“Ah,” is all I can manage.
“Look,” she says, as she turns to look me in the eye. “I don’t know what the rules were for servants where you’re from, but here, we have few rules to protect us and a great many to control us; they don’t make our service years easy. I don’t have time to explain them all to you.”
And she’s off again. The hall’s empty, but she makes no attempt to slow down on my account.
“If this is the White Castle, does that mean your Crown lives here?”
“No, the White Castle is for Sabers.”
I rub at my temples and try to come up with something from my world that might be similar.
“Are these Saber triunes like military units of mages?” I ask.
She laughs her pity laugh again, making our second sharp turn. Finding my way back is going to be hard.
“I guess. Mages do have bits of this magic, but they’re not the same thing. They kind of craft magic. The powers that Sabers have are particular to certain families, certain bloodlines, and they are that power. Always.”
She stops sharply in the middle of a hallway that looks exactly like the rest.
“Then I know four of them with full grown trees of asshole magic,” I mutter. “Did you just laugh?”
She slams her mouth shut and straightens her back.
“You did, didn’t you? You just laughed.”
She levels her hazel eyes on me, and I realize for the first time that she’s really pretty. Like really, really pretty. If her hair wasn’t cut to bob around her face and her features weren’t tight with stress.
“Bathe, then report to the Saber dining hall kitchens.”
She pokes a thumb at the door behind her, then turns on her heels.
“Wait, what’s your name?”
“Clara. I run the morning shift for the Saber kitchens. If you get lost, look for the ledger,” she says, not even looking back as she shakes the ledger in the air. “If in doubt, get on your hands and knees, put your forehead to the ground, and stay there until the Saber has left. Simple.”
“If in doubt,” I say under my breath, pulling a Clara face. “Get on your hands and knees and let the Saber do you up the –”
The door next to me swings open, and I jump back out of the way before I’m smashed into. Two male servants walk out backward, pulling small carts loaded with cleaning supplies.
One of them looks at me, frowning.
“Aren’t there any Soot men?” the guy on the left asks his friend.
They’re close to my age, straight up and down like they never get a second helping at dinner.
“Saber women don’t suck the life out of us whenever they go into a temper. The Saber males do, and they like fresh meat and new playthings.”
“There’s a few that like man-meat,” the other guy counters. “Tan, Rynal, Roarke, Tatum –”
“I’m not meat,” I cut in. Or a plaything. But they’re already walking down the hall, pushing the carts in front of them. “Fine, where’s the ladies bathroom?” I shout after them.
“Unisex bathrooms,” one of them calls back.
I stare at the door accusingly, like it’s the bathroom’s fault that there could be naked guys in there… and I have to go in.
I’ve seen nakedness before – on kids, on myself, occasionally on the other female servants when we bathe, but it is my least favorite form of… anything. It’s uncomfortable, and it makes me vulnerable.
But if there’s only one bathroom, then… there’s only one bathroom.
With a deep breath, and my eyes squeezed shut, I barge in. Opening my eyes one at a time.
Empty.
The room’s like a storeroom with shelves down two walls. Towels and itemized stacks of clothing fill them. The lights are a calming dim, and the walls are painted in a dark brown, almost chocolate color.
Mmmm, chocolate walls.
Instead of taste-testing the walls, which I remind myself several times is a very stupid idea, I inventory the rest of the room.
At the far end there are two doors. One with a picture of a hole and the other with a picture of falling rain drops.
At least that’s easy to understand.
I grab a towel from a shelf and walk tentatively toward the shower door.
There’s no noise, no water running, voices, movement, or other obvious signs of life in there, so I barge in and dash past ten showers in two neat rows and into the cubicle at the very back. I hang the towel in the gap where a proper door should be, but where there is absolutely nothing. No curtain, nothing.
The towels are nice and white, but that’s probably because servants do the washing. They’re far from thick or fluffy, and they’re not very wide either.
But there’s nothing I can do about that.
I can picture it now, my first day on the job, and I organize a protest, naked servants running through the palace demanding more coverage from their towels. A shiver runs over me – nope, not even in my imagination can I picture a bunch of naked bodies.
I turn in the small cubicle, shimmy off my tunic, stockings and boots, and kick them just outside, where I’m hoping they’ll stay dry. The boots refuse to move, but the clothes go sliding across the floor.
There’s only one tap, and luke-warm would be an overstatement, even though there’s a slight burn as it touches my skin. Almost cold water shouldn’t burn, but it does cover for the lack in temperature. I fill my hands with water and sip from them, instantly gagging on the bitter-burning flavor, and spitting it all over the place. I try unsuccessfully to wipe the taste from my tongue. It’s similar to a squashed ant, if I were stupid enough to taste one, and crushed leaves. Yep – that’s high on my list of things I never want to put in my mouth again.
“Yuck,” I mumble, holding my tongue.
Whatever they’ve added to the water isn’t designed to make the servants smell or feel good; they just want us somewhere beyond ‘clean’.
That’s one way to get a girl out of the shower in a hurry.
I flick the tap off and snatch my towel down right as the main door slams open and voices flood in.
“Tournament’s been called for this afternoon,” a guy says.
