Page 43 of Wings of Destruction

Mrs. Milkin hovers at the edge of the room. She waits for the conversation to fade before calling back to me, “I’m relegating you to the dragon aerie. Alone. Clean the perches, Miss Whyte, and do not return until there isn’t a scrap of dung left. Consider that your punishment.”

It takes less than an hour for gossip to ooze through the rest of the housekeeping staff and into the rest of the castle. Another hour beyond and word has gotten around to the students.

No one will tell me how to get to the dragon aerie. Six-person job, someone had whispered as I dragged my supplies up here. Always done by a team. Always.

But here I am. Alone. As intended.

Dragging a fresh bucket with lye and hot water behind me, I climb to the steepest part of the castle and the wide stone terrace leading into a tower open on three sides.

My knees buckle.

Cleaning the dragon aerie has been whispered as the worst, and it takes seconds to realize why.

The open air does nothing about the stench of so many lizards in one area and their urine and musk. Their dung piles are the size of a horse.

I lose my grip and drop the bucket, scattering soap and water everywhere.

It’s too much for one person to do alone.

You should have controlled yourself better.

The nightmarish tone in my head belongs to me. And it’s right. On bruised knees, I thrust my hands into the lye water and wince as the soap sinks through the cracks in my knuckles. This is what I deserve.

And this day is one of the most difficult of the journey. After the first bucket of water cooled, I’d retrieved more, the boiling water from the tap searing my skin. Repeatedly, I’d sunk my hands into the soapy, scalding water, until my knuckles split open and my blisters popped.

The pain does one thing right, and leaves me with no time to dwell on the chaos haunting my mind.

I clamp down on a cry, bunching my fist on my lap and letting the linen absorb the dung-colored water, only to give my hands a break.

The stolen necklace, Milkin’s malice, this place… the gothic castle is made up of shadows and despair and the maids are only one source of fuel. A large source.

DragonSpear will leave me broken as well.

Drawing in a breath, I submerge my hand again and slash the scrub brush across the underside of one of the stone perches.

Better to push it all down. The pain, the fear, everything, and let the finality of the situation consume me.

Sure, it’s a bit of a bleak outlook for someone my age but what’s the other alternative? To cling so tightly to the kernel of hope left that I let it carry me through my duties for the next year? Or two?

The sharp edges of stone dig into my knees through my dress until my skin bleeds.

I scrub, dunk, dump the water and go for fresh. The same desperate routine as countless others who have come before me. Unlike my other days here, today it’s clear how far I’ve gotten from the person I used to be and my cherished plans for the future.

“If a dragon had tried to choose me, I’d turn them down,” I bite out. “There’s no way I’d want to connect myself to one of those beasts.”

It’s a hollow boast that means nothing.

I’m not here as a student. I’m here to survive this punishment and if Milkin has her way, I’ll soon abandon whatever dreams I’d kept tethered to me, like throwing a stone into a lake and watching it disappear.

Soon, even hope will vanish.

There’s no clock up here to mark the passage of the day, only the steady dip of the sun. The cave entrance shows a whisky-colored glow in the sky and the golden puff of cotton-clouds.

Take a break. A small one.

The drip of blood from my split knuckle has turned sluggish. Those are the devil’s whispers.

I glance around for any sign of Mrs. Milkin or one of her spies, coming to check on me, but dump the empty bucket into one of the drainage gullies for the fifth time and settle with my spine to stone.