Hair to the Throne

by Meredith Katz

  "The Watchful Palace is built very much like any normal building, but upside down, deep into the earth," he explained, a helpful guide as she clung to his side. "We're descending to the first floor now, though we won't be stopping there, since the prince lives in the deepest tower. The first floor is the largest and most occupied, since most of the demons with royal favor live there. Each floor gets smaller as it goes deeper, though they're broken apart sometimes—there are several towers that split off certain of the floors. We'll be descending to the thirtieth floor, then taking a bit of a walk to the lift that will take you to the tower that has Prince Vehr's main hall."

  After its initial start, the vibration of the lift was slowly becoming familiar. She let go of Sestin's arm after she was sure she'd found her footing.

  His long explanation made a sort of sense, but didn't entirely matter in comparison to the other information it revealed. "Wait," she said. "We're going right to the prince's room?"

  "Had you wanted a tour?" he asked, putting his hands on his hips and cocking his head inquisitively. "You were brought to do a service. I can't imagine any reason to delay."

  Stop being logical! You're just stressing me out more. She bit her lower lip to keep herself from responding, not remembering her lipstick until she'd already started chewing.

  Crap.

  Of course she'd be put to use right away. There was no use calling someone to do a job in a strange new location with a horrifying amount of work liability and then just giving them time to adapt. The worker's comfort didn't matter in a situation like this.

  She drew a breath and tried to push her anxiety away.

  "What's the prince's hair like?" she asked finally. "I haven't heard of her calling for a hairdresser before, and I'm not sure what I'll be dealing with."

  Sestin's eyes seemed to brighten again, flickering as he grinned widely at her. "Well, that's because nobody's cut her hair before. She keeps it clean and tidy, and split ends aren't really a problem. So there hasn't been reason to."

  "And what's the reason now?" Merle asked. She tried to imagine how much hair the prince had and kind of blanked out on the math. The prince had been ruling for at least six hundred years. Hair grew about three to six inches in a year. Now, there was no guarantee that her particular type of demon's hair grew at the same pace as a human's, but even so…

  That's a shit-ton of hair. Why would she suddenly want it cut?

  "What do you know about the watchers?" Sestin asked her.

  She blinked, surprised that he thought she'd know anything at all. They weren't a very common type of demon at all. "I… know they're supposed to be very tall," she said finally.

  "True," he said, nodding approvingly. They passed a floor with a lot of bright flickering lights on it, and her attention was drawn to it briefly before she wrenched it back to him. "They also have many eyes."

  "Oh," Merle said awkwardly. "That'd… explain the name?"

  Seeming a little amused, Sestin gestured wildly as he explained. "It would. The eyes are a sign of a watcher's age. The older one is, the more they have. Each hundred years, a new eye opens. Initially, they start on the face. Then the hands, the chest, the arms, the legs. Only a very old watcher begins to get them on their back. Those eyes are the seat of their power. The more eyes they have, the more power they can hold. A young watcher is weak—they have only a pair of eyes, so it's hard to keep other demons from plucking them out to keep them weak. But she's done well and has quite a few."

  Merle was finding that Sestin really liked hearing himself talk. At least it was useful, so she nodded understandingly. "And that's… what happened? An eye under her hair?"

  "On the back of her neck, yes. Her hair is getting in the way, so she's decided to cut it short." Sestin pondered Merle for a moment, thoughtful, then added, "I think you'll need to be careful how you present the haircut to her. As a shapeshifter, I'm used to seeing myself look vastly different from moment to moment. But for her, it's been many years looking exactly the same except for more eyes, and her hair is quite long. Seeing herself without it may be a shock."

  Merle had seen the reaction before in enough people, humans and demons both. Ors's shop was primarily for the use of demons, but there was an occasional honored slave or servant who was taken there. A lot of the time, people hated a cut just because they weren't used to seeing themselves with it.

  "Yeah," she admitted after a moment. "I'm a little worried. I'm sure I can make it look nice, but… people make habits about how they see themselves."

