Page 17 of Kingdom of Rot & Ruin
In blood magick.
Blood magick was incredible; you could strengthen your body and make it faster. I planned to study it, understand it, thenuseitto rise above my station.
But for now, I would sip wine and feign excuses for why I wasn’t dancing.
Unless I walked out.
Another lecture from Vession was well worth it if I got a few more hours in on comparing the differences between concentric circles or eccentric circles, and the subsequent effects in a blood magick ritual. My notes were already in my pocket, just in case a situation such as this presented itself.
Everyone was looking at the girls. Not that I blamed them, the girls were pleasant to look at.
We were in a secondary ballroom and not the main throne room, which I was grateful for. I didn’t feel like dealing with the queen tonight. The atmosphere was pleasant, with fancier food. I should enjoy myself. I should usethe time to test alliances and trip up my enemies. The mud boys weren’t present. I was the rare exception as a dark-haired exception as a scribe apprentice.
Something neither the mud boys nor the Noble boys were happy about.
I was a pariah on both sides, but that suited me just fine. All I needed were my books, my notes, and my mind.
And M to remind me to eat from time to time.
I wrapped a few pastries of soft, flaky bread and white icing into a handkerchief, slipping them into my pocket to give to M later. I took care of those who took care of me. And he so loved his pergainsa berry tarts.
There was a small corridor through the back of the ballroom that I meant to explore. It was a much better use of my time to explore that than sharpen my tongue on the giggling twits who smelled too strongly of perfume and had nothing of value to say.
No one took notice of me as I weaved through the crowd toward the back of the room, blending into the shadows. Nodding to the two Fireguards standing at attention next to the door, they nodded back, and I slipped out into the darkened hallway.
If anyone discovered I’d left the party, it wouldn’t be from them.
Fireguards and I got along well, mostly, especially after the one who’d beaten me as a child got eaten by the dragon as punishment three years ago. We served each other well ever since. I wasn’t stupid; I knew they likely thought I was one of them, through whatever bastard birth or nefarious activity my mother had been involved in. It was the only explanation I’d been able to come up with in my head that made any sense of it.
A bastard to a mud man—likely a Fireguard—would explain why I never had a present father growing up. Itwould explain the isolation and the shame from my mother, and the constant drive to ensure I made up for my hair color with my intelligence, wit, and knowledge. It explained my dark hair. It could even explain mother’s death, in a way.
Because she was dead. One didn’t just disappear for five years.
The corridor had a derelict, empty feel and wasn’t used often. The alcoves were empty, with no artwork or busts, or anything decorative at all. It was dark and dingy.
And it led somewhere uncharted in my mind.
My steps echoed loudly, and I wished I would have worn my old leather boots, with soft soles that would have ghosted over the stone floor. But they wouldn’t have been appropriate for such a formal event, so I was stuck in the hard, shined boots Vession had lent me, with a hard heel that loudly announced each step I took.
Not that there should be anyone around to hear it, with how deserted this place was. Hopefully, it would lead to somewhere else just as deserted, and I could conduct my rituals there.
The hallway got rougher the more it went on, descending downwards slightly as the polished stone floor gave way to rough, unhewn rock and the walls were bare of any paint. At the end of the hall was a spiral stone staircase leading down.
The castle loved its spiral staircases. Or maybe it was all castles. I had little to compare it to.
I leaned down and listened hard below me, but there was nothing. Not even the normal shifting sounds or skittering that you sometimes heard in a large stone building.
I took the first step down.
Nothing.
Before I changed my mind, I hurriedly descended the staircase, letting the darkness swallow me.
At the bottom of the stairs was a short hallway with two small rooms on either side. Poking my head in, I grinned. Empty, made from stone, and so far down into the castle that no one would hear me. This was the perfect spot to begin my rituals and experiments!
The room on the right was full of some junk, including old chests, dingy tea services, and moth-eaten chairs. The room on the left was a little bigger, and more cleared out.
The room on the left it was.
