Page 89 of Death of a Mortal

That made my now-full stomach drop. Dining with him at the ball with others around was one thing, but in private… I didn’t like the thought of how unkind he would be. The dance teacher was stick-happy, the queen was overly scrutinous, but the king? I feared how far he would go to ensure I was perfect.

When I was back in my cell, I did not practice my dance steps,and I did not recite the queen’s fifty dinner rules. I laid down on the cold, damp floor and let sleep take me. I was so very exhausted.

* * *

Day two ofball preparation week was nearly the same as the first: dance followed by dinner. And both Thalen and Malvina had a lot of the same critiques as the day before. I retained some, but definitely not all, of what they tried to teach me the day before.

On day three, I managed to get through all of one dance with only one poke with the conductor’s stick. The other two dances were still plagued with pokes and smacks. I also got to the second course of dinner with the queen before she corrected anything, but by the end, I was as exhausted as on day one and forgetting many of the rules from before.

“Do youwantto fail, Naci?” the queen asked me, frustrated, on that third day.

I shook my head, which was also wrong (“Answer directly when asked a question by a royal. No head shaking and nodding.”).

On day four, we were all getting nervous about how close the ball was.

“Today, we add a partner to your lessons,” Thalen said before stepping right into my personal space and grabbing my waist and hand. The abruptness and familiarity of his touch made me recoil, which he pointedly ignored.

He played music this time too. Until then, I had only danced to his counts, so the music and his proximity threw me completely off. And his feet seemed to always be on mine, no matter where I put them.

All in all, it was a disaster, and I prayed to the gods that dinner with the queen would go better than the dance lesson. Not that the gods seemed to care about mortals or our lives. We grew up learning about them and praying to them. We were told things like, “Rathion protects the innocent and smites the guilty, so keep your nose clean,”or “Aeraphine influences who you marry. Pray kindly to her or she’ll fate you to a hag.”

It was all bullshit. The god of war didn’t protect innocent mortal children when fae came to town, nor did the goddess of love even give a damn if mortals married or not, much less to whom.

We began dinner as on the previous days. The queen looked almost impressed by the time we started on the main course, with no criticism thus far.

“You’ve improved tremendously. You may scrape by in a few days after all. Now that you’ve got the fundamental dinner etiquette down, we’ll discuss with whom we shall dine, so that you can properly address anyone that may speak to you.”

I did not think I could possibly care less about who each fae was, but I supposed if rule number fourteen was as serious as Malvina said, addressing fae correctly was life or death for some mortals.

And all eyes would be on me.

“Our royal court holds seven positions, with the king overseeing them all. I will send you back to your cell tonight with a dictation of each, their names, and how you address them. I expect you to know these for our dinner tomorrow.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Gods, I sounded more and more like a puppet of the throne every day. “But there is next to no light in the dungeon to see by.”

She contemplated a moment, clearly caught in a bind. “Very well, I will arrange for the guards to escort you to a private corner of the library to study tonight. Remember, Naci, no mishaps, or the king will hear about it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

My heart sank. I hadn’t been to the library since…I’d been there with Varyn.

Dumb walked me to the library after we finished dinner. It was insulting that they felt one guard was enough to keep me in line. They didn’t see me as a threat. And they knew I would be compliant.

They had my hands tied with no cuffs.

And of course, the guard led me upstairs and lit the same lamp on the table that Varyn had lit that night and sat me at the same table where I had given him my heart and body. It was poetic in a depressing sort of way that he had apologized to me in six ways that night. In a way, he might have been apologizing for the betrayal that was already brewing.

No, he didn’t care. He hadn’t been apologizing at all. He had been using me as the king had said. One of these days, maybe that thought wouldn’t hurt so bad. But that day wasn’t today.

I returned my thoughts to the paper in my hand, listing the seven royal court positions, and began reading.

1. High Priest,His Eminence/High Priest/LordMalchior Arkan - spiritual authority, keeper of prophecies, omens, and rituals

2. Commander of the Royal Guard,Lord Commander/LordDraven Corvath - head of the royal guard and all royal armed forces

3. Lady Chancellor,Lady Chancellor/LadyLyria Draevor - manages law, taxation, and borders, runs the castle bureaucracy

4. Court Mage,Magistra/LadyEirathe Othrel - keeper of magical codes, grimoires, and experimentation, leads magical training