Page 30 of Shadowlands Omega

“He will be even less friendly with me when I ask him for additional budget to refurbish the castle kitchens. They are in need of upkeep now that the castle cooks have been returned to where they belong in Shadow Keep.” Where they belong. Rightful places. Things Radmilla has no right to say to me.

But I do not correct her.

We review her plans and she is dismissed once I find them satisfactory. I meet with several other members of my staff and Felix, a Crimson Rider responsible for managing the Riders that patrol my southern border — who would have ever expected my border to Hjiel to be the lesser of my border problems?

I meet with the Orias town blacksmith, a big man called Olac, and with grain master Ghoran, who has concerns about this year’s wheat production. I eat when food is brought to me, though I frown at the taste of the pie and at the lack of offering.They did not cook this.Shedid not cook this.I scarf the tasteless food down and bury myself in work. I take meetings in my throne room until the sun sets over the horizon and I know I should retire to my chambers, where the Omega will sleep tonight as she will sleep every night until the Red Moon Festivaland every night thereafter.

Desire compels me to see her, to see how grateful she is for what I have done for her, but guilt keeps me from her. I freed her family for that gratitude, for the promise of what it might bring me, for selfish reasons. For that, I must suffer my own damnation, and sit in a prison of my own making. So though I remain stiff and aching at the thought of the greedy, grateful Omega…ofKiandah, and I yearn to turn down the corridor that will lead me to her, I don’t.

I close myself in the small personal chamber behind the locked door in the throne room, and I do what I was always meant to do. Work for the people of the Shadowlands. And I do not fantasize about foreign concepts like desire, or having her for my own.

13 | Kiandah

On a mission

I’m nervous as I clutch the list of supplies in my pocket in a trembling fist and sneak through the bustling castle halls.No, I’m not nervous. I’m downright terrified. I can’t believe I let Audet, of all people, talk me into this.

Since my family was moved from the dungeons to the kitchens twelve days ago, things have strangely returned to normal. Well, our new normal. In addition to the location having changed, our stuff being gone — all of our belongings and trinkets, my sketches and a paltry few possessions handed down from the ancestors that came before — there’s a sort of…undercurrent of tension that exists between us that makes things…not so easy. And things have always been easy. The easiest, really, between my family members and me. Now, there are things unspoken that make me want to rant and rage at them — at Owenna and my parents — but I have never dared talk back to the three of them, so I just don’t say anything at all.

My father and mother seem meeker than they did, a little cowed, which also keeps me biting my tongue. I can feel their guilt. It’s like a new cousin that’s moved in with us that nobody really likes, but we can’t turn out into the cold.

They haven’t spoken about why they did what they did, only uttered meek apologies for “us being in this mess” and saying they “wish we could have done better for you” but these words feel so hollow. Owenna’s response has been worse. She’s shown almost no contrition at all. I overheard Cyprus ask her what was wrong with her in a harsh tone I’ve only heard him use a couple times before, and her response shocked me. She said, “You think we’re the only ones helping them? We’re just the only ones who got caught. I’m trying to figure out how that happened…”

Cyprus had been shocked. He and I had shared a look. We’d always been able to communicate without words. Owenna hadn’t just shocked us, either. It felt as if even my parents were on edge around her.

It waspainfulto watch. These golden beings who I viewed with reverence and love, brought down to this mortal plane. They were human, it seemed, after all. It wasn’t a pleasant realization.

Not like realizing Lord Yaron was only human. The discoveries I’ve made of him have been…incredible.

So things continued on. We resumed our duties in the kitchens, working with the limited supplies and stock we have. Because the other thing that’s changed? Our supply lines have been cut. Our suppliers for so many of the foods, spices and tools that we rely on to do our jobs won’t come near us. The farmers who bring us fresh vegetables and meat have been ordered to resume operations, but they won’t. Neither will our normal wine merchant or the handyman we need to repair the oven. Something’s wrong with the chimney and it fills the kitchen with smoke anytime we light it. We’ve had to get creative with our meals, but our creativity is meeting its end. If we want to keep the castle fed, we need to convince Orias’s villagers and merchants to resume trade. And they hate us. Many of them are Alphas or are friends with Alphas or married into Alpha families. They received the order from Radmilla to work with us, sure, but so far most things that have been sent to us have been the dredges of the stock, or even worse — spoiled and rotten. The butcher sent us a pig’s head with maggots in the eyes. The wine we got from the merchant was vinegar caked with sludge. The fruit had worms. The vegetables were slimy. The last shipment made Audet vomit.

That’s why she suggested I leave the castle to go to the market to try to make repair.

My family told her she was insane, told me not to listen, but the moment the words left her lips, I couldn’t unhear them. “He orderedusbound to the castle, but you he lets galivant about, traipsing through his keep as if you’re his Lady,” she scoffed. “If you weren’t an Omega, I’d think he even likes you. But since you are, it’s clear that his oath to protect Omegas must be stronger than his swift hand of justice. He won’t touch you. So you have to go to the market and convince them to send us good food. Otherwise, we won’t be able to cook and if we can’t even do that, then we’re doomed. Lord Yaron will truly have no more need of us, and even if he freed us tomorrow, no one would work with us for any amount of coil. We’re just a trio of murderers and their accomplices.”