Because the bathroom is unisex. Suck it up, Shade. You can handle this.
Someone flicks the water on in one of the shower cubicles closer to the door, followed by a female sigh. There are girls in here just getting all naked and showering with the guys!
That’s beyond my powers of sucking it up.
“The Elorsin brothers are back,” a guy says.
“I was wondering why Logan is storming around the halls. He used to watch their tournaments before he was called. I had money on him getting into the arena as soon as possible,” one guy says.
“He’s not strong enough yet.”
“I have money on Logan’s sister getting the call, challenging the Elorsins, and winning,” the girl says.
“They’ll never let the women and men tournament together. The tradition is too old. It doesn’t matter which Dignitaries are for it and which are against it. Besides, has anyone heard new rumors on Kyra?”
“Nothing new. But even the Elorsins are worried about her. When she gets the call, we’ll see the Elorsins bleed,” a guy says, sounding a little like he’d rather not see them bleed.
Half the room laughs, chuckles, or exclaims in one way or another that that will never happen.
More showers flick on and I risk a glimpse out of my cubicle. My body is shaking, and it’s not from the cold.
The path from my cubicle to the door is clear. Everyone has stepped inside their own shower cubicles. I reach down and snatch up my boots, which are all I have time for, then dash for the door. Full pelt, trying not to catalogue the things I’m seeing out of the corners of my eyes, and failing.
Hairy ass, penis, black ass, more ass, bush, argh!
I hit the door without slowing and slip, gliding across the floor to thump into one of the shelves, which breaks, and
the clothes fall in a heap all around me.
I grab at what looks like a shirt and pair of pants and am out the door and into the hallway before my brain has kicked into gear.
A hallway full of people.
The door slams shut behind me.
Don’t these people have something to clean?!
A whole lot of eyes turn toward me, a few creased in laughter, but most just in shock. I struggle to grip the bathroom door handle. Of course my fingers would malfunction when I need them most.
The knob turns, the door opens, and I back through it, not wanting to take my eyes off the people – so many people. When the door swings shut, it seals out the noise. Leaving me in the empty room. A broken shelf and pile of clothes on the floor to my left. Neatly stacked towels on the shelf to my right. And my back to the doors into the toilets and showers.
It takes me a long moment to recover and finally take a deep breath… then drop my towel. I don’t even want to look behind me in case there’s someone there – because I’m too hungry to stand around in a towel all day.
I shimmy into the pants, which are about my size, and the shirt, which is definitely a size too big. Then my boots.
The shirt’s white, the pants are white, and my sun-tanned skin stands out in both. It’s only once I’ve stepped out into the hallway, this time without making everyone gasp at the sight of me, and begun to hunt down the kitchens, that I realize the girls are all wearing tunics. Only the guys are in pants.
That, combined with the pale never-seen-the-sun color of their skin, makes me stand out more than I’d like to.
Because if resisting one of these Sabers is a bad idea, then the last thing I want to do is draw attention to myself.
‘Shadow or shade,’ Cook’s voice rings in my memory and I take two quick steps to the edge of the hallway. I corrected her once, told her it’s probably ‘shadows and shade’ and that there’s not much difference between a shadow from a thing and the shade from a tree. All she did was mutter incoherently about me not being old enough to understand.
I just have to learn what the shadows and the shade look like in a place like this.
Showering in this place is a nightmare. The clothes in this place are a nightmare. Trying to find the kitchens in this place is a really long nightmare.
By the time I bite my pride down hard enough to consider asking someone for directions, most of the servants wandering the halls have dissipated off to wherever their next job was.
I grab the only other guy in here by the arm – just to get his attention.
“Can you tell me where the Saber kitchens are?”
The guy looks at me, then turns to walk off.
Doesn’t say a thing – just walks away!
I rush after him, slipping through an almost hidden servants’ door into a larger corridor. I’m at a crossroads between one part of the castle and another. Made clear because there’s a really big ornate wooden door not far away from me. What I just left was for servants only; this looks like it could be for servants and Sabers, and through that door definitely looks like it’s for Sabers only.
There are no windows in here, but the roof overhead is slanted and made of glass, filling the hall with cloudless sunlight between big timber support beams.
I’m taking in all the details instead of watching where I’m going. Naturally followed by me slamming into the servant, and both of us into some other guy, then ending up in a heap on the floor.
At least the servant hits the floor with me.
I groan and wait for him to stop muttering before saying, “I was only trying to ask directions.”
We both clamber to our feet – the other guy we ran into now somewhere behind me. He managed not to be knocked over.
“You…” the servant growls as he smooths his clothes and tries to regain his composure.
His gaze flicks over my shoulder before his whole expression blanches. Then he chuckin’ runs down the hall – forgetting whatever it was he was about to accuse me of.
“Soot,” the guy behind me booms, shooting fear through my bones.
I turn far too slowly, half my mind on running after the servant, but my body obeying the voice of someone who is clearly a master.
