Rooke
The Savage Prince is true to his word, and I’m taken to a different wing of the castle by two of his soldiers, one far less fine than his chambers, and stripped naked by two maids under Airlie’s watchful eye. I stare back at her defiantly, my mouth pressed into a thin line as I endure their eyes on me and the press of the curse in the room.
I’m dragged into a large wooden tub, one that I’m guessing the maids and servants use. There’s another iron loop embedded into the marble flooring here and I’m chained to it with only enough slack that I can get my arms into the tub but not relax them fully. It’s awkward, but I enjoy the way the chains complicate the process, the maids both having to fumble and fuss to get around them. They both treat me like I’m a cornered wraith and they’re being forced to serve their worst nightmare.
Airlie stands over me as they dump a bucket of frigid water over my head, a self-satisfied smirk on her face as she watches my skin erupt into goosebumps and the shakes take hold of my bones. She stares at me as they pull my arms out, the leather gloves they wear to avoid touching me soaked through, and begin to scrub my skin, the water quickly turning gray with the layers of filth they strip away. The long days that turned into weeks in the cell have not been kind to me.
I'm surprised the princess stays in the room with me, although there’s far more maids in the room than are required for this task and they’re positioned to stand between Airlie and I like some sort of fae barrier. Between the iron chains at my wrists and my naked state, someone has decided that I’m incapable of harming any of them in this state.
Idiots.
“Are all witches shaped like that?” Airlie says, waving a hand at my naked body as though I’m a spectacle to her.
The maids washing me share a look at her blunt question, but I stare at her blankly.
“Are all high-fae females dense and shallow? I'm surprised your husband isn't walking around bleeding at all hours from that tongue of yours.”
Her eyes narrow and she crosses her arms over her swollen belly, threading her fingers over the peak of it. “I don’t think I've ever been called dense before, that's a new one. Shallow is one of my favorite insults though—it proves to me that you’re far stupider than you know. I don't know why you're acting so defensive about my opinions—only your mate’s matter. Though if Soren has any questions about what his wedding night has in store for him, I suppose I have disappointing answers for him.”
I'm not so concerned about my marriage.
For one, I'm not inexperienced with high-fae men. I doubt that the Savage Prince will be so different from those I’ve been with in the Seelie Court, but I'm sure there are Unseelie wedding customs I don't know about that will prove…challenging.
“The skin on her stomach and back is horrifying,” one of the maids mutters, and Airlie steps forward to peer at my scars.
She gives me a haughty look. “Damaged? I suppose you got those in the Northern Lands. Roan told me the Sol King offered protection to all fae folk who served in his armies. What a failure you must’ve been as a soldier that you came back here without any protection.”
She's digging for information, and my honor stings from her vicious swipes, but I shrug back. “I don't suppose any of you know anything about me or my kind, and I'm not going to waste my breath telling you about such things. It would go in one of your pretty little pointed ears and straight out the other one, coming up against nothing but air.”
The maids all gasp and murmur amongst themselves at my gall, but the smile on the princess’s lips stays put.
“Such a sharp tongue, and after I’ve offered you some decency. Who’s the dense one now? You're getting clean, aren't you?”
As though all I could possibly care about in this world is the state of my skin. They're all fixated on the surface—on my scars, the color of my eyes, the curve of my hips, the way my hair stays in dark curls even soaked through like this—on all the ways that I’m different from them and their idea of perfection. I might hate being dirty, but it’s the loss of my clothes that concerns me more.
“What are you going to have me wear once you get me out of this tub—or am I to be paraded around the castle naked? I suppose the Savage Prince cares so little for his reputation that he would subject his future wife to being such a spectacle.”
She stares at me. “There's no point trying to clean those rags. We’ll never be able to get the stench out of them. We'll find you something from the seamstresses, though I'm not sure any of our clothing will suit yourtastes.”
She pulls a face and moves haltingly over to a pile of dresses draped over one of the chairs. As she sizes them against me, she mutters unhappily, as finding a fit proves to be a difficult task and she’s forced to move onto the maids’ dresses which are far more accommodating to my proportions. The high fae are all tall and long, firm and refined, and I’m a witch of the Ravenswyrd Coven with a far more curvy figure. It’s nothing I’ll ever be ashamed of; as a healer, I’ve seen a thousand different shaped bodies, and I’m sure I’ll see many more. But the high fae are obsessed with themselves and always have been. I’m sure the princess has a lot of cutting opinions of my appearance even now that I’m clean.
I wince as another bucket of ice-cold water is dumped over my head. The oils the maids rub over me have no real fragrance, and they leave behind a residue that makes me want to peel off my skin. It’s not painful, but the oil is poorly made and achieves nothing, a waste of time and resources.
Airlie peers dramatically at my soiled dress, her nose wrinkling as she pokes the toe of her boot through the folds of fabric as though she’s expecting a swarm of bees to burst out of it. “There's no making sense of any of it.”
One of the maids comes to her holding out a handful of the little silver pins. “These were holding it together. It must be some sort of Seelie fashion.”
Airlie glances in my direction before she picks up one of the pins and squeezes the tines together. She blinks as it springs back into place. “I’ve never seen such a thing before, but I've never traveled to the Seelie Court either. I suppose this is what the villagers there wear. The fabric is too filthy to clean. We'll have to dress her in something else.”
The maids all stare at each other before one of them pipes up, “A dress, Your Highness? Something fit for Prince Soren’s future wife?”
Airlie grimaces, her lip curling a little as she stares at the silver in her hands. “Once we’ve shown her off to Sari, she'll be going back into the dungeon, so nothing too fine. There’s no need to waste good fabric on her.”
I meet her gaze and gesture to the water. “I’m happy to scrub my dress in there and wait for it to dry. I’d rather wear it than something of yours.”
One of Airlie’s hands clutches her dress, and she mocks me, her voice sickly sweet, like poison hidden in honey. “You certainly won't be wearing anything of mine. There's more than enough clothing from the servants and maids—they’ll find you some form of decency. I'm not going to waste my time waiting for those rags to dry.”
She's being dramatic. My dress is filthy, yes, but certainly not rags. I chose the fabric specifically for how sturdy it would be, and there’s nothing about the dresses and finery of the Unseelie high fae that I wish to be subjected to. Even the maid's clothing is too fussy for my tastes.
