His face was so calm and relaxed, almost distant as he looked down at her, that she was thrown, wondering for a moment if she had imagined the whole thing; but no, she was absolutely certain it was him, the same golden eyes, the same hair, the same tense expression.
Staring at him unflinchingly, she sized the man up as he did the same to her, contemplative and cool before his lips turned up into the faintest hint of a smile.
"Welcome to Ayathian, Lady Etani. We are pleased to welcome you to our city," he said in that same booming voice.
The room was silent, watching with curiosity as this strange woman stood before the king, looking very little like any lady they had likely seen in their lives.
A movement caught her attention, and she flicked a glance towards the lich as he sidled into the room, trying to go unnoticed, though that was difficult given the aura of death he carried around with him everywhere he went.
His gaze swept the room and then doubled back to her, blinking once in confusion and then evident interest, uncaring of the sudden coldness that came over the room and while those in the room did not seem to like the lich very much, they still bowed or curtsied to him, a move she was certainly not expecting.
"Brother!" the king bellowed and stood, moving to embrace the lich and clap him on the back. She had started to suspect the situation, but it was still a surprise to see the lich and the giant together, to see their embrace though the lich looked as though he would have been happier without the hug.
"Brother, I'm sure you have already met Lady Etani," the king said, and she thought she caught the faintest hint of a threat to his voice.
"Lady Etani, please let me introduce you to the Prince Epharis, my brother."
Her eyes met the lich's, and he smirked slightly, his eyes flicking down towards her chest which gave a painful lurch and burned for an instant.
"A pleasure, dear Lady," Epharis said smoothly, that cruel smile growing in evident enjoyment of the situation.
"I am Emperor Alaric," the king boomed, "But here I am known as King Alaric."
He seemed outwardly to be such a pleasant man, but there was something in her that was telling her he was not quite as kind as he made himself out to be, a little bell going off in her mind when he smiled down at her.
Glancing between the two men, she was lost on what to say and the prince's stare had turned hungry, something she was rather keen to avoid.
"My dear Lady, what brings you to Ayathian?" the king asked, breaking away from Epharis to draw her attention to him. Sitting back in his throne, she contemplated her answer for a moment before she finally spoke.
"I was travelling from the far north, looking for a place to settle," she lied smoothly, she had no intention of settling anywhere near that place with their lich and giant king.
She had every intention of getting out of there just as soon as she was able, and moving a very, very far distance away. "I stumbled upon your city by accident and thought it wise to collect what supplies I would need." Supplies she had never carried into the city, but only the lich would know that. "I was waylaid and required to stay for some time, however, I will continue once the opportunity arises."
The moment the words left her lips she felt a sudden stabbing pain in her chest and her eyes flicked to the prince. His fingers had balled into fists and she realised with a terrible certainty that he was not going to permit her to leave. Not until she had done whatever it was he wanted from her.
"However, I may stay longer should his Majesty permit it," she added, forcing her eyes from the prince and back to the king.
Alaric was staring at her with his head tilted slightly to the side, curious and alert to the exchange between them. Had he felt the lich's grip on her tighten? She did not know, but she was a little curious.
"You are most welcome, dear lady. I will have a suite prepared for your stay, as my honoured guest!" the king declared and the courtiers applauded at the statement. The applause was unexpected, but she could venture a guess at the eccentric king enjoying it when people applauded his demands.
Even so, the fact that the king was eager to keep her close was alarming, she did not like the idea of both men trying to control her, or was she being paranoid? Was the king just trying to be kind to her? She really did not know; she didn't have the information she needed.
Lowering her eyes demurely, she considered her options but in that moment she did not have a lot of room to move, she would need to remain for the time being and serve the lich, but after that she would make the attempt to leave.
***
The noise in the room rose, and she glanced around, unsure if she was permitted to leave the room, but Alaric seemed to have other plans for her and he was quick to invite her to a private dinner, to which she graciously accepted. She was curious about the man and wanted to know more about him and his kingdom. He had called himself an emperor, and recalling what she knew of human culture, that meant he had conquered more than one kingdom, joining the two into one. Or was it that they were still separate but ruled by the one monarch? She could not recall exactly, and she would need to learn it again.
Regardless, it was clear that the man believed himself to be a great ruler, and she was fascinated by him; she was fascinated by the entire place.
Excusing herself, she left the hall and found the servant woman who looked considerably more relaxed now, and led her up to the second floor and to a door that had been left slightly ajar. Opening the door slowly, Etani stepped inside to find a small sitting room behind a wall that was elaborately painted in green with a lovely golden tree for detail. There was a door immediately to her left, and to her right, the wall simply stopped, and the room opened up.
There was a young girl standing in the room, possibly only fifteen or so with big, pale blue eyes and a shy smile, her red-blonde hair pulled up into a bun. She was wearing the same dress as the older woman, though hers was dark grey and not black.
