"F*uk!"
Nymeria cussed repeatedly as she ran down the corridor. She had spent the night at Jax small bunk room..
"What the hell is going on?" She stopped running when she saw the girls in a line.. without thinking twice, she ran straight and entered the line but a cold water hit her like a punch immediately..
"Dammit!"
Nymeria sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed the edge of the stone trough, to support herself. Around her, seven other slave girls flinched as Garr sloshed bucket after bucket of cold water over their heads. Their thin shifts soaked through and stuck to their skin.
Garr walked the line slowly, looking them over like he was checking horses before a race. "Stop shaking. You smell like the mines. Scrub harder."
Nymeria picked up the soap bar and said nothing.
The slave quarters were usually busy every morning, but this morning was different.
Nymeria scrubbed her arms as different thoughts floaded her mind... what was the special occasion this morning?
Then Garr walked to the end of the row and lifted a bundle of fabric. He moved back down the line, throwing a piece at each of them.
Nymeria caught hers and looked down and she almost laughed.
The sh!t cloth will barely cover someone. It's a thin slip of translucent silk the color of dying fire. She could even see her own fingers through the fabric. The hem would sit high on her thighs, and the chest panel? It was so sheer it was basically decorative.
"Put them on," Garr said flatly.
"You can not be serious," A girl beside Nymeria said. Her name is Essa, sixteen years old, two missing front teeth. She was Drakon born, same as Nymeria.
Garr throw her a deadly stare.
Essa pulled the silk over her head.
Nymeria did the same. She kept her face neutral with her mind somewhere else, while she dressed. She had learned how to do that over four years. She will be present enough to function and absent enough to survive.
Garr paced slowly in front of them with his hands behind his back. "Today is different," he said. "House of Shadows lords are arriving at noon. The king wants them impressed." He stopped and let his eyes move over each of them. "You are not just going to fill up their cups. You are what the lords look at when they walk into that hall. You are the proof that House of Flames won." He pause. "Walk straight. Keep every cup full. Smile." He pause again. "And if a lord wants more than wine, you better give it to them."
Everyone was silent.
"Clear?"
"Yes, sir." Some of them answered.
Without saying another word, Garr turned and left.
Essa moved close to Nymeria and whispered in a low voice. "What does he mean, more than wine?"
Nymeria looked at her. The girl already knew. She just needed someone to not say it out loud.
"Stay near me tonight," Nymeria said quietly. "If someone grabs you, spill the drink. Blame the crowd and then keep walking."
"Does that work?"
"Sometimes." Nymeria pulled a strip of cloth from the hem of her own skirt and handed it over. "Tie this around your waist. It will make the skirt sit lower."
It did not cover much but it was something.
...
Nymeria stepped through the servants' entrance into the Grand Hall and stopped breathing for a second. She was trying to catch her breath.
This place used to be enormous on a normal day but today it was entirely different and more than enormous.
The stone columns were wrapped in chains of enchanted fire that was burning green and orange at the same time.
The hearths along the walls was emanating with heat she could feel from twenty feet away.
The long banquet tables were already pushed together and stacked with food—whole roasted animals, towers of bread and glazed fruit, pitchers of wine.
And the noise. Hundreds of voices all at once, coupled with the music was echoing in the hall.
The House of Shadows delegation were already seated. The lords were all dressed in a black silk trimmed with silver, and their crescent moon emblem was on every shoulder.
They were sitting and chatting with the house of flame fire nobles..
Nymeria lifted her heavy silver tray and stepped into the crowd.
"Eyes down. Move fast. Hug the walls." Nymeria murmured to herself.
She knew this hall better than anyone who was not paid to know it. She knew which columns gave cover and which lords turned dangerous after drinking their third cup.
Her eyes then landed on a thick man in a white doublet near the center pillar. He has a gold chain around his neck, and there was already wine-stained on his shirt.
Her eyes then moved again and stopped at a shadow lord who kept pulling a serving girl back by the wrist every time she tried to leave.
Nymeria let out a sigh as she kept moving.
She passed Corren near the far wall. He was Drakon, like her and he used to be one of her father's soldiers. Now he was carrying a water pitcher twice his bodyweight. He glanced at her for a second as she passed.
No words. Just the look two people share when they remember the same burning night.
She kept walking.
Suddenly a hand grabbed her on the wrist.
Nymeria turned slowly.
It was the thick man with the wine-stained shirt. Being this close, the man was looking worse—red-faced, shirt already damp with sweat.
His eyes moved over Nymeria from the top to down like she was something he was thinking about buying.
"You are a pretty one," he said and tugged her forward.
Nymeria gritted her teeth as she let the man pull her half a step.
"My lord." She kept her voice calm. "Let me fill your cup first. The Flame red just came out, it would be a shame to waste..."
"Sit on my lap and pour it there."
The man other hand was already on her hip. His fingers crawled upward and pushing the hem of her skirt.
Nymeria quickly twisted sideways like she was stepping around a rock.
The tray she was holding tilted making the wine spill.
A full cup of deep red wine poured straight down the lord white doublet, collar to navel.
The people nearby suddenly went quiet.
The lord looked down at himself and then looked up at Nymeria.
"You cunt!"
Before Nymeria could apologise, the man's hand landed on her cheek.
