by Lisa Daniels
“I just want people to talk to me,” Kiara said. “And because everyone thinks it’s common knowledge, I accidentally got myself married!”
“Uh... 'accidentally?' Mistress, you took off a god's mask in public and then went to his chambers. That's not an accident.” Winifred pursed her lips in quaint amusement.
“It was just a mask. It's not like I threw my panties into the crowd and then leapt on him like some kind of crazed animal.”
“To the court, you may as well have,” Winifred said. “I think you'll find a few of them greatly disturbed by your bold actions. And there's talk about some of the insults you said. Tell me, did you really say that Lady Iswain was offended by everyone because she had a big nose?”
Didn't sound so funny, coming from Winifred's lips, but Kiara smiled anyway. “It's a joke. We do that in Fjorn. Make jokes. The best ones come from insulting people.”
“My advice, mistress. Please don't do that again. I was lucky to get delegated this position to a foreigner. If you get yourself exiled in disgrace, I'll be back to scrubbing the floors again in the kitchens. I'd like to keep my new position.”
“Oh,” Kiara said. “So you weren't always a maid?”
“No. It's considered a great honor to be one. And very few wanted to be maid to a foreigner, so I saw my opportunity in. I must say, mistress, you don't seem as barbaric as everyone expected you to be. But do tone down what you consider to be jokes.”
Kiara sighed, now shrugging out of her dress, walking over the puddle and sucking in the light from her necklace again. “Fine. No being funny. I'll be perfectly miserable and boring. Just how you people like it.”
Winifred let out a chuckle while helping to tug Kiara out of her shift, so she was naked.
Another thing Mordred recommended that she do was to leave her panties at his place. Seemed like he was right to say so, even though it made her blush furiously, because Winifred acted as if this was a perfectly acceptable sight to behold. Soon she presented Kiara in front of a mirror, letting her admire the simple black dress—a close reminder of home, with all the drab colors they preferred there.
Maybe Winifred had chosen the outfit especially for that reason. “Will you teach me some of the lightweaving, Winifred? I find myself in sore need of doing more than blowing light through my fingers.”
“To be fair,” Winifred said, “it does look impressive. And sure. We can start tonight if you want. In time, I'll get you to do some cool things. Such as...” Winifred concentrated for a moment, holding her hands close together as if clutching a box. Kiara watched in interest as light threaded together between Winifred's fingers, an amorphous cloud until it coalesced into what appeared to be a shimmering yellow fish. She then bound it with a few more threads, weaved some instructions for its animation, and the tiny fish flitted out, now beginning to explore the confines of Kiara's softly lit room.
That's at least a sixth level enchantment! Kiara smiled as she saw it hesitate in front of a painting, before swimming to the side of the wall. Weaving light together so that it imitated life—an above average skill. She likely knew heat transference as well. For a servant, this Winifred appeared remarkably skilled. Maybe it wouldn't take long for Kiara to exhibit level two abilities.
“That's amazing, Winifred! If you showed this kind of ability back in Fjorn, you can bet you wouldn't be a servant. Though I hope you'll be a better teacher than the ones we had. Watching paint dry was more fascinating than listening to them croon about their precious lightweaving.”
The redhead blushed at this, almost matching the color of her short hair. “That's kind of you to say, mistress. But for now, I think I'll stick to this.” She offered no more thoughts upon the subject, and Kiara rather regretfully buttoned up her black, elbow-length gloves, which seemed to take forever to do. She was always far too impatient, preferring clothes that could be slammed on fast. Winifred insisted on the gloves, however, saying they matched in a wonderful way that let people feast upon her beauty.
Ha. Beauty. Maybe she should walk around the palace pulling hideous faces until Winifred lifted that definition from her.
“Where would you like to go, mistress? Now that you have free roam of the palace and the city.”
The thought of being able to explore caught Kiara's brain on fire, and excitement threaded through her. “Right! I can explore. Well... everywhere, then. May as well get to see why all the Kanthians think their city is so great.”
