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“You know what we should do?” Rhiucra asks me excitedly.
I look at him with a soft, patient smile. Sometimes when I speak to him, it feels like I’m listening to an old friend tell me something exciting. Other times, I simply don’t have the heart to tell him I have other things I need to do.
“You should come with me to see the shop. I can find you something else to wear, and we can have dinner afterward. I am sure that the head zagfer will give you the time off if I ask her.”
The head zagfer will lick your damn shoes if you damn well ask her to,I think darkly, though the soft smile remains on my face.
I have known that Rhiucra has a crush on me since we met. And while I appreciate his friendship, even if I am not always comfortable calling it that, we can never be more than friends.
He is very obvious about his feelings for me, and this is not the first time he has asked me to lunch or dinner.
I do like Rhiucra, but only as a friend, and I cannot help but feel very awkward around him when he asks me out for the day or night. He’s so vague and noncommittal about asking me that I haven’t had to outright reject him, thankfully, but we both know what he’s talking about.
I hope he gets over this soon.The smile is frozen on my face by now.
The sun is even lower in the sky, and I stand up from the table then.
“I don’t think that is a good idea,” I tell him as I brush past him to take our cups to the sink where I wash them. “I have so many chores to do. I don’t want to leave the rest of the servants with all the work.”
“Of course,” Rhiucra says easily. One thing I like about him is that he isn’t a sore loser. “Now, tell me what you liked most about the books I gave you?”
I sigh with relief as he moves on from the subject of dinner, and we fall into conversation about the books.
“I definitely liked the fairytales better than the history books you gave me. The fairytales are all beautifully written, and the paintings on every other page are so intricate!”
“The fairytales are my favorite, too,” Rhiucra agrees as I pack up my cleaning supplies and leave the house. “I’ll send some more around. And if you don’t like history books, that’s okay! I can find something else for you to read.”
“Thank you, Rhiucra,” I say softly with a wave.
I walk back to the little store rooms that are attached to the kitchen and place my cleaning supplies there. Then I wash my hands outside the kitchen and walk into the actual kitchen to help with the tea service.
The kitchen is large – it has to be, to serve a twenty-roomed mansion – and it is busy.
I realize then, as I fall in line with the zagfers, that I spent most of the afternoon just talking with Rhiucra in that kitchen.
Tea service ends at six, and I leave the kitchen as a new shift of zagfers walks in to start the dinner service. They will also prepare the basics for breakfast for tomorrow morning so that we simply have to walk in and start serving breakfast.
I head to my room, which is in the servants’ quarters on the far side of the estate.
I see the shadow before I hear anything. It is fleeting. It could be a bird or a rodan or maybe even a brox.
But then I hear it, a rustling in the bushes behind me.
I whip around.
But there is nothing there.
3
LUOCRE
“Stupid fucking sun.”
The sunlit courtyard outside the manor that I occupy along with my brother sparkles with sharp, warm light.
And I hate it.
I hate the light. Not only because I spend so much time in the dark, but because of the implications of the light.
