Page 41 of Flames and Blood

He doesn’t look it. He’s tall, and he’s kept his shoulders. Silver hair cut close, a hard jaw, and a face that has been handsome for a very long time and knows it. Everything he’s wearing was made for him. The only part that gives him away is the hands. The skin over them is thin and pulled over the bones of his knuckles.

“Kallista Ondrathe. Heir of the Aldrake, of the Eyrie Seat,” he says to me, ignoring the others. My name. All of it. It takes a moment to register because they’re words I haven’t heard in so long.

My spine straightens before I decide anything. My chin comes up. The posture I was drilled in as a child pulls me straight.

“You know me,” I say.

“Of course.” He dips his head. “Forgive the state you’ve arrived in,” he says. “I believe you encountered some trouble on the road. I assure you that is all behind you now.”

My back teeth clench.

He comes closer and stops out of arm’s reach, and stays there.

“The chains come off inside. Your room has been prepared, but I’m sure you’d appreciate a hot meal first.”

“Who are you? What am I doing here?”

“You may call me Renwick,” he says, then looks at the others. “You’ll learn the household quickly. The man at the door is Hollis.” The one holding the door is somewhere in his fifties, thick-necked, with a flat nose and a boxer’s ears, and he hasn’t looked at me once. “Mrs. Nell runs the house, and she’ll take care of all of your needs. If you want something, ask her, and it will happen faster than if you ask me.”

“You didn’t answer the rest of my question.”

“No,” he agrees. “It’s cold out here. Let’s do the rest inside.”

“What is this place?” I look around. “Are you running this as part of the network?”

“No. Everyone on this property is paid by me, and has been for years. Nobody here comes from any of the facilities you’ve been in.”

“That still isn’t what I asked.”

“Mrs. Nell,” he says, “is the food ready?”

“It’s been ready for an hour.” The woman with the gray hair comes down the steps. “And it’ll be ruined if you keep her standing in the cold while you don’t answer her questions.”

“Then we’ll go in.”

He doesn’t seem to mind that she’s telling him off, which tells me that there’s a different set of rules around here. That doesn’t set my mind at ease.

Inside, the hall is wide, and the furniture in it has been passed down through generations. The Persian carpet is soft under my boots as they lead me through it and into a dining room.

They sit me at a long table in front of a fire. There’s bread, and a roast chicken with steaming vegetables, and water in a jug.

“Just a moment, dear.” Mrs. Nell kneels in front of me with a key. Up close, she’s older than she looked on the steps. Sixty, maybe more. Gray hair rolled and pinned, a wide face, and a soft chin that doesn’t hide the steel in her jaw.

She removes the cuffs and chains without any sign that she’s afraid of what I’ll do when I’m free. It feels odd after being treated like a dangerous animal for so long.

She watches as I roll my shoulders and twist my neck from side to side. My arms feel like they don’t want to straighten, and I wince as I bend and stretch my elbows.

“Oh, my goodness.” She takes my hands, turns them over, and looks at the palms. “These should have been cleaned on the road,” she says beneath her breath. “Sit still.”

She brings a bowl of warm water and a cloth and a jar of something that smells of herbs. She washes the burns on my wrists and the blisters on my palms. I hiss at the sting but don’t complain. Nobody has treated an injury of mine in over a year. I watch her wrap my palms in clean cloth, and my throat aches.

“There you go,” she says, straightening and clearing the table. I don’t reply. I’m worried that I’ll choke up, so I reach for a hunk of bread and shove a piece of it into my mouth instead.

The man sits across the table while I eat. He doesn’t touch the food.

“What do you want from me?” I finally say after I’ve devoured an entire thigh and two roast potatoes.

“Tonight I want you to eat and sleep in a warm bed,” he says. “You can sleep as long as you like tomorrow. There’s nothing planned for your day after that.”