7 Chapter 7

Without the solid wall behind her, Evryn surely would have collapsed to the floor by then. It took all of her determination, all that was left anyway, not to do just that. She knew her legs were beginning to shake. She could feel the sweat starting to bead on her forehead despite the chilly breeze from open balcony doors nearby. The ballroom was filled with noise and movement and lights. It was foreign and overwhelming to her. She caught fragments of conversations but was unable to process them in her mind. Her brain was almost as weak as her body. The mental and physical strain she was experiencing was unlike anything she had ever experienced. It got to the point where she wished the king would come sooner, though the thought felt wrong in her mind. Though the thought of seeing his face again equally terrified and angered her.

She had spent the majority of the day and the day before wondering why the king had decided to make her do this. Was it to torture her by letting her see a life of luxury even though that was a life she would never have? That seemed to be the most plausible reason in her mind, surely it was something he would do. But then why did he tell her that he would come and find her? Why would he spare her so much as a glance in such a setting? He was the king. She was a prisoner pretending to be a servant who didn't actually do any serving at all. Her dress, as modest and unassuming as it was, could not actually prevent her from sticking out. She had finally been given a bath but her hair was still damaged beyond repair. Her skin was still sickly pale. Her body was still easily the frailest there. Frailer even than those of the old ladies who stood in clusters fanning themselves discussing what they were going to do with all of their jewelry once they died.

There came a point when Evryn decided to close her eyes to try and block out some of the commotion happening around her. Sometime after that she was tapped on the shoulder. At the touch her eyes flew open and her body jolted. The nearby guard had been the one who tapped her, but it wasn't him that surprised her. It was King Hadrien standing a few feet in front of her. He quickly glanced her way before turning and walking towards a group of men chatting animatedly.

"The King's orders are to have you exit the ballroom in two minutes time and turn right" the guard stated, drawing her attention to him. "You are to wait for him at the second staircase you come to."

Evryn nodded in understanding. After two minutes she hesitantly pushed herself away from the wall, praying that her legs would be able to hold her up. Thankfully, they did.

She had practiced walking all morning in the bedroom that she had stayed the night in. The room was shockingly spacious and lavish. Just being in it made her feel unworthy of such luxury and she spent the entire sleepless night wondering why she had been given it. She walked back and forth from the door to the windows until her legs gave out and she collapsed. She had cried in frustration. She cried because she was trying to walk in order to obey the king but it was because of the king that she couldn't walk. She didn't want to obey the king, but she didn't have any other choice. It was a choice between trying to prove herself or giving into weakness entirely and she decided that she would try to prove herself in any way that she could. Not only to the king, but to herself as well. She needed to believe that she wasn't entirely wasted away to nothing, that she had life left in her despite how hard the king tried to rob her of it. So maybe by default her compliance was also defiance.

By the time she reached the staircase, she wouldn't have been surprised if Hadrien beat her there. He didn't though. There were only two guards standing in front of it who did not say a word to her as she slowly approached. This end of the corridor was empty of traffic, the staircase itself was blocked from view by a statue of a giant bird of some sort. Evryn waited for the king against the wall, looking underneath the statue's wing to see him coming.

A few minutes later he was there, talking in a hushed voice to the guard and repeatedly glancing down the corridor to make sure no one saw him. Eventually, he looked at her, his gaze serious and distracted. "Follow me." he said before heading up the stairs.

As soon as Evryn made it to the second stair, she knew she couldn't make it up the rest of them. Her knees throbbed in pain. She willed herself not to collapse, not now. The king had just made it to the top of the stairs and glanced back at her expressionlessly. Evryn looked down at her feet and prepared herself to try for the third step.

"One of you carry her" the king ordered the guards. They both sprang to action immediately. Evryn refused to look up and was still in the middle of trying to lift her leg when one of the guards grabbed her beneath her arms and lifted her up. Shame crawled through her. So much for proving herself.