Winifred grinned. “Do you wish for me to come with you, mistress?”
“Oh, please.” Kiara allowed her light to puff out in little orbs around her hands. “I have no idea where I'm supposed to go, or even where I can go. I'll need a local guide or I'll be hopelessly lost.” One of her fingers began twitching impatiently. Finally. She could get out of that accursed palace. Roam the city, maybe collect some books, though it took a rare book to make her sit down and concentrate long enough. Had those guards stuck around, too? She still had a half-finished letter lying around somewhere, and they never messaged her to say what inn they planned to stay in if so.
She wouldn't blame them if they did go.
Kiara passed Mordred during the walk to the gardens, and had to shove down her impulse to run as he approached her. “Hello, beautiful!” He leaned and kissed her on the cheek before she had time to react. “Remember, we're going to be meeting my father later tonight. He's excited to see you!”
“He... is?” Kiara gaped at him, before recovering slightly. “Ah, yes, of course. He'll want to get to know his new daughter at some point.”
Inside, though, her insides clenched, angry at the sudden marriage. Of knowing that whether she liked it or not, she now needed to roll along with it.
At least Mordred didn't try it on with her. He had approached her to confirm to the public—which meant the other servants scuttling around—that they had indeed consummated their “marriage.” Winifred smiled as Mordred sauntered away. She hadn't seen him without his mask before, and she now spun on Kiara in excitement. “That's one good-looking god you've taken, there. You're a lucky one, mistress. Most have to be content with those missing half a foot or with black teeth.”
“I'm sure,” Kiara replied wryly. She decided to change the subject before her inside emotions ended up displaying far too obviously on the outside. “So where would you recommend me to go?”
“Oh. Let's see... well. You'll probably want the scenic route—the one where they take all the tourists. We don't get a whole lot of tourists, but enough so that there's a few people making a living from showing them the sights.” She walked Kiara over to a waiting carriage beyond the gates where the sentries stood, and they clambered up into it. “The central bridge, please,” she called up to the driver, and he coaxed his two horses into a trot. They trundled over the main bridge, giving Kiara plenty of time to look down into the lake below, where she saw live fish covered in magic—level four talent.
Level one, manifesting the light. Level two, manipulating it. I'm probably just about level two. Level three, attaching it to a still object. Four, living.
What was five again? Something about attaching it to an object from a distance or something, and getting it to move of its own accord. Just like the ripple effects in Mordred's room, giving the whole place the eerie texture of something underwater.
Winifred here was a level six—manipulating the light so that it imitated living and still forms. Level seven was having the imitation without needing a source to attach to. Heat transference could happen from level three onwards, a kind of additional skill that was supposed to be learned at some point, though it became easier the higher up the skill chart someone was. Very few level threes could heat transfer, whilst many level fives could.
Drat. I'm wrong about what she might be. She's a level seven at least. That fish just went swimming off. It wasn't attached to a stone or the wall or anything.
Was Winifred even aware of how powerful she was? It irritated Kiara to think that someone so valuabl
e was little more than a servant. Servant work should be confined to those who didn't have lightweaving. It should be given to those people so that they still had something valuable to do. Not to waste a lightweaver on something so mundane. Wasteful and pointless. Just like the lightweaving used in this city.
She couldn't help but stare at Winifred, just wondering how they let someone of her talents be stuck here.
Winifred already hinted at not being challenged on it, though. So she left it alone. Maybe she could ask Winifred to lightweave a few things as the kind of whimsical demands of a mistress. Test the girl's ability for herself.
Girl? I'm not much older than she is. She must be eighteen, nineteen at least. And I'm barely past twenty-one.
Winifred dutifully showed Kiara around the city, though it required a lot of lake visits, some bobbing on the water in flimsy little boats, and a trip to some of the better shops in the area. People stared at Kiara's dark hair in a distrustful manner, however. They really didn't seem to like a foreigner walking in their shops, even if said foreigner was married to one of their gods.
