Page 15 of Wrath of the Never Queen

“What is your name?” I ask. Partly to gather information and partly to keep myself alert.

“Inez, miss.”

I glance at her in the mirror of the vanity table. She is older, with fine lines around her mouth and the beginnings of grey streaked through her copper hair. When she smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkle. Her fingers massage my scalp, and I lean into it despite myself.

“How long have you worked here?” I probe.

“All my life, miss. My mother worked here and when I was born, the work was passed to me.”

I sit in silent horror at this but Inez speaks so casually, I am lost for words. The king’s reputation for cruelty is known throughout the country, but to keep people locked up in his castle through generations of families…No one in Mossgarde knows what happens in the castle. No one but me knows there are people trapped in here. I suppress a shiver.

Inez and the other handmaids work my hair into a thick braid and drape it over my shoulder. Jewelled pins are pressed into the grooves of my braid, sparkling against my obsidian hair. They paint gold powder across my eyelids and lips, stark against my dark skin.

Like everything else here, they have made me so beautiful it turns my stomach.

They dress me in a long gown with soft shoes on my feet—shoes I cannot easily run in, I note. A sheer shawl is draped over my shoulders, and several bangles line my wrists. They remind me of the shackles the guards put on me.

The gown is unusual. Long sleeves, a low neckline and a corseted middle, tight and stifling. Mossgarde royal fashion dictates thin fabrics, draped and layered delicately to remain as breathable as possible in the stuffy air. This dress, however, is not so concerned with practicality and instead serves only to emphasise my curves. It is entirely unwelcome.

Inez looks at me with something like pride when they deem me ready.

“You are a pretty sight, miss,” she says. Her accent is strange, so like a Mossgardian but not quite. “The guards will collect you when it is time for dinner.”

With another polite curtsy, Inez and the rest of the maids exit the bedchamber, and I am left alone.

I tug at my gown and squirm at the uncomfortable way it pinches at my arms and waist. My irritation rises but not quite enough to overpower my weariness. I have not even eaten today. I sit on the large bed, breathing in deeply to hold the tears at bay.

I am a snow hare, trapped and helpless, atthe mercy of her hunters.

Closing my eyes, my ophid thrums, desperate to be released. The rest of my back aches, compensating for the tightness of the muscle. I reach up to stretch it.

Myophidis less sluggish now. More alive. Hopeful, I reach out to myau’mana. It hums to me, hovering just past where I can go. I raise my hands in front of me and try to conjure the swirling purple smoke.

Nothing appears.

“Argh!” I yell, my eyes snapping open in frustration.

I have no magic, no allies, no help. Aunt Meena is likely sitting alone in the library, wondering why I have not returned from my walk with Eoin.

The image of her waiting for me to arrive, only for me to never show up again, is enough to make me scream. I imagine my head on the chopping block. I imagine Aunt Meena’s heart snapping in half.

I fall to my knees and unleash the rage built up inside me, curling my fingers into fists and throwing back my head to shriek. My father has stolen my future from me. He has stolen everything. I fall to the side and curl into a ball, thinking of all I could have been. The things I will never see and the people I will never meet.

I lie on the thick carpet, my ophid crippled and everything I have worked for snatched away.I wait for the tears to come.

And then I see it.

A scratch on the foot of the bed, too small to see from standing. Eyebrows furrowed, I wriggle closer to read it.

Morraine.

My eyes widen. The name is a shard of ice in my heart, sharp and cold. It is a flash of red hair and chestnut brown eyes, a tired smile and a loud laugh.

I knew her.

Past tense.

By the time the guards arrive to bring me to dinner, my nerves have hardened, and my mind is set. They will not break me.

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