Page 4 of Vipers and Vendettas
Luckily, I’m left alone to work.
As the minutes go by and the pain ebbs, my mind begins to clear a little. Tamadrielle is away for at least a week, I think he said. It’ll be a few days before my next session, but odds are I won’t survive another. My body gets weaker with every single one.
It needs to be today or never. I won’t get a better chance than this.
I already know how I’ll do it. I’ve been planning it for a long time. They think because I don’t talk, that there’s something wrong with me. I’ve heard the guards calling me witless. They tell each other that Toramun has struck me too many times in the head. They argue with each other sometimes because many of them believe that all humans are addled in their heads, so I’m no different from the rest of them, regardless of how many times Toramun has smashed my forehead into a wall to show his power over me in front of his fellows.
They always underestimate me, and I’m counting on it. I just need to keep my vacant eyes open and my ears listening.
I feel one of Tamadrielle’s personal soldiers coming up behind me. I always know when they’re nearby. I’m a punching bag for many of their ires, but this guard is particularly sadistic. He doesn’t usually come down to the kitchens, though.
That’s another thing that’s different today. Yes, something is going on, and I have a feeling it has to do with me. Whatever it is that Tamadrielle’s been wanting to see in me, he saw it briefly today.
Was it just my fury he wanted? Was all of this to see how angry I would get? It’s impossible to say with the High Fae. So many of the things they do and say make no sense to me.
The guard comes at me with a wire garrote, looping it around my neck. He’ll stop short of killing me, but I pretend to struggle because I know that’s what he wants, and it’ll be over sooner that way.
So, I play my part. I flail and choke and go down on one knee until he lets up, and I make a show of gasping for breath even though I could have gone another twenty seconds more.
‘You’re to light the fires,’ he orders, kicking me until I get up off the floor.
I rise and nod as I stare at the ground. My eyes flick up, and I see him looking at me with disgust. I make my way over to the full coal scuttle by the door and heft it up onto my hip, trying to ignore the pains that shoot through my body at the action.
‘You get more and more pathetic every day,’ he laughs.
I keep my eyes off him as I shuffle to the door and leave the kitchens, more than a little elated. It doesn’t matter what order I start the fires in, and half the rooms don’t have guards on them when Tamadrielle isn’t here.
I begin enacting the plan that it’s taken me so long to develop. I’ve spent years watching and listening and waiting. I can’t mess this up. They’ll make sure I never get a second chance.
I make my way slowly to the upstairs rooms as I always do, performing my role the exact same way and at the same speed as usual. Nothing can seem amiss.
I light a fire in the lord’s apartments first, noting that his travel suitcase is gone from his closet. He’s already left. Why have I been told to light the fires? I roll my eyes.
Fae.
I go to the next room. It’s his cruel fae wife’s, but she’s never here, thankfully. I make sure there’s no one lurking as I kneel beside the bed and pull out the bag that I keep stuffed under the frame. I’ve been taking things for months, amassing a pile of trinkets and fae magickal items. I knew a High Fae as wealthy as Tamadrielle would simply have them replaced rather than waste his time waiting for them to be found.
I’ve never been suspected of making things go missing. A human would never dare, and thanks to all the conversations I’ve listened to, I have an idea of how much they’re worth. I think I have enough for my plan to work.
I lift my dress, and I tie the bag around my bare waist, wincing when the string digs into the broken skin from Toramun’s whip. I stand up, having to use the bed frame for support for a second. I let the dress down and glance at myself in the mirror. The bag can’t be seen.
I heft the coal scuttle and set the next few fires in the grates, wondering, as I often do, why the fae don’t just use magick for everything instead of having an army of slaves and servants.
Another adorable fae idiosyncrasy, I guess.
When I’m finished upstairs, I head down, forcing myself not to rush now that the end is in sight. I ignore the guards completely as I slowly make my way into the library. It’s empty, just as I knew it would be. It smells musty and old. I don’t like this room much because Tamadrielle is always in here.
I set the fire in the hearth in case the guards are listening for my usual routine. Then, I cross the room to Tamadrielle’s desk silently, and jimmy open the top drawer with the ostentatious, jeweled letter opener he keeps in the gilt holder with his pens. I open the drawer carefully. He has a spare link key in here. I know he does.
When I don’t immediately see it, my heart begins to pound. What if he’s taken it with him? My whole plan hinges on this. If I don’t have a link key, I can’t get off the property. My fingers brush something under a pile of papers, and I dig under them, finding the little gold box. I sigh in relief.
I grab the papers from the drawer and go back to the hearth. The fire is burning away happily. I light the papers in my hand on fire and take them to the long curtains, dropping them on the floor. They catch alight quickly and begin to burn. I catch sight of a pair of leather shoes, and I snatch them up on a whim because I’ll have to escape barefoot otherwise.
I put the link key on the door to the closet, my hands shaking. I’ve only ever seen this done. I’ve never actually used one myself.
I think about the market I came through as a kid, just after mom and dad were killed and the fae lord’s men brought me to him. I was scared and alone, but I remember that place and every sight and sound and smell like it was yesterday. It was the first time I’d realized magick was real.
I glance back and smile darkly. The room is very much on fire and filling with smoke. I open the door and gasp at the shimmering portal in front of me.