My sister Zelie had pushed her. She’d been pissed. My brother had broken up the tussle. Owenna had seethed, lashing Audet with her tongue. My parents had sulked, offering nothing in the way of guidance, and it had been their lack of fight that gave me mine.

List clutched in my fist, I cross the quad. Here, in the open courtyard in front of the castle, between the castle doors and the keep gates, Riders train in small groups, swords clash, dogs bark, nobles and Lords converse as they make their way across the cobblestones with purpose, some flashing me curious glances. Vendors bring their carts and wares in and out of the gates where they are stopped by various castle staff and directed on where to go.

I approach the open gates of the keep just as a small contingent of Crimson Riders make their way through it. They stop talking when they see me and though they continue walking, they watch me over their shoulders in silence as I pass them. I’m wearing a cloak I found in Yaron’s closet and tug down on the hood to help hide my face. It’s black and heavier than sin. I bustled the hem it so that it won’t drag on the ground when I walk, but there was nothing I could do for its width short of cutting it — which I wouldn’t dare. It envelops me.

Beneath it, I’m wearing one of Yaron’s tunics tucked into a pair of his trousers. Everything is huge on me, but I did my best. The only thing I couldn’t find were shoes, so I had to borrow Owenna’s. She’s barefoot now in the kitchens, which are still a mess. It’s clear the staff haven’t been keeping the kitchens up to date given that the old keep’s kitchens were in operation.

Radmilla’s been kind, giving us time to get ourselves and the kitchen in order while staff make do with a very threadbare kitchen outside of the great hall and some prepared food that had been stockpiled for emergencies and in case of war to supplement what we’ve been able to provide. I worry that the stockpiles will run out before we can resume full operations, but there isn’t much more we can do without workers willing to help us. We’re also down a dozen staff.

I think of Justine, then of Farro. Our friends who made it and survived the burning of the church. We haven’t seen them since, but I know that they are alive and that, after a brief interrogation, they were released from the dungeons. They probably hate us for the terror we brought unto them.Tor… I blink and can feel the way his hot blood had soaked into my palms…How will they ever forgive us? My parents and Owenna cost us everything because they cost us everyone…and all for coin.

Squeezing my eyes shut tight and clutching the list to my chest, I step through the gates. They tower over me, two imposing doors that swivel open on hinges in their centers. Against the black wood are carvings that I’m too scared to examine in great detail now. But I catch a flash of monsters with fangs and beasts with wings and scales in scenes of war and I shiver. Spikes jut out from the doors at even intervals. Lord Yaron is known to behead his enemies and slam the backs of their skulls onto the spikes, like sick polka-dots. I shudder, hoping to the ancestors watching over me that my head doesn’t become one of them when Lord Yaron discovers I’ve left.

The gates behind me now, I’m surprised with every step that no one stops me. The guards clearly saw me — so many people clearly saw me — but maybe, Audet was right? Maybe, Lord Yaron really is giving me run of the castle just because of my Omega nature, the signature of my pheromones that marks me different from the rest of them.

I don’t exhale fully until I’m all the way at the base of the knoll, taking the highway line north, towards Orias, even though further north, past Orias and past Paradise Hole all the way to the docks and the infamous Night Market is where I yearn to go. That’s where the richest spices and the most exotic produce and the fanciest syrups and the most decadent butters are sold. Silks and fabrics, too, would be useful. My family’s clothing is in a state. They haven’t been given new clothes or material to repair what they wore out in the storm. We look, together… Well, we look like prisoners.

Sadness blisters my chest, making something swell inside of it. I know Yaron doesn’t like me. I know that. He all but told me before he rutted me to the brink of death that he didn’t like me then and never would like me. But there’s a small part of me, so small as to be almost invisible, that sees that he released my family, though he didn’t need to, that he put me in his chambers, though he didn’t need to, that he…checks up on me — with decreasing frequency, yes, but that he checks on me at all is surprising — that wonders if he doesn’t like me just the tiniest bit. Or at least, he gives me some leniency and honors me in small ways because I am an Omega. I am not sure, but I wish…I wish…for things I have no right to wish for.

It’s not a long walk to town, and a short distance through town to get to the marketplace set up in the central town square. Narrow roads full of smiling faces that fall when they see me are what I’m greeted with upon my arrival. I tug my hood lower and hasten my pace, taking a left near the spice stalls to go see Marnie first. She tosses a fistful of cayenne in my eyes the moment I pull my hood back. Trying not to scream bloody murder, I sprint to where I know the horse troughs to be near the stables. I shove my face into the water and scrub my eyes furiously until the stinging abates.

Well. That went about as expected. I glance down at the list in my hand, the charcoal now all smudged and bleeding, and laugh bitterly as I right myself and pat my damp skin dry with an edge of Yaron’s cloak. I vowed not to get it dirty, but I realize now that was a fool’s hope. He hasn’t checked on me in a couple days, though, so I’m not too worried. I’ll have time to clean and dry it before he can see what I’ve done to it. What I will do. Because I don’t doubt that having hot pepper thrown in my eyes is the least that the Alphas of Orias will do to me. And I’m not wrong.

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