Page 92 of Wings of Destruction

The crone’s gaze sharpens on the lump underneath my tunic. “Is that true?”

The panic reverberates through me. I have to do something. Or else I might not get out of this room. But I can’t move.

“She’s not denying it, Mrs. Milkin.” Druella glowers at me.

I straighten, going still as the head housekeeper peels her hands free from her plump waist and plucks the necklace out of its hiding place. She stares at the sapphire for a heartbeat before drawing the chain up around my head and yanking it off.

The violent yank scrapes the underside of my chin.

“This,” Milkin hisses, “is a symbol from your old life. And the longer you keep it, the longer it will take for you to realize that things have changed. You are not the girl who got accepted to DragonSpear. You’re not a student here. You are nobody. You are a part of the castle ecosystem.”

The room disintegrates around me. She might as well take me by the throat. Each battering word she tosses at me has venom pooling on my tongue with nowhere to go.

“You are the heart beating it in its chest. DragonSpear, the crown… your purpose is to serve.”

“Hail King Lochlain,” Druella mutters under her breath.

Milkin dutifully nods along with the sentiment. Her fingers clench around the chain as she dangles it in front of my face.

Alarm lifts inside me.

“Give that back.”

It’s the only thing I have left from my mother.

Her smirk twists the corners of her mouth.

“This? You will never see this again.” She steps up and dangles the sapphire directly in front of me.

My jaw aches from holding myself back. Finally, I reach for it to rip the pendant right out of Milkin’s hand and shove it down her throat.

She makes a noise in her throat but avoids my reach. Fear flickers through me.

“It was my mother’s,” I plead.

“You should have thought of that before you pushed your work onto everyone else. Actions have consequences,” Milkin bids me. “You of all people understand it.”

The shuffle of footsteps sounds from the entrance to the room. We have an audience, an even larger group to witness my humiliation and heap on the insults of what I haven’t been doing rather than defend what I have.

They’re not wrong. I’m not suited for this life. I’ve never cleaned a floor or dusted a chandelier in my life.

I’m trying.

No one sees it but me. Today’s nap was a one off, not to be repeated.

The world goes dark around the edges and the scream I’ve held back aches to burst free.

“You people.” Milkin pitches her voice low enough for my insides to seize. “You think you can refuse to play your part in the working of our great society. When a single cog fails to do its duty, the machine does not work the way it is intended. Your village needed to burn. If only you’d had the decency to go with them.”

I’d survived the fall of Fallkirk only to land in the lap of this woman with her inherent hatred for anyone who doesn’t fit society’s mold.

Milkin makes sure I see the disgust in her face before she thrusts out her hand toward the blonde. “Here, Druella.”

Gut reaction forces me into motion and I grab for it. Light glints off the sapphire, dark and rich, like heart’s blood.

“Don’t! She can’t have it! Throw it away, burn it, just don’t give it to her.”

Milkin slithers between us, arching her back and pushing those ample bosoms out like a shield of flesh. Over her head Druella slips the pendant around her scrawny neck.