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Four
Rosalie
The next morning the twins dressed me in a tight-fitting bodice that once again displayed more of me than I cared for. I moved my ankle in a circle, and thankfully there was no pain. I’d always seemed to heal a bit faster than normal humans.
“Why am I the only woman with her breasts hanging over the butter dish?” I groaned to Janetta at breakfast.
She smiled and glanced down. “Probably because you’re the only one with breasts that large.”
True, while all the women here had their own beautiful quality, I seemed to be the curvy girl out of the bunch. “What do you think will happen today?”
“I don’t know. It feels odd to be competing forhishand.”
We both glanced at Lord Demious who sat at the head of the long table, cutting his biscuit with a knife . . . who does such a weird thing? He wasn’t unattractive, and he did have a warm sweetness to those chocolate eyes, but how was any woman here supposed to focus on Demious with Baine wearing those black leathers?
Baine leaned against the wall behind Lord Demious, arms folded, gaze absolutely avoiding me.
His swords hung at his hips and there was something very alluring about the way he rested one leg over the other, seeming both relaxed and deadly at the same time.
“Good morning, ladies!” Demious said with a smile, breaking my concentration on the male behind him. “I hope last night you all rested well. Today, you’ll meet with our scribe Jasper and review what languages you can speak and write in.”
Demious stood and dabbed a napkin to his mouth. “Tonight, we shall meet in the ballroom where you can enjoy each other’s company. Even though this is a competition, you should all get along.”
When Demious smiled at all of us, the gesture didn’t reach his eyes. Why would someone as powerful as him even need a competition? This whole thing was ridiculous and unnecessary.
“Until tonight, my ladies.” He bowed and left the dining hall, Baine following.
“I can’t write.”
Janetta and I both turned to the waif next to us. I still didn’t know her name.
“I’m sure there are girls here who can’t either, don’t worry.” I gave her a smile. “I’m Rosalie and this is Janetta. You can stay by us if you want.”
She tilted her head at me. “Alicia.”
“Hi, Alicia,” Janetta said.
A tall older woman wearing a very tight bun and plain brown dress, came in clapping her hands. “Ladies, we will be moving to the library. Stay in line.”
With a silent groan, I stood up. The bodice I wore seemed to crush against my chest even more with all the food I’d eaten. While I loved the soft red gown and the amber ruffles along the hem, it made it impossible to breathe. I hadn’t worn a corset like this in years. There was no need to dress fancy when you spent most of the time in the dirt and chasing after a flock of fire hungry birds.
We followed the woman out into the hallway in a two-by-two formation deeper into the mansion, corridor after corridor, some with swirling marble walls, some with black velvet trimmed walls. Opulence decorated the halls of the mansion with gold molding and lavish furnishings made of the finest wood. Each time I trailed the rooms of this lavish estate, I noticed little eccentric entities. Like the massive golden statue of a scepter with shining eyes of a viper or how sometimes when I stared at the paintings really hard, the colors shifted, the image blending into another, and one not as peaceful as the meadow scene it portrayed.
Unlike most humans, my senses were heightened, and right now they warned me that the lord of this mansion wasn’t the boorish man he appeared to be.
We entered into a beautiful library with mahogany desks, plenty of seating and a second floor of books that I could get lost in for days.
“I am head mistress Begalia,” the woman said with pride. “I look over Lord Demious’ estate. This estate has been in his family for over eleven generations.”
“Can you believe one of us will get to live here?” Janetta whispered to me.
How could I tell her that was the opposite of what I wanted? I didn’t come here to be a bride. My brother would throw a fit if he found out I’d sold myself off into servitude.
Just thinking of Calvin brought me to tears.
He left exactly six months after our parents died. Six months.
Father had always been the one to maintain the hawks, and with him gone, we only had our local ranger to assist in their healing. In the North, where red mountains and rushing rivers created one of the most majestic territories in all of Saol, we had one hindrance: plague snakes. Slimy reptiles invading from the swamps of the South. The firehawks hunted these creatures, stopping them from defiling the crops, but with the hawks weak and sick, the land was in dire need of aid.
