“Chaos,” Killian growls in warning.
Pax slaps Seth on the back of the head, reinforcing his brother’s growl.
“I didn’t put her up to it,” Seth says, rubbing his head.
At first nothing happens, for just long enough that I begin to fear they’ll turn and march off before the wall hits me. Then the pressure appears at my back. Not hard and fast like last time, but it gently begins to slide me across the floor.
It matches their pace, keeping an exact distance between us.
Lifting my feet and hands in the air, I emphasise the fact that me sliding on my ass is entirely controlled by an invisible force.
They stop, and the wall stops.
I focus on Pax’s expression, which remains neutral. He leans across and whacks the back of his brother’s head so hard that Seth staggers forward a few steps. The wall behind me lurches back and I fall, just barely catching myself on my elbows.
“Late,” Killian says again, as if this isn’t more important than some meeting with some Crown guy.
Even if his name does sound a whole lot like lethal.
“We can’t take her like that. She looks like we’ve had a round each with her,” Roarke says, but Pax is already moving.
I gulp, clambering to my feet with a renewed rush of fear. But Pax isn’t coming to me, he jogs down the hallway and back toward his rooms.
I wonder if my range of movement is now extended past wherever he is and take two steps after him, but no. The wall’s about where it should be. So either I need to be close to the majority, or each individual has me trapped within a pretty tight perimeter.
Pax returns, throwing a shirt at me.
“Put it on,” he growls.
Despite being the leaner of the guys, he’s still a size bigger than me, at least.
“Here?” I demand, in a hallway!
Yes – an empty hallway, but who’s to say a group of guys won’t walk around the corner as soon as I get my chest out?
“We’ll turn away,” Seth says.
Pax already has his back to me, and Killian turns, grabbing Roarke’s long hair and making him turn too – but they also start walking.
I run after them, tugging my ripped, dirty, and blood smeared servant’s top off and pulling Pax’s soft, long sleeved, smells-like-luxury black shirt on. Smells like something more than luxury actually, I just don’t have a word for it.
Now I’m wearing slightly oversized male servant’s pants and definitely oversized son-of-the-last-Crown mixed with deadly-badass-killer’s shirt. Which does not sit well with me.
I liked my tunic, stockings, and boots. So plain, so simple, so without any social connotations because aside from Lord Martin, everyone on the estate was a desperate-to-survive servant.
And out of all that, I open my mouth and say, “It’s black. Servants wear white.”
“I don’t care,” Pax says.
I fall into step behind them, trying to blend into their shadows. Both Roarke and Seth reach back and grab me by a sleeve each. Pulling me in between them and fixing me in place with an arm each over my shoulders. One of them snatches the destroyed shirt from my grip and tosses it away.
“We’ll hide you in a supply closet,” they say in unison.
Killian grunts, Pax shakes his head, my stomach knots with dread, and I pull myself back out of their grip.
I want to tell them that I have boundaries and that touching me is going too far, but I just follow, and together we walk deeper into the castle.
What they hide me in is a servant’s pantry. The kind that doesn’t actually do any cooking but accepts the food through a pulley system from the kitchens below. The servants in here arrange the food nicely on a platter and pour drinks to keep everyone happy out in the important room next door.
Both walls are lined with narrow benches, the back wall is entirely made up of the pulley system, and behind us is the door. Add to that the multiple shelves lining everything from head height up to the roof and littered with glasses, jugs, plates and such. Grabbing things down, prepping them, and carrying them carefully out of here, pouring drinks and not spilling anything – that takes some elbow room, and this space has next to none of it.
There are already three servants in here, and four Elite Saber brothers are standing at my back, so only Pax can actually fit inside the doorway. The rest are like a wall of muscle in the hallway outside. The servants stop everything they’re doing, and after a moment of pure confusion, they school their expressions into a picture of perfection. Nothing but a willingness to serve.
Of course in this kingdom, Elite Sabers are like the most special of the special. I’m not sure what makes them so Elite, that’s on my long list of crap to ask questions about, but all the Sabers seem to get treated like royalty.
“She stays here,” Killian says.
His hands are clasped and resting in front of him, which would look relaxed on anyone else, but considering the big curved blade tucked into his belt, on Killian it’s a little unnerving.
The redheaded serving girl all but gets on her hands and knees to kiss the ground. The other two servers are guys and both of them bow low, evidence of a tremor in their hands.
“What is she required to do?” one of the guys asks, putting a tray of delicate cakes down on the bench beside him, and straightening the dark gray sash at his waist.
The other two don’t have sashes and, seeing as though the servants’ clothing here is completely supplied without variation, his adjusting of that sash means something – I just don’t know what.
“Just stay,” Pax says.
No explanation. Nothing. That doesn’t even answer the guy’s question, because of course the guy wanted to know what the point of me is. He doesn’t want me in his space unless I’m working.
“Yes, Saber,” the servant says, bowing.
The other two follow suit.
I might actually demand to know where the Elorsins are going, specifically how far away, but they’re out of here before I get a chance, and I’m left just staring at the space where they used to be.