  "Demons can have a lot of time to form habits," Sestin said. He reached out to take her elbow; she stiffened, but he was just steadying her as the lift shuddered to a stop. "It's our biggest flaw, really. The older and more powerful we are, the more static and dull we can make a place."

  He led her off the lift and down a long corridor. It was very quiet, candles on the wall lighting their path and reflecting off the polished obsidian walls. There weren't a lot of people around, and she wondered if there was some schedule that would keep them elsewhere, or if this wasn't a terribly commonly used lift.

  The silence was already beginning to unnerve her; she could feel the hair on her arm rising on either side of where he was still gripping her. She reached back a few moments for the last thread of conversation. Gods, anything'll do. Just start talking again. "So are you static and dull too?"

  "Me?" He chuckled softly, the sound quiet, as though the silence and pressure of the corridor seemed to be getting to him too. "Oh, I'm not powerful, and only a little old."

  "Not powerful? You said you were a knight."

  "I'm powerful in terms of 'having demonic strength'," he agreed easily enough, tossing his hair back over his shoulder with a show of vanity. "But not in terms of having any influence. That's the sort of power I meant. She has plenty of knights—it's practically a term for her favorite toys."

  Merle blinked. There seemed to be a lot to unpack in that, and she wasn't sure she wanted to try. It would be hard to do so and keep track of the turns they were taking, to try to remember the way back to the lift if she needed to find it. "Huh. So despite all your ragging on your fellow demons, you don't think you're boring?"

  "It's unlikely I'd ever be able to claim a fiefdom of my own," he said, unoffended but still rolling his eyes in recognition of her snub. "But if I got my hands on this one, I'd absolutely want to change things. Turn left here."

  She turned left with him. "Isn't that, uh, insubordination?"

  "Goodness, Merle," he said, laughter in his tone and eyes glittering. "Who'd believe you if you told them I'd said that?"

  Merle opened her mouth, then shut it with a snap. Whoops. Somewhere in the middle of this she'd fallen into the trap of camaraderie, of starting to feel that just because he was helping her and talking to her as an equal, there wasn't a huge difference in power just from his being a demon and her being a human.

  As he'd said, it wasn't even about how strong he was as a demon. It was just influence. The demons ruled in this city; the humans obeyed, or were killed—or worse. Some of the demons could be amicable enough about it, but in the end, they were still demons, and they still knew they ruled here.

  He could express these things to her entirely because she was nothing. Nothing she said would ever matter to anyone important. If he said these things to a fellow demon, he could get in trouble.

  Saying it to me is like saying it to nobody at all.

  She fell silent, trying to focus again on the path they were walking.

  "Merle?" he asked, his amusement fading to be replaced with concern.

  Biting the inside of her cheek, she tried not to let resentment overwhelm her. She still had to answer him, answer to him. It wasn't even his fault that she felt this way. It's my own damn fault for getting carried away, just because he was friendly to me. All I'm doing is distracting myself from how shitty and scary this is.

  Nothing had actually changed between them.

  "I'm sorry," she said fi
nally, though she wasn't. But it was the appropriate thing to say. "You're right, of course."

  "Of course," he echoed back, and then sighed, smiling again. "Well, I'm sure I'd turn out to be a terribly vicious prince if I cowed you so easily with something like that. I didn't mean anything by it. You're right that I shouldn't talk so freely."

  Shrugging a shoulder, Merle straightened her back. "It doesn't matter."

  "Doesn't it?" he asked, still watching her with that gentle, smiling concern.

  "It doesn't."

  He sighed a second time, shrugging his shoulders, and turned away. "Here's the lift," he said, gesturing.

  She got onto it, and again, he joined her. This time, though, he fell silent as it descended, and didn't offer his arm. But she found she didn't need it; this lift seemed to have been better taken care of and moved more smoothly.

  Sestin didn't volunteer any more information, so Merle studied him as the lift descended. His horns were slightly twisted, like an older ram's, and his long hair, bound back in a ponytail, was a soft-looking reddish brown that brought out the orange in his eyes, contrasted even more by his pale skin. He had a strong, long nose, broad shoulders, and a muscular build.

