and nowhere to belong.
The door closes softly behind me, sealing in a space that does not yet feel like mine.
The furniture is delicate, chosen for someone who has never scrubbed blood from her sleeves or slept beneath stairs or under open sky.
For a long moment, I stand there, unsure what a future wife is meant to do with idle hours.
I press the bell. The girl who answers is young, scarcely older than I am. She keeps her eyes lowered, her hands clasped tight in front of her apron.
“Lady Asharin,” she says. The words startle me. No one from my father’s house ever called me that.
“My name is Maridale,” she adds quickly, as if afraid I might dismiss her. Her voice is quiet, careful.
I nod. “You may look at me.”
She does, just briefly, and smiles before remembering herself.
I think of Yvara’s lessons. The way she used to recline while tutors spoke of silk weights and court etiquette, while I listened from behind doors and committed every word to memory. I draw on those notes now.
“I will need dresses,” I say. “Not mourning colors. Not… concealment.”
Maridale’s eyes brighten. “Of course, my lady. Veils as well. Proper ones.”
I hesitate, then ask, “Can I trust you?”
She answers without pause. “Yes.”
The simplicity of it nearly undoes me. “I would like,” I say slowly, testing the shape of the want, “to have someone of my own.”
Her smile returns, this time unguarded. “I would like that too.”
The day passes in fittings and fabric, in pins and murmured apologies.
Pastel silks replace dark shrouds. My wedding gown is light enough to breathe in and so beautiful it almost makes me wish I was marrying someone pleasant.
Someone mentions the Queen Dowager will return for the ceremony, that the court will swell with witnesses I have never faced.
In the library, I lose myself in histories and languages, tracing lineages that do not include me and wondering, just briefly, what it might mean to belong somewhere. Princess is a word that feels dangerous to touch, but I let myself think it anyway.
By the time dusk falls over the palace and the candles are lit in the corridors, a summons is already waiting for me. Maridale delivers it without commentary, her hands folded neatly in front of her apron. “His Majesty requests your presence in the private dining hall, my lady.”
I nod and carefully adjust my veil before I follow the guard through corridors that feel quieter at night.
I almost laugh at the strangeness. I have never been invited to dine.
Eating beneath a veil is awkward, humiliating, a careful performance meant to ensure no one ever truly sees me. But refusal is not an option.
The private hall is set for two, though only one place appears meant to be used. A long table stretches through the center of the room. Silver gleams. Linen lies perfectly flat. At the head sits the King’s chair, and beside it stands King Sevrin himself, a goblet already in his hand.
“Your Majesty,” I say, lowering my head.
He motions to the chair positioned midway down the table. “Sit.”
Servants enter and place a plate before me: roasted flank brushed with herbs, greens dressed in oil, warm bread, and a goblet of diluted wine. The smell is rich and clean, the sort of meal that assumes the eater has never had to bargain for scraps.
It is the finest meal I have ever been served, leagues beyond the cold scraps that once passed for generosity in my father’s house.
For a moment, I allow myself to look forward to it.
Then I remember the veil and let the thought go.
“Your Majesty,” I say evenly, “as a veiled woman, I am not permitted to dine in front of others.”
For a moment he does not respond. Then he pulls his chair across the floor and turns it so that his back faces the table. The sound is jarring in the quiet of the room. “Then I will not watch,” he says. “Tonight I will listen.”
A pause.
“Indulge me.”
I remain seated, uncertain whether the adjustment is meant as courtesy or threat.
Watching would be simple enough to understand.
It would be inspection, judgment, a king satisfying himself that his brother’s betrothed is presentable.
Listening is stranger. It requires a different kind of attention, one that feels less public and more personal.
I cannot decide what he wants to hear. The small humiliations of etiquette, the cutlery, the chewing, the swallow, or something else entirely.
Like most Veynar kings, he is a feeder. They are said to draw power from blood, but more than that, they hunger for control.
Perhaps this is nothing more than that. Perhaps it is a test. Perhaps it is something darker.
I do not know, and the not knowing makes my skin prickle beneath the veil.
I lift my fork and take the first bite. The meat is tender, seasoned well, and I chew carefully, aware that every sound seems to travel. I keep my pace measured, eating as I was taught when I listened to lessons meant for someone else.
When I glance up, I notice the goblet beside him. It holds the candlelight, the liquid inside a deep red, almost black, and before I can stop myself my thoughts turn in an uneasy direction.
He speaks at once, though he has not turned his head. “It’s wine.”
The timing feels wrong. It feels too close to the direction of my thoughts to ignore. Heat creeps beneath my veil despite myself, and I force my hand to remain controlled around the fork.
“I eat food like anyone else,” he continues, his tone calm. “Feeders drink blood, but it is extra power. It is not needed to survive. Tonight I care for neither.”
I say nothing. Instead, I swallow and take another bite.
“Is it tender?” he asks.
“It is acceptable,” I reply.
“My portion earlier was not.”
The comment makes no sense as conversation. It is too mundane, oddly specific, as though he is forcing me to answer in the middle of an act that should not require speech at all. I take another bite and keep my posture straight.
“Go on,” he murmurs, almost satisfied. “I promise not to interrupt again.”
“A lie,” I say lightly, lifting another bite.
“Of course it is.” He sounds pleased.
“And yet you say it anyway.”
“I enjoy watching you decide I am untrustworthy.”
“You just admitted you are.”
“I admitted I enjoy observing you,” he replies mildly. “That is different.”
“It is not.”
He leans back in his chair. I imagine that his expression is warm, amused, and entirely too focused. “Eat,” he says again, softer this time. “I like listening to you decide whether to defy me.”
The minutes pass. I focus on the plate, on the careful motion of my hands, on the simple fact of finishing what was placed in front of me. I try not to imagine him marking each swallow, each breath, each small sound that proves I am there.
When the plate is mostly empty, I fold my hands in my lap. “I am finished.”
“I am not.”
An eerie hush falls over the room.
Then, his voice low, “There was no crunch of vegetables.”
“I do not wish to finish them.”
The room stays quiet. A servant shifts.
His voice is dark. “It would please me to hear it.”
It would please me not to fucking eat them, Majesty, is what I wish to say. But instead, “As you wish.”
I take one bite. I reach down to take another when—
“You may go.”
I rise and adjust my veil before turning toward the doors. As I leave, I can still feel his attention even with his back turned, as though the act of listening has never really ended.
Indulge me, he had said. And yet, Kings that indulge are rarely sated.