Or perhaps that was the issue. Someone that they considered lower than others happened to be hitched to someone they worshipped above everything else. Creating a conflict in their minds.
“It's like I said,” Winifred whispered, as she gently steered Kiara out of another hostile shop, “they don't like that you've robbed the chance for one of their own to marry a god. Every little girl dreams of making it big in Kanthus. Marrying a Highborn or marrying a god. Take this.” She picked up a book from a small market stall, propped up against a glowing bakery. “‘Love and Lust: The Prince of Wolves’. A book that many people love here. About a commoner from the streets who ends up accidentally marrying a god, but they fall in love with each other along the way and she ends up having lots of healthy gods as children. A classic.”
Kiara snorted, before stopping herself. Thankfully, Winifred shared the mood, for she grinned as well. “It's a terrible book, honestly, but this is the kind of fiction you'll see our single, lonely girls reading. You want to get it, mistress?”
Well, seeing as it sounded disconcertingly true to what happened to her, except it was an entirely different kind of accident, Kiara agreed. She probably wouldn't be able to manage past a few pages, anyway. They bought the book for about two silver coins, and Winifred tucked it away in a little knapsack that she wore specifically to help her mistress with whatever she intended to buy. Some women preferred entire carriages full of goods, according to Winifred, since they couldn't help but snap up anything that drew the slightest bit of interest, such as cleverly made ornaments with intricate lightweavings.
Most lightweavers of around third rank ended up being merchants, selling glow-necklaces and other useful objects. When a group of men down one main road openly stopped to glare, Winifred now became uncomfortable.
“Mistress... I think perhaps I misjudged the mood of my fellow Kanthians. I think it best if we don't leave the palace unless we have a full armed escort. I had hoped that as two women, a Highborn and her servant, we would more or less be dismissed. But it seems everyone knows who you are. News travels very fast.”
“What's the issue?” Kiara didn't exactly expect the people to love her. Nights, she didn't have much love from her own people in Fjorn. People just saw her as the brat.
But that hostility... that couldn't be just because she'd married a god, could it?
“We don't have any protection. I'm a fool, mistress. Let's hail a carriage.” Winifred instantly dragged Kiara over, though there were no carriages currently in sight.
“This can't be because I married Mordred, can it?”
“That's one small thing of many, mistress.” Winifred scowled, before pulling Kiara into a book merchant's shop. “Many people believe that a formal alliance with another kingdom will invite their weaknesses into us. They fear losing jobs, having too many foreigners in the city, and they fear the sacred bloodlines being weakened by lowly blood such as yours, compromising their ability to fight the night hordes. All of it nonsense, but things that people do believe.”
“Then why didn't you ask for protection when we went out earlier? Why didn't you caution me against this?” Slight worry entered Kiara. People tended to leave things out for the purpose of deceiving others.
“I didn't expect us to wander off this far, mistress. Following the main routes, we will have little chance of being accosted. But wandering over to these stalls, which you dearly wanted to look at...”
Kiara flushed slightly. True. She'd spotted the stalls, went darting off to them, and consequently found herself getting more and more distracted by all the different things. Such as that strange little sign outside that tavern, with lightwoven bees flitting around it. Or the small fountain which depicted water coming out of a wolf's mouth. Or that stall with the deliciously thin potato chips.
Everything should be okay. People wouldn't dare assault her for whatever reason. Why bother risking the wrath of the god she married? Pretty stupid thing to do, right?
Loud music blared out all of a sudden. Two men playing on trumpets, another one drumming. So loud that they drowned out the sound of any voices nearby.
Including the sound of a scream.
Three men closed in on her from the left, swerving out of a thin alley. Another two walked in fast from behind, and a carriage drew up. One drawn by four horses, big and black and completely sealed, so that anyone inside it couldn't look out.