Offering the girl a wary smile, she glanced about the room and found that the suite led off to two other rooms, one a bedroom and the other a bathroom.
Taking it in, she opened her mouth to speak when a loud bang pulled them both around and Epharis stormed into the room.
Spinning away from him, she grabbed the first thing she could find for a weapon and turned back to the lich.
His fingers clenched around her throat and he forced her backwards, but her hand was already moving, slamming the metallic thing down against the side of his head. It turned out to be a lovely golden candelabra, which was now dented.
He did not let her go, however, and his free hand reached for her wrist as she swung the candelabra back again. Her backside hit a table, and she lost her footing, dropping back onto the top of it as his fingers curled around her wrist and he squeezed, digging his fingers into the tendons until she was forced to release the weapon.
Crawling on top of her, he squeezed her throat until she could no longer speak, bending over her until his face was only an inch from hers, furious with eyes that had begun to glow a toxic green. Her fingers clenched around the wrist that gripped her throat, her nails digging in, but he did not seem to notice at all.
"You are not going anywhere, soul eater. You belong to me, you are mine! If you try to flee, I will find you and I will drag you back here and ensure you can never escape again." He was talking through his teeth in a barely audible whisper, almost hissing the words at her. "If you defy me, I will kill you and bring you back like me, I will make you exactly like me." His nose nearly touched hers and his fingers clenched even tighter, cutting off her air while her nails left long gouges down his skin, unable to get him to release her. She nodded quickly, desperate, and he released her throat only enough that she was not in immediate danger of suffocating.
"Yes… yes," she gasped, sucking in sweet, precious air while still trying to pry his fingers off her. He stared down into her eyes, his teeth bared.
"Don't tempt me. You are worth more to me as what you are right now but if I no longer feel that, you will be worth more to me as my lich bride. Dead or alive, you will never escape me." He smiled then, dangerous and feral, to make her quiver, utterly terrified of him. "Do you understand me, woman?" he snapped.
"Yes, Epharis," she whimpered.
He jerked slightly as she spoke his name and he leered at her for a moment before he released her throat and got off her, standing at the side of the table while he straightened his robes and hair.
"I have my first task for you, my little Etani. You are to consume this man," he said in a perfectly polite voice, as though none of the minutes before had happened, and she managed to drag herself up into a sitting position, clutching her bruised throat.
He was holding a slip of parchment between his index and middle fingers, his expression smug and superior.
"You want me to kill him?" she asked, somewhat curious. It was not like it was the first time she had killed someone, and not the first time she had killed someone under the orders of another. She had spent several years doing that, in fact. She had developed a fairly substantial name for herself in another land for being a hired killer, but the fact that this man, this mythical creature, would want her to do it for him utterly baffled her.
"Yes, you have one week," he said, and with that, he swept from the room.
***
There was a moment of silence and suddenly the servant girl was upon her. She sobbed uncontrollably and tried to pat at Etani's throat, wailing about being a coward and not being able to defend her against a monster like the prince.
The thought that a little blonde human girl was upset at not being able to defend her against a lich was a little funny, and she made the attempt to soothe the girl, but it was still some time before the poor little blonde was able to stop crying. She had never in her life attempted to comfort a human before and she was not entirely sure what to do or say in order to be successful, but her awkward pats on the back and a hug seemed to be doing the trick though it still took a few tries to get the girl to be able to tell her what her name was, it turning out to be Sasha.
"I did not hear what he said, lady, what does he want from you?" the girl asked when she had finally calmed down, sitting upon a small couch and hiccupping.
She was one of those girls who looked all the prettier for crying, her tears giving her eyes an inner glow and turning her cheeks pink. She was such a small little thing and her delicate fingers crushed the fabric of her apron as she sat, staring up at Etani with wonder in her eyes.
"The prince and I have an agreement," Etani said evasively. What was she going to do? Was she ever going to be able to escape him? She would have to wait and see; she didn't like it, but she had little room to move right then.
"You made a deal with the lich prince, oh my poor lady," Sasha cried again, for a good hour before she finally calmed down enough to start preparing Etani for dinner and Etani was a little confused.
She had thought her black dress was perfectly suitable to be worn to dinner, but Sasha said it was both a terrible fit and entirely unsuitable. Aside from that, it seemed to please the girl to have her done up, and she did not want to stop her from enjoying herself.
Sasha had exceptionally skilled fingers, and she made quick work of Etani's hair, pulling it up into an elaborate series of braids that drew the mass away from her face and left the vast majority to trail down her back. She was given a lovely emerald green dress that was made of some sort of fuzzy material that Sasha informed her was called velvet. The shoes were completely ignored, tucked under the vanity table and, given the dress was long enough to cover her feet, Sasha did not notice.
