I burst into the inner courtyard and take a few breaths to calm myself. My hands are shaking, and my whole body trembles with adrenaline. Gods, I hate Altair so much. The hate is so strong it’s almost overwhelming.
What if I killed him in his sleep? Would that be an option?
I shake my head and try to clear away the violent thoughts. I go back to washing his clothes, needing something to do with my hands.
I work for hours, scrubbing and rinsing. My arms ache, my back aches, and my hands are raw and bleeding in places from the harsh soap. The sun moves across the sky. I’m exhausted and too hungry to function. My stomach cramps painfully, and I’m dizzy from lack of food and from spending all day in the sun. A headache pounds behind my eyes.
Finally, I decide I have to eat something. I go back into the kitchen and attempt to make myself a plate with food lying around. There’s bread on the counter, and cold stew in a pot. I reach for a clean plate from the stack.
Greta makes her appearance out of nowhere. She slaps my hand away and takes the plate from me.
“What? Why?” I say, confused and hurt.
“We’re not allowed to feed you. You eat with Lord Aurellion, do you not? You eat better food than we do, so we’re not allowed to share what’s ours with you.”
I cannot believe my ears. I look around the kitchen desperately. I see the cook stirring a pot, deliberately not looking at me. I see other servants watching me, and there’s malice in their eyes.
They think I’m the lord’s favorite. They think I get privileges they don’t. They have no idea I’m being tortured, no idea I’m eating his leftovers, or not eating at all.
I can’t stand their stares anymore, so I rush out of the kitchen. I run through the corridors back to my room, my stomach rumbling painfully. It feels like it’s eating itself from the inside.
I get to my luxurious chambers that feel like a cage and slam the door behind me. My stomach cramps and growls, my head pounds, and my raw hands throb.
I’m trapped.
Chapter Six
Altair
I stand in front of the mirror and examine my reflection with a critical eye. The advantage of being a wyvern is that even though I’m exhausted and in pain, it doesn’t show on my face.
I reach for my shirt and pull it on, then grab my jacket. The moment I shrug it on and it tightens around my body, I wince. The pain flares across my back. I have to force myself to straighten.
I unfurl my wings, letting them spread wide despite the way it makes every nerve ending scream. The wings tremble slightly before I manage to control them, and I tuck them back against my spine. I comb my hair with my fingers, smoothing the golden strands into place, and then I run my hands down my clothes to make sure everything is perfect. When I’m satisfied that I look exactly like the cold, imperious lord everyone expects, I leave my room.
I don’t know what to do with myself. My thoughts circle back to Tressa and her rage earlier. The way she touched me when she cleaned the wine from my lap, how it nearly undid me completely. I walk quickly through the palace corridors and emerge into the rose garden.
It stretches before me in the late afternoon light, beautiful and romantic. Ancient stone statues rise between the rose bushes. They are covered in climbing vines heavy with blooms. I pass a statue of a wyvern frozen mid-flight. There’s another that depicts coiled snakes emerging from a fountain, water trickling from their open mouths into the basin below. The copper has turned green with age, giving everything a strange, otherworldly quality.
The scent of roses hangs thick in the air, almost overwhelming, and thorny vines creep up the iron trellises thatline the paths. Shadows fall across the cobblestones as the sun begins its descent, making the whole place feel gothic despite the spring warmth.
I walk for a while, following the winding paths without any real destination in mind. I look up at the sky. A flight would be nice right now, I think, feeling the urge to shift and take to the air. But my back is in too much pain for me to shift.
I’m not mad about it. This is what I wanted. The only way I can survive each day is if I put myself in enough physical pain that I can ignore the mental and emotional torture I’ve been feeling for years, since I was a child. The physical acts as a buffer, a distraction, something I can control when everything else spirals beyond my grasp.
I still don’t know what to do with myself. I have work to do, paperwork that’s been waiting for me in the library for days now. I should go and work on the estate accounts, on the correspondence from other noble houses, and all the tedious responsibilities that come with being the heir to House Aurellion. But I know I won’t be able to focus. Every time I try to think about something else, all I can see is Tressa.
I wonder constantly where she is in the palace, what she’s doing, whether she’s thinking about me the way I’m thinking about her. I have to fight myself to not go looking for her, to not summon her immediately just to have her near me.
Eventually, I give up on the pretense and decide to just go back to my chambers. As I cross through corridors and rooms, the servants shy away from me.
I pull a book from the bookshelf – some dry tome about the history of the Kingdom of Aurumveil that I’ve been meaning to read – and I settle into my favorite armchair near the fireplace. I open the book and stare at the pages, but it’s impossible to focus on the words.
All I can think about is how delicious it was when Tressa got so angry at me that she insulted me and hurled the leftovers at my face, and stormed out of the dining room. The way her eyes blazed with fury, the way she refused to be cowed by me no matter how much I pushed her…
It’s only been a day, but I already feel like I’m addicted to her. Addicted to making her angry at me. Every time, she ends up giving me exactly what I need. Her hatred, her rage, her defiance – all of it feeds the dark, hungry thing inside me.
I’m afraid I might have made a mistake bringing her back to the palace. Her presence might end up destroying me. But at the same time, I can’t fight it, I can’t resist the pull she has on me. And if Tressa does end up destroying me, then maybe that’s good. It’s exactly what I deserve.