The slap snapped her head sideways and before she could recover, the man dropped her to the ground. She hit the stone floor hard with her palms scraping.
There was a blood at the corner of her mouth where her teeth caught the inside of her cheek.
Laughter suddenly broke out around her.
"Clumsy thing."
"Dragon whore can't even carry a tray."
Nymeria pressed one palm flat against the floor.
"Get up. Don't you dare cry. Get up." She pushed herself upright.
Then a staff suddenly struck the floor.
"Presenting — His Grace, Harlan the Third. King of the Ashen Throne. Lord of the Cinderpeaks. Keeper of the First Ember.
And beside him, born of flame and blood royal — the Lady Lirien. Daughter of the Ashen Throne. Third of her name to carry the ember-mark of House Flame."
The royal announcer's voice sounded.
Nymeria was still getting to her feet when she looked up.
King Harlan came in first. He was dressed in the royal fire-red robes. Lords bowed on both sides as he walked in.
Nymeria's eyes then moved to the woman beside him.
Lirien.
She was wearing a silk that shifted color as she moved—orange bleeding into gold bleeding into deep amber.
Her auburn hair was stacked high and pinned with copper. She walked with her chin level and her face perfectly composed.
The world suddenly stopped around Nymeria as she forgot about the slap..
Across a hall packed with two hundred people, Lirien's amber eyes suddenly found her.
And for one second Nymeria was still frozen to move..
Lirien looked at her before pulling her eyes away..
"What the f*ck you staring at? Move b!tch.."
Nymeria let out a heaved as she stood up, picked up the tray and kept moving.
.....
As the day went on, the feast became louder and more uglier.
The corners of the hall were now something else.
A Shadow lord had a Drakon girl pinned against the wall near the far hearth. Two fire nobles had started using actual flames in some drinking game, their hands blazing, the tablecloth scorching black at the edges while everyone around them cheered.
Nymeria refilled her tray. Her cheek had stopped throbbing now. She bumped inot Essa twice in the crowd.
Then an overseer appeared at her shoulder.
"High table," he said. "Go."
Nymeria looked up at the dais.
Harlan was at the center. Lirien to his right. And beside Lirien was Prince Thorne of the House of Shadows.
He was younger than Nymeria had pictured. He is Lean, dark hair cut short on the sides, his eyes are the color of grey river water.
Nymeria swallowed as she climbed the dais steps and started pouring wine.
"Terra House won't move against the alliance," Harlan was telling a fire lord on his left. "Not once the wedding is formal. Shadow and Flame together is something they don't have the stomach to test."
Nymeria moved to Lirien's cup and filled it without looking up.
"You pour well." Thorne said.
"Thank you, my lord," she said.
Seeing the dragon scale tattoo on her shoulder, Thorne let out a chuckle.
"Princess of the Drakon clan, i presumed." He asked.
She paused for a moment. "Yes, my lord."
He turned his cup slowly in his fingers. "It's a shame. A princess from one of the mightiest clan." He looked at her the way someone looks at a mildly interesting passage in a book. "Now pour wine."
"Wars end somewhere," Nymeria said.
She didn't mean to say it. It just came out.
There was sudden silence at the high table.
Thorne looked at her. Then the corner of his mouth moved just barely. "They do," he said. "Badly for someone, usually."
Lirien eyes were on Nymeria but Nymeria was not looking towards her direction.
Without another word, Nymeria stepped back from the table and moved to the next cup.
Immediately she was done, she descended the dais steps and crossed the hall and did not look back.
....
The betrothal announcement came shortly after.
Harlan stood up as he raised his cup, and said both their names together. Lirien and Thorne. House of Flames and House of Shadows. The hall erupted as people banged the tables and wine sloshed everywhere, someone near the back let out a genuine cheer.
Lirien stood at and turned to Thorne as they let out a smiled.
Nymeria was standing near the east wall with a full tray when it happened. She held the tray for a moment, drop it and then she turned and followed the narrow servants' door at the end of the back corridor—the one that opened onto a small outer balcony that nobody ever used during feasts—and pushed through it.
She grabbed the stone railing and held on.
Her hands were shaking badly.
She thought about three weeks ago at the dark alcove behind the garden wall. Lirien's hand had pressed flat against the stone beside her head. They were close enough that Nymeria could feel the warmth coming off her skin. "This is going to get us both killed," Lirien had told her. And then kissed her anyway.
Nymeria pressed her forehead against the cold railing.
"F*ck! You knew this day would come." She told herself. "You always knew this was where it would ended. She is a princess. You are a slave who scrubs floors. F*ck"
She breathe in and then straight up as she wiped her face. She then looked out over the burning city.
This palace would not stand forever.
She had no dragon. No magic. No name that anyone here respected. No real shoes, barely one full meal most days. She had nothing that looked like power from the outside.
But she was still alive.
And she had spent four years in this palace being invisible. She had learned the layout of every underground corridor. She had watched the guards get lazy on rotation. She had seen how careless the flame mages got when they drank. She knew about the mining tunnels under the east wing that the overseers claimed were collapsed. She had been in every corner of this place that mattered, and nobody had ever thought to watch what she was noticing.
She just needs the perfect time.
She breathe again and then pushed off the railing.
There was still wine left to pour.
So she went back inside.