The door is the same as the ones in the Sabers’ kitchens with no handle and the ability to swing open in both directions. If a wall slams into my back, it should open for me – assuming no one jams a knife in the way.
After a few breaths, someone clears their throat and I turn to see the guy with the sash handing the tray of cakes to the redhead. I step to the side and let her through, followed by the other guy carrying a pitcher of wine. Both of them leave with their heads held high in a look of pride, or determination, or maybe even superiority. Whatever it is, it’s nothing like the subordination, fear, and oppression that servants wear on the other side of the forest.
Lord Martin’s servants die with hunched backs, callused hands and broken spirits. As much as this guy is scared of the Sabers, he’s also bloody proud to be a servant here. Like a badge of honor – like a dark gray sash that he gets to wear around his waist.
“What can I do?” I ask.
Standing around doing nothing is never good for passing the time, and if he shoves a pitcher of wine in my hands, that will let me eavesdrop on what’s going on out there.
I need to know which direction they’re going to walk off in next, and at least two moves after that.
It’s no different to knowing that Lord Martin always unties his bootlaces, pauses for a good twenty minutes, then begins to calculate retiring for the night.
When he glances at his bootlaces, I need to disappear.
Only I had thirteen years to get to know Lord Martin, and I had five more before that to understand the basics of my existence within my realm. Here, I’ve had a day.
Not even a day.
I stop searching the room for another pitcher of wine and turn what I hope are pleading eyes toward gray-sash-guy. He’s about my height, about my build, and about my age. Although I don’t have eyebrows thick enough to pluck and then knit a cloak with.
“I should shove
you in the waiter and send you down where you’ll be useful,” he says, waving a hand toward the pulley system, aka the waiter.
“I kind of have instructions to stay here,” I say.
“Not from me, not on my shift. There will be repercussions for this.”
His eyes bore into my torso, running down my arms, skirting around my collar, all the while laced with jealousy.
“I don’t have time for someone like you,” he says, and if we weren’t indoors, I think he’d actually spit at me.
That’s another great reason to get out of this room, and I have an idea for how I can do it.
“What are you wearing under that?” I ask, motioning to his shirt.
He chuffs.
“I’m serious, I’ll swap you. This thing’s not my style.” And I can’t resume my role as a servant with this thing on.
The guy grits his teeth as he turns to pull the ropes and send the box with one empty wine bottle in it down to the kitchen.
“Stash it in a cupboard and wear it to bed, I don’t really care,” I say.
Crap, I wish I was better with violence.
I could throw a few good threats at Jake, but the one time I really hurt him was completely by accident – if you can call throwing a rock at someone an accident. I mean, I threw the rock, but I fully thought it would smash into the ground nowhere near him.
I don’t have rocks in here. I have some blunt cake knives, glasses that I want to avoid breaking, and another tray of cakes being hauled up in the waiter.
“Fine,” I say, snatching the tray of cakes before the guy has a chance to let go of the ropes. “What will the repercussions be if I leave this room, wearing these clothes, and throw this tray in the lap of that Crown out there?”
His eyes go wide, shoulders stiffening, face blanching – yep, that did it.
“I’ll make sure to tell him I’m under your orders,” I add.
The guy works his buttons open like each one requires some thought. Underneath he’s wearing a light undershirt – because of course there was that option amongst the shelves of clothing that I didn’t bother to explore. New problem, rip my top off in front of some stranger in the close quarters of basically a glorified cupboard or scratch the idea of getting out there and finding out what’s going on.
I put the tray of cakes down and reach for the sleeve that he’s managed to get out of. Gripping the fabric and nearly tearing the thing off him.
With my back turned to him, which means my front is to the damned door, I slip Pax’s shirt off and pull the new one on, tossing the soft black garment behind me. Servant clothing, while clean and well made, is like wearing dry leaves compared to the Sabers’ soft moss. I still can’t pick what Pax’s shirt smells like. Velvety and warm and sweet all at the same time. This servant though, and I don’t even care to ask him his name, smells like soured milk. I almost sniff myself to double check that it’s his scent and not mine that’s making me scrunch my nose up.
The guy folds the black shirt neatly and places it on a shelf.
“You’ll need these,” he says, shoving the cake tray into my hands and smiling wickedly. “And when you return, I’ll have you sent to the stocks.”
“Been there today already,” I drawl, gathering my composure, ready to step out the door.
“The whipping posts, then, or straight to the wall, or just a grave.”
I swallow hard. The guards here can knock a person out with one touch. Waking in the stocks was a horrible experience, but the thought of waking on a whipping post sends a convulsion of fear through me. Forget whatever the wall is.
I can picture that post and how a person would be chained to it. I can feel it –
But I don’t have time for that now, I growl inwardly and force myself through the door.
I’m going to get whipped. I’m going to get whipped. I’m going to get whipped, the thought chimes through my mind so strongly that when I step out of the servant’s pantry, I almost take a giant step to the left with every intention of bolting down the stairs.
For all the good it would do me.
“Pleasure,” Roarke’s voice drifts out from the right, and my feet find the courage to move toward him.