He’s wearing a fancy shirt with a satin collar and embroidered fiery skulls down the seams. That’s scary-creepy on its own, but his black expression and greasy features take it to a whole new level. He steps up to me with a combination of confidence and menace. His shoulders are squared, but his arms hang free like they’re prepared to grab me by the throat even as he pretends to be relaxed.
I swallow hard, forcing my breaths to be even and biting on the tip of my tongue to remind it where it belongs – in my mouth, and not running away with my thoughts.
“Soot,” he drawls this time. “Bow.”
Okay, this guy thinks he’s king shit, I realize, as I do as I’m told. Bowing deeply, eyes lowered, and preparing myself for a hit or a kick.
“Lower,” he growls.
I obey, getting on my hands and knees. The floor of this hall is carpeted in a light green, and it’s as immaculate as the rest of the place. Plush. Best surface I’ve ever had the pleasure of kneeling on.
He leans down, grips the back of my head by my bun, and tugs me to my feet. Which rips apart every bit of self-control I thought I had and sets my heart to hammering wildly inside my chest.
“That’s how low you bow to a prince,” he drawls, tilting my head back and raking his eyes over me as I avert my gaze and bite the tip of my tongue.
“I heard a rumor that an Elite team brought you in,” he says, leaning forward to smell me. “And since they seem to be finished with you…” He leaves the sentence dangling, smiling wickedly for a long moment. “Do you know exactly who I am?”
No chuckin’ idea. I know what he is, evil. Evil with dark eyes, black hair, and greasy skin that should have bred the kind of pimples that leave scars, but somehow the bastard has avoided that.
“The prince…” I manage to say – not too bad. Not too incriminating. “… who needs to kiss a pretty woman so he doesn’t feel like a frog.”
I groan inwardly. Epic-mouth-fail.
He lets go of my hair.
“You consider yourself a pretty woman? I wonder what experience you’ve had out there. How many men have had their hands on you?” he asks, one corner of his lip lifts to sneer at me. “I promise you, no man will compare to me.”
A head lowers in between us – attached to a man, hanging upside down from the rafters, with strands of gold in his hair. Two – Seth.
The other guy jumps back in surprise, and upside down Seth turns, dazzles me with his blue eyes and broad mischievous smile, winks, then turns back.
“You’re not a man, Logan,” Seth says.
Logan – as in the one guy Seth was ordered to stay away from, and the guy Clara practically described as a walking servant-killer.
“You can’t touch me, Seth,” Logan spits.
I take a step backward, feeling the smooth wall at my back and eyeballing both directions of the empty hall.
Seth holds his hands up… or rather down… as if showing he’s unarmed. Unarmed and hanging from the rafters by his feet.
“You can’t touch me either, Logan,” he says.
“Then why are you here?” Logan bites out. “Is she yours?”
Seth cocks his head, then turns slowly to look at me as if he’d forgotten I was here.
“Her? Why would I mess with her? No, I’m here to mess with you – I’m just going to do it without touching you.”
In a soft swoosh of fabric, Logan’s pants fall to the ground. Thankfully not his braies, just his pants. All on their own. No one touched them.
I stare at the heap of brown fabric, my jaw falling open, and I really don’t have the presence of mind to shut the thing again.
They were on him. The ties fastened because he walked in here with them pulled up. And now they’re on the chuckin’ floor.
; Logan’s face heats, his jaw moving in a slow grinding motion that makes me cringe.
“Didn’t touch you,” Seth says, still effortlessly hanging from the rafter.
Logan snatches up his pants, holding them and not bothering to turn his attention to the ties, as if he knows they’ll just end up on the floor again anyway.
“You’re due in tournament this afternoon. My uncle is on his way here,” Logan says.
“I know,” Seth says.
“I will inform him of every move you make.”
“I know.”
“And he’ll make you pay for every single time you even bother to look at me.”
“Yep – I know.” Seth folds his arms over his chest, practically defying gravity right now. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
I should be getting my ass out of here while I can. But staying in Seth’s shadow is really the only way to stay in any shadow at the moment.
And honestly, in a weirdly enticing way, I’m enjoying how this is unfolding. I shouldn’t be. The notion is warring with my common sense and still racing heart, but not in the same way as any encounter with Lord Martin and Jake. For one thing, I really have no fear that Seth is going to get hurt right now. Not sure why, possibly because the guy’s hanging upside down, like gravity just isn’t a thing for him.
I’m not kidding myself – he’s here to toy with Logan, not rescue the soot-slave. Still can’t convince myself to run, though.
“My uncle might not be able to end you – but I will,” Logan says, leaning forward to get into Seth’s personal space.
The two of them are practically breathing on each other.
The air thickens, not visibly, but somehow physically. My stomach drops, along with the temperature as everything behind Logan suddenly gets ripped open. Just for a split second. Solid walls – then a great big gash through reality, revealing nothing but darkness – then walls again. Almost like the world bloody blinked for a moment.
Fun’s over – I don’t want to be here anymore.
I press myself harder into the wall and inch away – don’t care in which direction, so long as it is away. My lungs trying, and failing, to suck in air.
Seth bristles, his hands clenched into fists even though his arms are still crossed over his chest. Seth can’t touch him, but it looks an awful lot like he’d like to punch the guy in the face.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 5