  Not that memorizing his looks did her much good. A lot of cubants changed shapes like humans changed clothes. Who knew if she'd even recognize him the next time she saw him? But she still tried. For whatever reason of his own, he had decided to take interest in her. She needed all the advantages she could get in this place.

  He caught her looking and smiled at her, almost a smirk. Discouraged, she braced herself for some sort of come-on, a like what you see? But it never came.

  "Here's our floor," he said instead, as the lift came to a stop. She started to take a step forward, but stopped short as she felt Sestin grasp her arm again, tone and expression both gone serious. "Listen, Merle—"

  Merle let him pull her to a stop, made anxious again by the caution in his voice. "My Lord?"

  The title seemed to surprise him for a moment, but he smiled after a brief hesitation, seeming to accept it as his due regardless. His grip loosened until it fell away entirely. She could still feel the imprint of his fingers in her arm.

  "Nothing," he said, waving off whatever had made him sound so somber. "I'll escort you in. Be careful. She seems calm, but she's like an anchor in the ocean. She'll drag you down with her to suffocate if you let her."

  "That's… evocative," Merle said slowly. "Thanks? I'll try?"

  "All any of us can do, I suppose," he said lightly, and offered his arm again.

  She took it. It was a weird impression to give, she thought, on the way in. They weren't going to fool anyone to think she was better than she was, and they weren't trying to. She was here as a servant, after all.

  The doors to the great hall opened without Sestin touching them. She couldn't keep herself from stiffening, but there was no chance to dig her heels in at the last moment. He was moving her along forcibly and she had to keep walking or fall.

  The hall inside might have been large, but the large amount of haphazardly-placed furniture made it cramped. It was laid out like some oversized parlor, tables and bookcases around, chairs and nooks and lamps stuffed everywhere they could go, beautiful and expensive-looking knickknacks littering every surface. Demons floated and sat and stood around. Over here was a thin, bony man with mouths for eyes, tongues searching this way and that; he was so tall his head brushed the high ceiling and was wearing a perfectly-tailored dress suit. Over there was a woman whose body was like a cloud, thin and vaporous and transparent—Merle knew the type, knew they enveloped their prey and sucked all their blood out. Sitting on a nearby table were a trio of tiny, beautiful humanoids, thorns jutting out along their spines. More and more and more, everywhere she looked, filling what space the mess of furniture didn't. There were even some humans mingling among them, Merle saw.

  Everyone here was quiet, or conversing in voices so soft they bordered on murmurs. Their posture seemed casual and at-ease, but there was a strange edge of tension to it regardless. Like they're ready to act at a moment's notice—

  And everyone in the room was clearly paying attention to the central figure, hyper-aware of what she might do.

  Even though she didn't seem to be doing anything.

  All the old warnings not to look directly at her had flown completely out of her head at the sight of this woman. The Watchful Prince Vehr sat in a large, tall-backed chair in the very center of the room, a mug of steaming chocolate on the table to her side, a book open in her lap.

  She was beautiful, but bizarrely so, Merle thought, with a thin, pointed face, round, pouty lips, an upturned nose. She was tall enough that even sitting, she came easily to Merle's height. Her hair and skin were both shades of silvery-gray, making Merle think of the dead. She had a too-thin neck, and a small, perky bosom almost entirely exposed by her dress. Merle didn't wonder why, given the extra eyes. Along with two in the expected place, there were three on her forehead, one on her neck, a ring of them across her collar like a necklace. They blinked in unison, watching the two of them approach.

  She had, as Merle had guessed, a shit-ton of hair. She had it draped over the back of her chair, and it wound around the room in coils, wrapping around table legs, draping over lamps to provide the shade. It reminded Merle of spider webs, silver and uncanny.

  If it's a spider's web, I feel like the small bird it's trying to catch.

  She shuddered and tried to push the thought away so it didn't show on her face as they approached. Sestin stopped them about ten feet away and pushed downward, lightly, on Merle's arm before he let go.

  What is he—oh!

