“Bring me more, just like this,” Namreth orders, pointing to the empty plate of biscuits, his smile cold and his eyes colder.
…
The next several days are much the same. The cook wakes me up each morning from my sleeping pallet in the pantry, and I spend my days and nights laboring in the kitchen. I bake not only biscuits but honey cakes, fruit tarts, puddings, and date loaves. I live in the kitchen now. I eat all my meals there, I work there, I sleep there, and the only time I’m not in the kitchen is when I’m holding a tray of food to serve the king.
Ours is a grueling and monotonous existence. And every night, a thought echoes in my brain:Dietan is dead, and I’m going to die here, too.
Every day, I bake my mother’s biscuits and deliver a plate to Namreth personally, and I’m forced to watch as he devours them, licking his fingers clean each time while never taking his eyes off me. He doesn’t have to say anything. I can see what he wants to do to me as his slitted eyes rake over my body as if it’s Loegrian territory he’s of a mind to conquer. It’s as if he’d like to devour me the way he’s devouring the biscuits I’m forced to bake for him. He reminds me of the marquis, and it makes me want to vomit.
“A man could fall in love with a woman who made these,” he leers. “Perhaps I will have a taste of what inspired my nephew to bring you all the way here, even if it was all a charade.”
I remain silent, numb, showing no emotion that could be construed as an invitation or resistance, until he dismisses us all.
The only safe place I have left is deep inside my mind. I go there frequently, observing the world as if I’m watching it from someplace far away. I think of how I might find freedom again, and I dream about possible ways I can escape this hell.
Sometimes I even envision throwing myself out the window, but I’m too stubborn to follow through with it. If I kill myself, Namreth wins. I have to hold out hope that I’ll make it home to Evandale one day. Hope is the only reason I can work in the kitchen day in and day out.
As for Dietan… I try not to think about him, and sometimes I’m successful.
One morning, my mind is back at the tavern. I can imagine it so clearly. I think about my regulars, even poor Shephard Belmis, and I hope that the war hasn’t reached Alarice’s borders.
But with Dietan dead and the Rings likely in Namreth’s possession, Loegria and Alarice are defenseless. How long will it take for the smoke of war to descend on Evandale’s pastoral fields? How long before the Usurper’s army marches through our town and levels it to the ground? How long until the Kilandrar descend like tornadoes on our peaceful valley? If I ever get out of here, there may not even be an Evandale to return to, with everything and everyone I love burned to ash like that Loegrian village we passed through on our way here.
Then I snap out of my daydream, because I’m smelling smoke for real.
The air is full of it. I whirl around frantically. There’s smoke billowing out of the oven. One of the scullery maids, a freckled girl with orange braids wrapped around the crown of her head, hasn’t noticed it yet. She’s restocking the firewood below, and flames start licking dangerously close to her hair.
I’m nearest to the oven, so I sprint around the worktable toward her. “Look out!” I cry.
The scullery maid jerks up, startled, not realizing what’s happening. I launch myself into her, both of us collapsing on the floor just as the flames roar out of the oven mouth above us.
We both lie stunned for a moment until I push her away, shouting at her to get to the other side of the room, where the others have sought safety.
I crawl out of the path of the flames, heartbeat as frantic as my thoughts. The doors to the kitchen are locked from the outside, and the drop from the window is at least a dozen stories straight down.
We’re trapped here with no means of escape.
Something is clogging the chimney, and a quickly thickening blanket of smoke is filling up the room. I have to stop the fire, or we’re all going to die.
I stand and approach the oven again, pulling a dishcloth from the waist of my apron. The heat slams against me like a solid wall, and my eyes and lungs burn from the smoke. I cough violently as I grab the handle of the oven door with the towel and slam it shut. I pray it’s enough to choke a fire this out of control.
I fall back, bracing myself on the central counter as wisps of smoke push their way out from around the edges of the iron oven door. Slowly, less and less smoke curls out from the seams, until eventually, the fire’s out.
For long moments, the smoke-filled kitchen is completely silent except for our retching and coughing. The others are still in the corner, some of them holding wet rags to their noses, eyes watering and red-rimmed.
I cough again, panting hard, and take in their frightened faces. Everyone seems to be okay, but my heart still races. I put a hand to my chest, relieved, but say nothing as I fling the kitchen’s single window as wide open as it will go and return to my station. We’re going to have to wait until the guards unlock the door for the king’s next mealtime for all the smoke to clear. For now, I need to get back to work.
I return to my biscuits and find that the butter melted too much during the ordeal. I’ll need to start over. I throw out the ruined dough and begin again, measuring the flour and then the milk, when I feel eyes on me.
I look up, and one by one, the rest of the kitchen staff nod to me. I nod back.
The cook next to me resumes chopping vegetables, his designated job for the king’s favorite stew. I can feel him glancing my way. I don’t expect him to thank me, nor do I need to be thanked. I was just doing what anyone else would do. None of us want to die in here. But there’s a definite shift in the air.
“Bing,” he says.
After a moment, I realize he’s told me his name.
…