Or, at least, I let myself believe it’s courage.
The room is a new kind of huge, but I have all of twenty steps between me and a big guy in an ornate chair – my destination. I keep my gaze trained on the space in front of me, snapping up bits of information as I move. There is no obvious roof, just deep red and blanched white branches – like we’re at the top of a tree and all its branches have been gathered, pulled toward the sky, and twisted to hold them in place. Leaving a flower-bud-shaped room, the very tip of which is three stories above my head. Sun streams in between the branches, reflecting off the white stone floor. Not much else is in here: one big chair on a raised platform which could easily fit a big dining table and ten place settings.
The four brothers are standing in a line, like servants being scolded before a master.
Except they’re not servants, and the scolding doesn’t seem to be working. They’re bristling, not cowering.
“Enjoy,” the guy in the chair, the Crown, drawls, leaning forward, with his leather gloves creaking against the solid timber chair.
A sign he’s barely containing some serious rage.
Six necklaces slip from the V of his shirt and swing heavily in front of his chest, each one adorned with a small glass ball of sand seated in the center of gnarled black pieces of wood. I swear they’re actually smoldering. Clumps of shoulder length black hair fall around his face, his chin lowered but his gaze raised in a way that intensifies his expression.
I make my way toward the serving girl just behind the man.
“We would be delighted with the opportunity to kiss your ass–” Roarke begins to say, before Pax clears his throat and the guy falls silent.
“There are more problems brewing in our kingdom than you four refusing to release your ill-placed rebellion over my position,” the Crown says.
“We had a deal. You leave us alone in the White Castle, keep your grimm away from here. And in turn we’ll leave you, the Black Castle, and your grimm alone. Sending your nephew to spy on us and challenging us in tournament every chance you get is breaking that deal.”
“The border chooses who resides within this Castle – I do not,” Lithael growls. “The border released my niece and nephew from stasis because it needs them. And now the border is weakening. If our border goes down, our realm will crash through into the mortal world, and I don’t need that kind of a problem.”
“We know it’s weakening,” Pax sounds down-right pissed off now. “Send us to deal with it – put us on assignment,” Pax says.
The guy is like stone. All appearance of being perfectly controlled – so controlled that anger is screaming off him.
“I don’t have that power either,” Lithael says dismissively.
Then two things happen at once. The serving girl almost has a heart attack over me approaching, and I realize the guy with the gray sash set me up – because what man giving a lecture wants not one, but two whole plates of delicate little cakes?
Pax’s head snaps around to me, but I school my features and move like the perfect servant that I’ve been trained to be.
Even when the Crown’s arm darts out and sends the redhead’s plate flying, making her squeak and scuttle across the floor to collect the cakes scattered nearby.
And I swear the guy with the wine just pissed himself.
Bloody. Stupid. Servants.
What I’d give for regular people with an even amount of fear – rather than this lot who act invincible until they’re actually in the presence of a master, where they fall to pieces.
“Seth Elorsin,” the Crown says. “You’re stripped of rank and to replace a stable boy until the full moon. I may not be able to strip you of your foolish opinions, but I do enjoy having you play the servant.”
Unlike the girl on the fl
oor grabbing at cakes, or Seth who’s giving me death stares, I don’t falter. I swallow down the dark gnawing growing from the pit of my stomach and continue the last two steps at a perfect-servant’s pace.
Turning around is not an option.
“I always enjoy that,” the Crown says.
Just words, I tell myself. Just words that feel like the cold hand of death.
The redheaded serving girl stops moving, not that she was making much noise, but her suddenly being frozen leaves the room intensely quiet.
“As you wish,” Pax says.
I lower myself to one knee, bow my head, and present the plate to the Crown, and I’m prepared to wait here. Wait and listen, for as long as it takes.
The redhead seems to be trying to take just as long to collect the mess from the ground… she’s still not moving.
She’s not even breathing. Every part of her is frozen and every part of her is turning blue. Except her hair. The red strands turning black one at a time.
The Crown lets out a long, satisfied breath. As far as I can tell, he’s not even looking at her, but he’s doing this, he has to be, and enjoying it.
I still my hands before they can even think about trembling.
What the fuck am I supposed to do?!
She’s dying, she’s right there. I could reach out and touch her if I tried. But I don’t have magic, not even the regular kind and certainly not whatever this is…
This is the power of a DeathSeed.
The Crown is practically death itself, and he’s killing this girl. Becoming the Crown involved usurping the Elorsins, but those four brothers aren’t moving to stop this guy – which means that even an Elite Saber is vulnerable. That the four of them are no match to this one guy.
And this girl is going to die.
Inside, I want to scream. Outside, I remain perfectly still.
A low rumble emits from one of the guys. The Crown waves his hand and a blast of energy sends me, the girl, and all the cakes hurtling across the room.
The girl gasps and screams. I pick myself up, collect my tray and take measured steps toward the door.
I know I’d never do this to someone I love, someone like Jake, but Jake would never have let me walk into this mess. None of the servants on the estate would have.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 11