The dress was a much better fit for her though it had a lower cut on the bust, something she was not overly fond of. But with the sleeves stopping at her elbows and the skirt bunched at her hips before cascading down, she thought it came together quite nicely. It made her look somewhat feminine and when she had seen the evil-looking device that had been designed to go under the dress, she was glad her figure made it unnecessary. She had seen women putting those on before, crushing their waists down until they were blue in the face, it looked horrible.
Finally, to complete the outfit, Sasha gave her a delicate silver bracelet, and she spun it on her wrist. She had never worn jewellery before—it was dangerous for someone like her when such ornamentation could be grabbed and held onto, or pulled to strangle her. She knew her sisters liked such things, though, and as she thanked the sweet human girl and made her way out the door, she found herself smiling a little sadly. Letari would have loved the pretty sparkly thing, but it might be quite some time before she got to see her twin again. All Fae loved shiny things, but she never allowed herself to give in to that aspect of herself.
A guard bowed to her as she stepped out of the door and she followed along behind him, her mind going over what had happened in the time she had spent in Ayathian. Captured, tortured and experimented on, threatened, and now she was little more than a slave, forced to work and never allowed to leave. Now she was being kept in a pretty cage and given pretty things in a hope of making her feel better about her situation; it did not make her feel better, she did not like it at all.
***
The guard opened a door, and she looked around in confusion, lost to her thoughts and having no idea where they were in the castle, but she stepped into the dining hall and paused at the assortment of people who were standing around the room.
She had thought it would be more private but no, there were several people in there plus the king who was seated at the end of the table.
Two men caught her attention first, all sorts of alarm bells going off in her mind as she took in their dark skin and fashionable, elite attire, their curious faces turning to see who the newcomer was. She could not look away from them, horrified by the fact that she was in the room with drow.
The drow were considered to be the lower-class cousins of the elves, the violent and cruel offspring of elves breeding with demons and leaving them unable to commune with the other fae. They had been banished from Faerie, stuck under a rock, and the rest of the mythicals had hoped they would have died off, but they had not, and they were angry about the rejection.
The worst part of it all… Drow could see through enchantments.
The pair had frozen as they found her, saw through the glamour to what was underneath, saw through to what she was, and they may never have even seen the image which overlaid her form.
They were incredibly attractive with perfect faces. The taller of the two was quite a bit more attractive than the other, grey-purple skin and long black hair. His eyes were so dark red as to nearly be black and his ears had been pierced multiple times. The shorter of the two, only an inch shorter, was considerably softer looking though still stern, his skin a dark violet with striking, bright silver eyes and white-silver hair.
They both stood with rigid, strict postures, with one hand tucked neatly behind their backs, though she was very aware that in such a position, knives would likely be nearby.
The king was watching her with a curious expression, his head tilted very slightly to the right before a woman captured his attention. She was a very pretty, wild-looking woman with dark chestnut brown hair and deep blue eyes. There was something primal about her, animalistic, and as the king waved his arm, a shock of alarm went through her. The woman was a werewolf, a loner by the smell of her.
Werewolves were vicious and violent creatures when it came to packs, but the loners were less so, much quieter and more reserved.
Her distraction towards the werewolf woman had allowed the drow men to move, and she glanced at the silver-eyed one, realising that he had crept closer while the other had drifted to her right, trying to trap her in the corner, but she was not having any of that.
Throwing them a knowing glance, she swept across the room to approach the king who stood so suddenly that he knocked the table, sending the cutlery to rattling that no one paid much attention to. He strode quickly towards her, his face showing his pleasure at her arrival and that was somewhat of a rare expression to be directed her way.
"Lady Etani!" he boomed, drawing the eyes of the remaining people to them.
There was another set of men towards the back of the room, lingering back far enough that it was hard to see them with their forms shrouded in darkness.
Slowing her pace to greet the king, she curtsied respectfully, catching an exchanged glance of amusement between the two drow as she lifted her skirt and they likely saw the fact that she was not wearing any shoes, something that was incredibly improper.
He bowed politely in return and positively beamed at her, offering her his hand. Taking it, she found that he was unusually warm, almost hot to the touch, with his dry lips brushing a delicate kiss upon her fingers before he turned her to introduce her to the woman.
"This is Catherine, Captain of the royal guard," he said in a proud voice.
The woman had stood, and she bowed, her eyes alert but not unkind.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Catherine," Etani said, returning the bow with a curtsy. The more she looked at the werewolf, the more she saw just how lovely she really was. Skin that was almost brown with an oval face, low brows that gave her a smouldering stare and a warm smile that lit up her face. She was wearing slacks, a white blouse with suspenders and she had been wearing a cap but had taken it off and left it on the table. Knee-high boots and a black jacket that bore a series of colourful wide ribbons that she could only assume were military.
"The pleasure is all mine, lady," Catherine said politely; her voice was rich and smooth, adding to her air of animalistic beauty.