A hand clamped over Kiara's mouth. Before she had time to struggle, the owner of those hands had bundled her into the carriage, along with a terrified Winifred. The doors locked and clicked. Sealed inside a pitch dark room, lit only by Winifred and Kiara's glow-necklaces. Instantly, Kiara yelled and started banging against the wood, along with Winifred.
No one responded.
No one came.
The carriage jerked off, the music deafening, with them screaming until their throats ran ragged.
Realizing that they were trapped.
Chapter Five
Kiara didn't know how many hours they'd been in that carriage. Only that they kept rattling forward until the city sounds had long drowned out, and the wheels ran instead across what sounded like soft, spongy ground.
Taking them somewhere outside Kanthus city. To one of the swamp-laden areas beyond.
“Are they planning to ransom me?” Kiara didn't know, but she reached for Winifred's hand. In the time they'd been stuck in the carriage, Winifred had made herself several animated light animals. Little wolves that scampered across the air. Dragons, creatures that belonged to the night hordes, also fluttered around, belching tiny blue flames.
“It would be a bad idea to do such a thing, mistress,” Winifred said, slumped forward, her short red hair dangling in front of her face. “No. I suspect they plan to dispose of us in a more discreet manner. It's not the first time I've heard of such a case happening. Take us out far, beyond the safety of the kingdom, into the Endless Dark. And let the night hordes deal with us.”
Kiara's teeth chattered at the thought. She tried remembering the extra levels of lightweaving, the rarer ones that few people reached, as a bid to distract herself from this new reality. Level eight. Being able to illuminate multiple living objects at the same time, rather than one at a time. Whole fields, for example. Whole schools of fish. An entire lake, also heated. Winifred didn't seem like a level eight, at least. Level sevens could also do what a level eight did. It just took them longer, since they needed to infuse each thing individually. Level nine. What's level nine...? She sighed. She'd completely forgotten what nine was. Let alone ten. And was there higher than ten? What little she heard from her tutors suggested that there might be many levels they hadn't yet heard of. They described light as being a weapon against the darkness, after all.
With the sun being the ultimate light, and the moon its faithful shadow.
“I just don't see the point in this.” Kiara continued to inhale her light
and let it bubble out of her. Then, for good measure, she produced more of it, though since she didn't know how to leave it within an object, it soon fizzled out. “Like, why bother to jeopardize a potential alliance? We should all be working together to fend off the night hordes. That just makes sense.”
“To you, perhaps, mistress. Not to others. They are too proud. Since we've successfully held off the hordes for so long, for them, why bother changing how we work now? Why sell ourselves to a weaker nation at all? I'm sure many wonder what the royals are thinking, trying to organize such a thing.”
Kiara slumped against the uncomfortable wood. The way they just honed in on Winifred and her, had the music, the carriage ready... it seemed surprisingly efficient. An opportunity presented by her wanderlust nature, from flitting stall to stall. She thought about Mordred, with a small pang of sadness. Though she didn't take what had happened seriously between them, he did. He'd put himself out there, risked ire, just to make sure she didn't ruin things.
He cared about this potential alliance. He wanted her to go and meet his mother and father this dusknight, to place a formal knot on things. Or had dusk passed already?
Shame, though. Kiara barely had any time to get to know her new accidental husband. Or read the book Winifred got for her. Or, well, do anything, really.
Three nights.
That's how long it took for me to mess things up. Three entire nights. Unbelievable. If Bethany had been here...
Bethany wouldn't let herself get distracted. Bethany would do her duty with her new husband. Violet wouldn't mess up either, but she didn't need to. Already married, and busy in the process of making children. Unless she somehow lost the ability to make children, there would be no messing up involved.
She stank as much as the bogs that surrounded Kanthus. All her life, foraging among the bushes, playing hide and seek with frustrated guards and huntsmen, skipping lessons and walking out on bewildered tutors who seemed to think they were actually interesting, riding her horse, Lost Star, around the paddock, playing with the farmers’ kids in the fields and the urchins in the streets...