He finishes his plate, pushes it forward and his gaze falls over me like a shadow. “Do you eat?”
“No,” I say quickly.
His brows inch up his face, head cocking to the side.
Of course, I eat. “I mean—I’m not hungry.” I’d rather starve than make a spectacle trying to feed myself under the chains of the Shroud, though my lips have gone dry and chapped from the lack of water. For the Shrouded, eating was a dutiful affair.
“Right.” His gaze is still questioning as he rises, but he turns without any further prying. He returns shortly with another overflowing plate of food and another glass of wine.That’s a lot of food.
Many of our soldiers are finishing their plates and making their way back to the tents provided for them. I desperately wished I had my own to disappear to. For now, I’m held hostage to this table, the flickering eyes of the soldiers around me, and the grating sounds ofthiswitch’s chewing.
A soldier appears before our table, one of ours, silver armor glinting back the glow of the magical orbed lights.
“Prince,” he addresses with a bow of his head. “The King sends his regards.” He holds out a small golden key, and my next breath lodges in my chest. The prince stares at it quizzically. Sensing his confusion, the soldier explains, “It’s for the Shroud.”
“The Shroud?”
“The Shroud,” The soldier repeats, gesturing to his own face.
The prince turns back to eye my golden chains, grimaces and distractedly mutters out a “right, thanks,” as he presses the key toward the inner pocket of his cloak.
When I look back I find that my father’s table has emptied. He and the Queen seem to have turned in for the night.
On closer inspection, all of our soldiers have, leaving me surrounded by witches--enemies. I suck in a shaky breath, hands twisting in my lap as I adjust to my new reality.
A large fire is started on the outskirts of the tables. I’m grateful for somewhere to cast my gaze that isn’t my hands. The flickering hues of orange and red is familiar, almost calming. Every twenty-two days, I’d take my place in the tower to watch over the sacred hearth. We’re required to fast, with no food and no water, feeding the flame for a full day and night. To look away for even a moment was said to risk endangerment of our kingdom. I watch the flames with the same steadfast devotion.
There was many a time after hours and hours of staring into the flame, I could swear I’d see shapes form in them. None as vivid as the last when the flames split straight down the middle in two perfect towers. It lasted seconds at most, and I convinced myself that I’d imagined it. Looking back now, I wonder if it was some kind of harbinger of what was to come.
I always assumed I’d meet a tumultuous end. Certain the daemon would reveal itself again, and that would be it. They’d finally be rid of me despite my high nobility. Yet I didn’t expectthis. Didn’t expect that the details of what lay outside the Wall wereactually real.Didn’t believetheywere real. I was so certain that it was cooked up, a part of the narrative they fed us to keep us trapped in there.
They said that as long as the sacred hearth did not go out and the Shrouded remained pious of spirit and pure of body, our kingdom would prevail. But the rains quit gracing us, the crops died out, desperate poachers decimated our animal populations, and the riots began. Naturally, the blame fell on us, theShrouded.The figureheads of our kingdom. When things were going well, we were praised, and when they were not going well, it was certainly because there was a crack in our devotion.
Margaret took the brunt of the blame, not because she was guilty but because she was the lowest standing among the twenty-two of us—a plebeian honored with the Shroud that was ultimately her demise. They accused her of breaking her vow and buried her alive in the Pits, land sanctioned from the long-abandoned theurgynate mines, a mile off so as not to taint us with their evil.
My blood runs cold at memories of what it was like in the dark, cold hole in the ground. What it must’ve been like for Margaret as she took her final breaths.
Her sacrifice was meant to bring our kingdom back into God’s graces.
It didn’t work.
The rain didn’t return, and my father ultimately made the decision to trek outside the Wall. The Grand Prioress loudly declared to anyone who would listen that the decision was a dire mistake. Allying with witches was certain to bring our doom.
The soldiers walk up and toss an assortment of items into the flames. Knives, meat, bones, and other various things that I can’t make out from this distance. The witch next to me finishes his plate and busies himself in his wine glass instead. Once his glass has emptied, he twists his fingers into position, the silent language of their magic, and it refills once more. The magic is so casual, just a simple position of his hand.
He sinks further down in his chair with each passing glass. I study the orb lights suspended above our table, one of them close enough to touch. Reaching out a timid hand, I run my fingers through it, marveling at the way it casts my hands aglow. It’s warm yet not hot enough to burn. When I look up I find him watching me and quickly snatch my hand back.
The soldiers grow drunker and rowdier as the night wears on, the table next to us buckling with laughter every few minutes.
“What do you think she’s hiding under that thing?” Asks one of the soldiers at the next table over. I stiffen as I register that their conversation has landed on me.
“Nought a great beauty, I imagine.” Their laughter climbs to a roar.
“I’m betting it’s the teeth. Or the lack of them.”
“Hey, you have to admit there’s perks to that,” one slurs as the table erupts.
I dip my head. If the prince notices the steer of their conversation he doesn’t acknowledge it, watching the flickering flames with a gloomy expression across his face as another witch walks up to cast an item to the fire. In an attempt to block out the mocking soldiers next to us, I muster up the courage to ask in a low rasp, “What are they doing?”
