Chapter 14 #3
I dropped my gaze to the floor, fisting my hands in the black dress Victoria loaned me. She hovered by me, yet all the other girls scattered across the room like flies over rotten meat. Hungry and desperate. I wanted to fold myself up so small that no one would even notice I was there.
“Just pick up a tray of something and hold it,” Victoria hissed over her shoulder.
It was enough to break me from my trance, and with a stiff nod I moved to the side of the room.
Long tables sagged beneath platters of roasted meat and bowls of fruit, but the scents were heavy, greasy, suffocating like underneath it was rotten.
Wine sloshed in jewelled cups, dark as blood.
Men lounged back in their seats, their laughter too loud, their eyes lingering too long—hungry in a way that made my stomach twist.
I didn’t know how long I passed food around, but I was grateful not to be dancing in the centre of the floor for the king and his companions like most of the other women.
Perhaps if I stayed under the cover of a tray piled high, no one would notice, even with my blue hair that Victoria had helped put into an updo.
Yet every time I glanced the king’s way, I found his eyes on me.
A heaviness sunk into my stomach like I’d swallowed a wheelbarrow full of rocks.
As the night wore on, Victoria found herself on the king's lap a few times. I didn’t envy her at all. Better her than me. I would do whatever it took to stay as far away from him as possible.
I saw him whispering something in her ear at one point, then they both looked at me. Let them talk. I no longer cared about anything but keeping my head down.
The music had slowed to a lazy thrum. Laughter from male and female Thorns slurred and sloshed all over the place. Plates lay half-devoured, meat congealing in its own grease, obsidian goblets tipped on tabletops and spilling red down gold cloths.
The girls began to form a line at the back of the throne room, and dread, persistent as ever, found its way back into the pit of my stomach.
Victoria eyed me from across the table and moved her head towards the line, silently insinuating that I needed to join them.
My shoulders dropped but I didn’t fight it.
We gathered, shoulder to shoulder, each of the girls careful to look presentable despite the sweat clinging to their skin. I didn’t care. If the king chose me, he’d have to take me exactly how I was.
The room fell into a silent hush as he rose from his throne and made his way towards us. I winced with every swish of his robe or click of his boots against the marble ground, each step echoing far too loud in my mind.
I kept my eyes on the floor and my hands fisted in my skirts. If I didn’t look at him, maybe he wouldn’t see me. Maybe I would disappear into the cracks between the flagstones.
He started at one end, slowly viewing each woman like we were nothing but an item at the grocer’s store. For a moment I’d wondered how I’d gotten into this situation and how I could possibly escape it.
I needed to get a grip. This wasn’t like me.
Usually I was the one in control when it came to men.
With a silent breath in, I managed to calm my frenzied mind.
Until the weight of his presence stopped in front of me, and suddenly I wanted to throw up.
His scent was power and ash, mixed with a spice that pricked at my nose.
This was it. He was going to choose me and I’d have to service the king. Someone who could make my life a living hell with a simple flick of his wrist in this already hellish place.
Time stretched into an eternity, and my heart thudded so loud in my chest that it rang in my ears.
A single finger, with a long-pointed nail hooked beneath my chin, cold and commanding, forcing my head up.
My breath caught. His silver eyes raked over me, lingering too long, and I felt exposed—stripped bare.
As he stared, I realised that with one glance—one tug on the corner of his mouth—he wasn’t Kavish, or Rhodes . . .
No.
He was worse.
He was destruction incarnate.
It took every shred of courage not to whimper as he dragged his tongue over his teeth, inspecting me.
For a heartbeat I thought he would speak my name. My chest constricted, panic clawing up my throat. Then with a dismissive flick, he released me and shifted to the next woman.
“Victoria,” he said, voice heavy with indulgence.
I flinched at the sound. I didn’t want it to be her either, but relief that it wasn’t me hit me so hard my knees nearly buckled.
She offered me a weak smile before I lowered my gaze again, swallowing down the trembling that threatened to show. Victoria took the hand of the king and led him away, and guards ushered the rest of us from the room like furniture no longer needed.
Every step away from the palace brought relief. But my mind coiled, the thought creeping in with a serpent’s slither . . . tonight I’d been spared, but it wouldn’t always be someone else. One day it would be me. And after that, it would be me again, and again, for as long as time existed.