Page 12 of Beyond Those Gilded Walls

Silence still reigned over the room, all of us watching each other and waiting for someone else to say the next words. It would not be me, that much I knew. So I stood in the middle of the room while the four other women studied me. Some of them seemed as if they were searching for any sign of weakness, but I knew they’d find none. I’d perfected the wall that hid my emotions well.

“Do you have any other clothes?”

I blinked, turning my gaze to the woman with ringlets the color of honey that cascaded over her shoulders and down her back of smooth, unblemished skin. She stood only a few inches taller than me but held herself as if she were towering above us all. I longed for that kind of confidence to take up space in the world.

It took a moment for her words to register and I looked down at myself, at the plain clothing I’d left the house in. I looked back up, taking in her own black silk dressing gown. “I was not allowed time to go back for any of my things.”

“Pity,” she replied, scrunching her nose up. She turned around to face her own vanity, brushing her hair back and pinning the sides up.

I bit my tongue.

“Pay no mind to Maricara. You don’t need anything else truly,” Zaharya said, waving her hand. She walked around behind me, putting her hands on my shoulders and guiding me towards the chair she’d been sitting in at the vanity. “Talyssa, can you go get her a dress and a veil? I’ll start on her hair.”

At her command, a petite woman with elegant waves of burnished copper hair that brushed against her freckled collarbones stood from where she had been tucked away in the corner, moving to a large wardrobe along the far wall. She bent and began pulling bundles of fabric out.

Beside the wardrobe, shadows flickered again. This time, though, eyes appeared, bright yellow in the gaping darkness. I blinked and they disappeared. Zaharya squeezed my shoulder. “Are you alright? You look frightened.”

My heart skipped a beat at how easily she touched me, at how there was no hesitation in her movements as she swept my hair away from my neck and traced her finger over the swirling marks there.

She did not wait for me to reply to her question. “Yours are much bigger than mine.”

Dread curled up my spine, an eerie feeling falling over me. I’d only heard of other survivors, heard of the marks that the plague left upon our skin. I’d never seen another’s marks up close, never had been with anyone other than my family after the plague set in. But why would mine be normal, after all? I was a freak of nature, and apparently, this would be no different. Smoke curled against the back of my tongue and I fought to keep my eyes off the flickering mass of shadows in the corner. The eyes had not reappeared, but I could feel them on me, watching.

“Where are you from?” I asked, raising my eyes to meet hers in the mirror in front of us. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and a chill swept down my spine. I wanted to run, to squeeze my eyes shut and pretend I was not seeing anything. I wanted to ask if she saw the Soulshades, too, but at the same time, I did not want to hear her say she did not. “You said you don’t call them Death marks?”

“I’m from a small village outside of Jura called Konorya,” she said, tangling her fingers into my hair and picking up strands of my thick, dark waves. “And they mean you didnotdie, so why would we call them Death marks? They are just marks. What does it matter how you got them?”

“Here, they mean you should get as far away from me as possible.”

Zaharya hummed.

“How are they seen in the castle?” I jerked my head toward the door. “Camelya seemed displeased I was marked.”

“There are others marked in the castle.”

I waited for her to elaborate, but she did not. I had attended to enough of the wealthy alongside my mother that I knew the words she left unsaid. There were others, yes, but Camelya’s reaction would be the norm.

The room was tense still, though some of it had started to ease around the woman weaving my hair away from my face and neck. One side of me wanted to ask about the others, to introduce myself and get to know these women I would be with, but the other part of me wanted nothing to do with any of them. Forming connections, emotional attachments,friendships, with any of them would only end poorly. As much as I longed for closeness, I could never have it.

“Here,” the one with black hair said, coming over to us and draping the two bundles of fabric Talyssa had retrieved across a nearby chair. She leaned her hip against the vanity, looking down at me with an unreadable expression. “I am Elena. Did Camelya tell you what you’ll be doing?”

I was beginning to grow tired of that question, of everyone passing me off to someone else to explain. “She said you all would.” I pulled away slightly from Zaharya and turned around to look at both of them. “Please. I am here to work with you for the foreseeable future. Tell me what I’ll be doing.”

Zaharya sighed, moving to the other side of the vanity and resting her back against it as she crossed her arms. “If you live in Jura, no doubt you hear the parties every night. We attend to them. We serve the drinks, take away the empty glasses, do whatever is needed to ensure the guests are enjoying themselves. Tonight, you’ll only be observing.”

“And tomorrow, you will be helping us,” Elena added. “It’s quite simple, though.”

“So we’re to ensure they’re having a wonderful time at the party while the city beneath them chokes on its own blood.”

“See? You understand perfectly.”

A whisper of something almost like a laugh came from the shadows at my feet. Even the Soulshades were amused by me, apparently.

ChapterSeven

“This is the last part,” Zaharya murmured, lifting the sheer midnight-blue fabric. I couldn’t stop the flinch as she raised her hands over my head, which had her frowning as I cursed my reaction. “I won’t hurt you, Odyssa. It’s a veil; we are not to have our faces visible during the parties.”

I nodded, clenching my fists into the sides of the dress. It was silly, the flinch. I knew she would not strike me, and yet my body still had the memory of Emyl’s hand meeting my skin. I’d have to do better.

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