Chapter 40
A elrie went to the kitchen to find food. Seeing Fyn and knowing he was healed brought her spirits up. And made her pay more attention to more dire needs, mainly her empty stomach.
The orc was there and gave her a once-over, seeing her in assassin leathers. “I’m still not calling you ‘ kyra .’”
“I wouldn’t want you to,” she responded.
The orc gave her one last hard look and then moved on, turning around to make her a plate. Aelrie sat down at the small kitchen table.
“Normally,” the orc said while spooning thick stew from a pot into a bowl. “Breakfast and dinner are served in the dining room except when the mistress is entertaining, then you lot dine with me in here.”
“I prefer it this way.”
The orc placed a tray before her with hearty stew in a bowl, flatbread, and two tarts. Aelrie glanced at the tarts, which had a layer of chocolate ganache on top. Beautifully made, hand-crafted, and exquisite. It was very similar to Light Elf baking.
“Leftover marzipan tarts.” The orc answered the question she didn’t ask .
“They look amazing. I can’t wait to try them.” And she wasn’t just saying that.
“Hmph,” the orc snorted. She then started to boil some water in a kettle on the stove. “We’ve got tea. The Dark Elves love this mushroom tea, but I can’t stomach it. I’ve got some chamomile I hide for myself. You’re Light Elf, that’s more to your taste.”
“Thank you. Chamomile would be lovely.”
The stew, simple though it was, was delicious, and the tarts heavenly. This orc was a magnificent chef.
Aelrie finished her meal off with chamomile tea. “That was delicious. They would pay you handsomely in Alfheim,” she then said as she brought her tray to the sink.
“Give me that. I do that.” The orc seized the tray from her hands and started to wash the dishes in the sink.
“I’m sorry, I thought …”
The orc spoke with her back to her, washing the dishes quickly with a heavy hand.
The dishes and utensils clinked and clanked in the sink.
“Don’t look down upon me, and don’t let the clothes fool you.
Your station hasn’t improved. You’re still a slave here as much as I am.
Besides, your job is more shameful than mine.
I wouldn’t want it! I do my job, and you stick to yours. ”
The words bit through her. She wasn’t proud of what she did. But the orc was right. It was shameful. What she did could never be erased.
But she had to go on and survive this. She had to make it back to Alfheim somehow …
She walked back toward the sanctum, hoping to see Fyn to lighten her mood and give her a friendly face in this cheerless place, but someone else waited in the main hall.
Kite sized her up, her face furious. The scar across her cheek gave her an even meaner, uglier look.
Jealousy really did make one uglier.
“Disgusting Ljósálfar!” Kite spat at her.
Aelrie sighed heavily and crossed her arms, regarding the seething Dark Elf in front of her. She wasn’t about to stoop to her level, but she needed to convey that she wasn’t to be trifled with either, or her time spent here would be rough with the twins bullying her.
“Did you see Shikra come from the sanctum?” She knew Kite was waiting for him as that door led there.
Speaking about Shikra enraged Kite further. “How dare you speak his name.”
She pursed her lips and then smiled. “Oh, I’ve cried out his name too. In bed.”
Kite let out a scream and lunged for her, but Aelrie was prepared after goading her.
She dodged Kite’s attack and kneed her in the stomach, making her gasp for breath and fall over, but she got to her before then and picked her head up by the shoulder-length hair the Dark Elf had left on the non-shaved part.
Kite yelled and tried kicking her in response, but to no avail.
Kite was smaller and skinnier than her and gave her no trouble. How did she ever become an assassin in the first place? Perhaps there were more underhanded, sneakier ways to kill rather than with physical strength and martial skills.
Aelrie leaned down to deliver her message. “Leave me alone. I don’t care about your petty jealousy. But come for me again, and you’ll get beat down again.”
It seems both twins needed to be taught a lesson. Brats.
She released Kite and shoved her away.
Kite yelled at her as she tried to walk away. “This isn’t over, you hear!”
“Sister, don’t make a fool of yourself,” Falco’s voice called out, announcing his presence.
When did he get here? Did he see their fight just now?
“Get your sister before she does something she’ll regret,” Aelrie told him, rolling her eyes.
Falco walked to his sister, looking down at her but not helping her up. “Get up,” he ordered.
Kite’s gray face almost turned purple. “Brother, how dare you take her side!”
