Chapter 2 Welcome to Valdris

Ryn POV

I wake up and for a few seconds I forget where I am. Then I remember the cellar, the contract, Vael's face when I let go of her.

My sister is getting married today and I'm in a vampire's castle. My stomach growls and at least that's a problem I can solve.

I wash my face, get dressed and open the door to see that the corridor goes both ways. My nose catches a whiff of something that smells exactly like home so I follow it and find myself in a kitchen.

There's a human female in it and I could cry.

Her name is Maren. She's older with tired eyes and quick hands and she puts food in front of me without asking which is the kindest thing anyone has done for me since I got here.

I eat, look around and try to get my bearings.

"How long have you been here," I ask.

"Eleven years," she says without looking up.

I put my fork down.

"Eleven years," I repeat.

She looks at me. "You get used to it after a while."

"Are you sure?"

She almost smiles at that, before going back to what she's doing. We stay like that for a while, her moving around the kitchen and me eating and neither of us saying anything and it's the most comfortable I've felt since I came here.

"What are the rules here," I say eventually. "The ones I actually need to know."

She counts on her fingers without stopping what she's doing. "Don't wander after dark. Don't enter rooms you weren't invited into. Don't let them smell fear if you can help it." She pauses. "And don't let Seraphina of House Mordain catch you alone."

"Why Seraphina specifically."

"Because the others want you gone," she says simply. "She wants something more complicated than that."

I think about that for the rest of the meal and don't taste any of it.

"Can I ask you something," I say after a while.

She gives a slight nod.

"Zevran." I deliberately watch her face when I say the name and sure enough her expression changes. "What is he actually like. I mean when nobody is performing for him."

She is quiet for a moment, sets down what she's holding and looks at me with those tired eyes.

"The king isn't who you think he really is," she says.

"What do you mean?"

She opens her mouth but nothing comes out as we hear.

"How lovely," a voice says from the doorway. "The human is already making friends."

I turn around to see a pale skinned woman with amber eyes moving towards me and I watch Maren's shoulders tighten. The spark of light I saw in her eyes a while ago is gone.

"My lady," Maren says quietly, with her head slightly down and hands folded in front of her. The woman who was almost smiling at me two minutes ago is completely gone.

The pale woman doesn't look at her, her eyes are on me.

"And you must be Zevran's little human," she says.

"Ryn," I say. "Just Ryn is fine."

"How sweet." Her eyes move over me like she's pricing something. "So tell me Ryn, do you even know what you've walked into?"

"A kitchen," I say. "I was hungry."

Something flickers behind her eyes. "I like you," she says in a tone that makes it sound like a threat. "I think we're going to get along very well."

"Can't wait," I replied.

She smiles and looks at Maren for the first time. "Clean this up," she says gesturing at nothing in particular then she turns and leaves.

Maren moves immediately and I get that the conversation we were having is completely over.

"She's the one isn't she?"

Maren doesn't look up. "Yes," she says quietly.

The corridor outside the kitchen stretches in both directions.

I pick left because I always pick left and start walking, trying to look like I know where I'm going even though I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing here.

I don't make it far before I run into Isolde. Zevran's second in command, at least that's what Maren called her. She's dressed like she's on her way somewhere important and the perfume hits me before she does.

"You know you don't have to go naked for him to notice you," I blurt out before my brain catches up with my mouth.

"How dare you," her hand goes up and the next second I see stars before everything goes black.

When I open my eyes I'm not in the corridor anymore. I come to on a table with a woman pressing me down gently but firmly.

She's not a guard and she's not a servant. The instruments beside her and the way she's checking me over tell me she's the court healer.

"AHH, what happened," I groan.

"You were struck," she says. "And your head hit the wall."

I think about the perfume. The dress. My mouth moving before my brain.

Right.

"I'm fine," I say.

"No, you're not."

She picks up my wrist and holds it lightly, looks at something I can't see.

"Are you a first born by chance?" she asks.

"What?"

"Were you born first? I mean between you and your sister, who came out first?"

"It's me. Why?"

She looks at me and immediately a sense of dread creeps up my shoulder.

"All first born daughters of a witch's bloodline die before their twenty second year," she says. "It is an old curse. Already running in your blood when you arrived here."

"I can't be cursed," I say. "If there's anyone that should be cursed is my sister. She's the witch. Not me."

"The curse thinks otherwise."

I lie there and look at the ceiling.

So much for being the noble one. I came here to protect my sister and now I'm lying on a healer's table finding out I won't even make it to twenty two.