The king, thankfully, decided not to watch her get carried up the stairs. He turned back around and walked away, down the surprisingly narrow corridor at the top of the staircase. This part of the castle seemed secretive to Evryn. Nothing was decidedly grand about it, completely the opposite of the ballroom she had just come from. The doors lining both sides of the hallway were smooth and solid wood with numbers carved in the middle of them. She didn't know where the numbers started but these particular doors began at 49.

Hadrien stopped just outside of the door numbered 51. He clasped his hands together in front of him and waited for her to catch up. The guard who carried her retreated back to his post at the bottom of the staircase. There were no other guards in the corridor. It was just her and the king. Evryn felt her curiosity trickle into fear.

The music from the ballroom echoed faintly in the background. Not loud enough to cover the noise of her embarrassingly labored breathing or rapidly beating heart.  Evryn stopped several feet away from the king and dug her fingers into the cotton fabric of her dress. She stared at the ground, focusing on the pattern of her breaths and the strands of her hair falling around her face. She waited for something to happen.

"Listen to me." the king said, his voice barely over a whisper. Evryn didn't move. "You are not to move or speak unless directed to. Now is not the time to make a fool of yourself."

Evryn blinked, trying to process what the king's words meant. What was he going to make her do?

"Follow me." he said again. Then he reached for the handle of door number 51. "Oh, and one more thing," he added, his voice somehow even quieter than before, "Do not forget to bow."

Evryn followed him into the room wordlessly, trying to figure out why she would need to bow. Her question was answered when she saw the man sitting behind a desk in the middle of the room. He was sitting with his elbows on the table and his head in between his hands, a position that stretched his already deep frown. A bulky jeweled crown sat slightly slanted on his head. He didn't even glance at Hadrien as he entered the room, his scrutinizing gaze was glued to Evryn. She thought she saw his eyes narrow as she stopped to stand before the desk.

For a painfully long moment, all three of them were still and silent. Then Evryn remembered her orders. She quickly bowed, keeping her eyes on the stranger in front of her. She hated his judgemental gaze but met it as fiercely as she could, knowing that her eyes were her strongest weapon, as long as she could keep them impassive.

"This is her?" the man asked. Somehow, his voice made him even less attractive than he already was.

Out of the corner of her eye, Evryn saw Hadrien, who was standing beside the desk, turn his head from the man to her. "It is" he answered.

The man's gaze flicked down her body and he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his bulging stomach. "Well, you certainly aren't what I was expecting. You don't have to stare at me like that, darling. Do you know who I am?"

Evryn blinked and reflexively looked down. Her strongest weapons were already failing her. Her weakness was already exposing itself through her body language. Remembering Hadrien's words and not trusting her voice enough to speak anyway, she shook her head in reply to his question.

The man chuckled to himself. "It's a pity my nephew didn't tell you  on your way up here. Could have saved me the trouble of introducing myself. I guess he's not much of a conversationalist though, is he?" He smirked at Hadrien, who pretended not to notice. "Anyway, you have in your presence King Rubigo Niamere, the legendary ruler of the powerful kingdom of Malkane. And beloved uncle of your very own King Hadrien".

She didn't know anything about Malkane, but given that this man was Hadrien's uncle, she had to assume that he held the most power out of the two of them. For some reason, that unsettled her. She didn't trust either of the kings she was with, but Rubigo seemed quite a bit more unstable and unpredictable. She was less afraid of him, but somehow more uncomfortable in his presence.

"Why is she wearing that Hadrien? It's ten sizes too big, I don't know what I'm looking at."

Suddenly a memory flooded her thoughts. A memory of before, from a life she had tried to forget. She had been sitting in the grass beside her family's field, going through a wagon of corn that her father had just harvested from the field. It was her job to determine which cobs were good enough to be sold at the market and which weren't. She did so by peeling just enough of the husk to see a streak of the corn. Her father, knowing that she was a picky eater, told her that if it looked like something she'd eat then to put it back in the cart to sell. If it didn't, then they'd give it to the animals.

The memory rattled her, it was the first one she had in many months. It was King Rubigo that incited it. His belittling eyes left her feeling  like the corn waiting to be judged.

She didn't know if Hadrien had responded or not, but Rubigo continued. "Well, I hate to say this, but you're going to have to take that dress off, darling."