“I’m not taking her side, I’m speaking for the mistress, or do you defy her will now?”
That quieted the little hellraiser.
“Besides,” Falco continued. “Shikra isn’t even here. He left just before you two came in.”
She shot a look over at Falco. Fyn had already left?
Kite stood up on her own. Her helplessness from before was false, a plea for sympathy from her brother, which went unanswered. “Where did he go?”
Falco shrugged. “I don’t know. Somewhere the mistress sent him. ”
Kite looked down, her voice and demeanor now deflated. “He shouldn’t be doing anything now. He needs rest. He just returned.”
She could at least agree with her on that.
“When will he return?” Aelrie asked.
“I’m not his keeper,” Falco bit back.
“But you must know something.” Kite didn’t care about Aelrie anymore. Her attention had turned completely to Fyn.
Falco must have taken pity on his sister. It was surprising he had any in him. “He was going to meet someone about payment for an upcoming mark. Apparently, it’s going to be a big one.”
Kite looked down as if thinking. She then turned around and flung the door leading to the sanctum open.
Falco sighed as she ran off. “Now she’s going to go bother the mistress about it. That girl is spoiled.”
He turned to Aelrie, still standing there, and stared her down.
She didn’t feel like dealing with him right now and took the door to the right to go back to her room.
She’d wait there until Fyn returned. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be sent out on a mark, but she doubted they trusted her enough for that.
Kestrel was leaning against the wall when Aelrie entered her room. “I was his lover once,” the muscular assassin said without so much as a greeting.
She wasn’t quick enough to hide the emotions on her face.
“Jealous? Don’t be. That’s not why I came to talk to you. Leave that petty, foolish feeling to Kite. ”
“Well, you came this far.” Aelrie made her way further into the room. “What do you have to say?”
Kestrel gestured with her hands as she spoke, as if she were trying her best to appear as her confidant.
“Shikra has had many lovers over the years, and I was one of them. But I have never seen him defy the mistress’s will before and attack one of our family.”
Family? She called this a family?
“I see that look, you think we're deprived, but we are a family. Valeria Nightshade from House Nightshade, one of the most powerful Houses in all Myrkheim. And Valeria is not just our mistress; she is our mother. She took us from the streets, from poverty, starvation, and death, and gave us a home, a family, a purpose.”
“What purpose? Of murdering the innocent!” This was insane!
“You see, this is why I came to talk to you. You will see the wisdom of my words. Soon, I hope, before it is too late.”
Aelrie didn’t answer. Kestrel changed her tone.
“There are three more family members you don’t know of.
Two are no longer with us. Osprey and Eagle fell in love and planned an escape from the family.
Together, they started a new life in the wilderness of the surface world.
Hawke hunted them down, family though they were to us and him, and killed them, brought their severed heads back to Mistress Valeria.
She showed them to us, filthy with flayed skin and decaying flesh, and left them on silver platters on the dining table before our supper.
She dined with us that night, and I had to finish the meal with my dearest friend’s rotting death face, my sister , staring back at me. ”
A shiver of disgust went up her spine.
“But mother warns us because she loves us. None can escape Hawke; he’s the best tracker and hunter, and he’s also the oldest one here.
He rarely stays in the manor and spends most of his time on the surface world.
Let’s hope you never have to meet him because it would be at the wrong end of a blade. ”
“Are you threatening me?”
Kestrel sighed, sounding tired. “It’s advice.”
“Advice for what?”
Kestrel straightened and squared her shoulders.
“Don’t fall in love with Shikra. Kite fell hard, but the reason she survived is because Shikra never returned her affection.
That is why she is safe, because her love is unrequited.
I saw the way Shikra acted in the chamber.
I have known him for over thirty years, and I’ve never seen him do something like that before.
He’s never been one to put himself at risk for another, even a lover.
I speak from experience. Listen to me, and we can be a family, together.
That’s the only way you’ll survive here. ”
There was truth in her words. Kestrel meant what she’d said in an honest attempt to help her, but there was also a hint of something else, another emotion hidden there.
She didn’t know Kestrel well enough to guess what it was, but it almost sounded as if her words came not just as advice, but a plea.
Would her and Fyn’s heads be tossed to the mistress just the same as Osprey and Eagle’s?
But no matter what Kestrel told her, Aelrie had no intention of staying here. Her name would never be Sparrowhawk.