  She dropped into a curtsy at once, as low as she could go and still have her legs hold her up, head bowed, eyes lowered to the floor, watching the prince's feet instead of her face. She folded her arms across her chest in the gesture of obsequiousness. "Your highness," Merle murmured.

  The room fell silent at once.

  Vehr spoke in a soft murmur, so quietly that Merle had to strain to hear it—but it wasn't Merle she was responding to. "Sestin," Vehr said. "I don't recall sending you along to fetch her."

  "I know you trust my taste," he said brightly, bowing extravagantly to her. "And you have not given me a mission for some time. I thought that I could confirm that the old man wasn't hiding any prettier servants in his shop, but was obeying the notice you had sent. Was I acting out of line, my prince?"

  For a moment, it didn't look like Vehr was going to answer, her head cocked slightly as if Sestin were a dog that had learned a trick without his master teaching him.

  —and then there was a sudden crushing sense of force sucking the air out of Merle's lungs. Her curtsy almost collapsed with the weakness of her legs, even though Vehr's displeasure wasn't aimed at her.

  Sestin, however, crashed to his knees, head forced down so his forehead touched the ground. Merle, eyes still downcast, saw his face twist in a grimace as his hair fell down over it, entangled with his horns.

  "Are you trying to impress me, Sestin?" Vehr asked in a soft, lulling tone. "Do you think that if you bring me a fancy enough toy, I'll play with her instead of you?"

  "No, my prince," Sestin gasped out. His voice sounded strained, choked. "I only want your happiness."

  "Yes. You exist for that," Vehr agreed. "I know the reward you wanted."

  Merle saw Sestin bite his lower lip, eyes closing, brows furrowed. His expression was one of deep pain; she wondered how heavily the force of Vehr's power was weighing on him.

  She still didn't like Sestin exactly. He was just another demon, and she was sure he had been friendly to her because it was what he'd felt like doing, not because he cared about her well-being. But he had still been friendly to her. He gave her advice, watched out for her with the unaccustomed movements of the carriage and the lifts…

  Surely he doesn't deserve this! Then again, it wasn't like people usually got what they deserved.

  "I was no
t… looking for reward," Sestin managed, hoarsely. "I was idle. I had the time, as you freed me from what I might otherwise be doing, most beloved prince, great Watcher. I thought of nothing but serving you."

  "You want me to release you," Vehr corrected gently. And then, all at once, the pressure was gone. "Well. I can't fault you for that. And she seems pretty enough, for a human. If you were confirming it, I can't fault your taste."

  Merle, who had just drawn breath to protest Sestin's treatment despite every survival instinct she had, let it out in a rush of relief.

  "May I rise?" Sestin whispered.

  "Do. It does not become a beautiful incubus to grovel."

  Sestin pushed himself to his knees, managing with effort to get a hoof under himself. He was trembling, as if whatever Vehr had done had left him weak, and he stumbled as he managed to draw himself upright.

  Merle moved without thinking, uncrossing her legs from her curtsy and catching him, throwing an arm around him so that his weight came against her instead of sending him toppling back to the floor.

  He hadn't let her fall, not once on the entire way down here. Even though she was just a human. He'd at least left her some dignity.

  Sestin drew an unsteady breath against her, one arm sliding around her shoulders as he got his balance back. "Ah—"

  "Are you all right?" she whispered.

  He looked up at her from under long brown lashes, gaze flickering oddly. What a weird incubus, Merle thought. She'd assumed that he'd been keeping his aura of lust off her since she didn't like men and he seemed disinterested in shifting, but even so, she should have been able to feel it from how closely they were pressed together now.

  But she felt nothing.

  Sestin abruptly smiled again, then rose fully, letting go of her and inclining his head to Vehr. "As you can see, not only is she beautiful, she is kind. Even to a demon, she offers such consideration. I'm sure she will serve you well."

  "Even to a demon," Vehr echoed back, the tone slightly scornful. "As if you can put yourself on par with me." She raised her hand from her book and gestured to the side. There was another eye on her palm. "Go, mingle. Enjoy the party, Sestin. At least you're nice to look at, if I can't trust you to be obedient."