“I didn’t run,” she corrects me. “My parents couldn’t continue working for your parents after Brandon died. Your father paid them off well and sent us all on our way. It was a mutual agreement. I don’t know what they told you or what you understood. You don’t own me, Altair. Your father himself dismissed my family.”
“My father doesn’t think straight sometimes,” I say. “Wyverns are creatures of possession, and we own our servants. For life. That’s a lesson you’ll have to learn.”
Tressa looks at me with absolute conviction burning in her eyes.
“I hate you.”
I smile at her words. She doesn’t know they feel like a gift. I need to put distance between us now, because this is becoming too much. I walk around her toward the door, and shoot over my shoulder as I leave:
“Put on your uniform. I might need you soon.”
I exit her chambers and enter my own next door. I stop in the middle of my sitting room and stand still for a moment, letting everything that just happened wash over me. I look down at my finger, the one she bit so viciously, and admire the small dents her teeth left on my skin. The marks are barely visible. I hold my hand to my chest and press it over my heart.
I didn’t know how much I needed this, until I saw her at the bride market this morning. I didn’t lie to my father about wanting a bride, and I fully intended to buy a human wife today to spite him. But when I saw Tressa standing on the auction block, with her wavy brown hair catching the sunlight, and her green eyes looking out at the crowd, I recognized her instantly.
Those green eyes, so much like Brandon’s, were like a punch to my stomach. The moment I saw her, everything changed. I had to buy her, had to have her, no matter the price.
She is mine, the way Brandon was mine before he died. Both of them belong to me in different ways, and now I have her back where she should have always been.
I walk to the bookshelf to my left and reach out to pull a particular book. The entire bookshelf moves, swinging outward like a door, and revealing a small, cramped room behind it. I step inside and close it back, sealing myself in darkness.
Chapter Five
Tressa
I hear the door close behind Altair, and my legs give out. I collapse on the floor, clutching my mother’s old uniform to my chest, and finally let myself cry. My shoulders shake as the sobs tear through me, but I keep them quiet, pressing my face into the faded fabric. I don’t want him to hear me.
The uniform doesn’t smell like her anymore. It just smells like old fabric and storage, like dust and time. That makes me cry harder.
I remember following her around the palace kitchen when I was five or six years old. She’d peel and chop vegetables, and I’d trail behind her asking question after question. She never got annoyed with me, and never told me to be quiet or go away.
Even though I was only six, she taught me how to help. How to peel potatoes without cutting myself, how to wash vegetables properly, and how to sweep floors and dust furniture when we cleaned rooms together. I learned everything from her while Brandon was out and about with Altair.
Brandon, who was four years older than me, had been chosen from among the servants’ sons to be Altair’s studying and training partner. When I was little, I thought that was such an honor. I believed our family was blessed and better than the other human families working at the palace. Brandon got to eat better food, wear nicer clothes, and spend time with the young lord himself. But after the tragedy, and after we were expelled, I understood the truth.
Brandon hadn’t been chosen to be Altair’s friend. He’d been chosen to be the whipping boy.
Brandon would learn with Altair, do homework together, train to fight with swords and ride horses. When Altair did something wrong, acted out, or didn’t do his homework, Brandon waspunished instead. No tutor, and not even Altair’s father could hit the young heir, so the only way to punish Altair and make him behave was to hit his friend.
The punishments Brandon endured were what kept ten-year-old Altair in line, because Altair tended to be a naughty child, always testing boundaries and breaking rules. I remember Brandon coming back to our quarters with welts on his back and bruises on his arms. My mother would tend to him quietly, applying salve and wrapping bandages, never complaining.
I hate that I ever thought it was an honor.
A knock on the door startles me out of my memories. I barely have time to scramble to my feet and wipe my face before a middle-aged woman enters the bedroom without waiting for permission. She studies me from head to toe with a critical eye. I notice she’s human.
“I’m Greta. Lord Aurellion tasked me with showing you what your work is. Get dressed quickly. There are things you need to do.”
Her tone is brisk and businesslike, with an edge of resentment. She doesn’t ask if I’m all right, nor does she acknowledge my red eyes and tear-stained face.
I take the old uniform into the bathroom and close the door. I stare at it, and it breaks my heart to put it on. But I force myself to do it, telling myself that this way, my mother is close to me. Her spirit will watch over me and protect me. The uniform fits well enough, though it’s looser than it was on her. I look at myself in the mirror and barely recognize the girl staring back. I look like a ghost from another time.
I take a deep breath and tell myself I can do this. I don’t know what I got myself into, but I can’t back down now. If Altair wants me to work, then I can work. I’ve done worse to survive. He won’t break me.
I walk out of the bathroom, and Greta looks me over with a frown. She turns and leads me out of the room. We go down the grand staircase, through corridors I remember from childhood, and through the kitchen, where other servants pause to stare at me. We walk out the back door into an inner courtyard paved with stone and surrounded by high walls. There’s a large basin set up, with buckets of water beside it. A pile of fine clothing sits waiting.
“You’re to wash the lord’s clothes by hand,” Greta says.
“By hand? That’s ridiculous. Wyverns have magic and advanced technology. Surely, a washing machine can be used for this.”
