Chapter 7 - The Plot Enters Growing Season
Cold.
The young concubine, Elli, isn't very surprised by this though. Her family's cottage was also drafty, but sharing a bed with her youngest siblings helped. Thom, only a few summers younger than Elli, used to hide in Mother's old blanket and keep watch over what few animals the serf family had to help work their lord's field. Sometimes Elli wasn't sure where her father slept.
Now that she is alone for the first time since the attack on her home, Elli feels the weight of it all. Aescaster is a magnificent place, but she isn't a wife, only a concubine, and that means she can't always be allowed into her new king's bedchambers. She can't even attend to her queen. No, some surviving servant or maybe lesser noblewoman gets that honor.
Elli curls up, her feet tangling in the far too soft and far too light bedding, the warmth she'd tried to add from a few coals in a metal dish having long since faded.
In her heart, she knows these monsters killed her family. It was their deaths and her fear that fueled her magic. She'd nearly joined them if not for some unspoken rule.
New rules, from mysterious rulers. That was what Arisselia had been warning her about, wasn't it?
The untrained and uneducated young woman had lived under an entirely different set of rules and expectations, and not even the wise Sorceress of the High Veils fully understood the demonic creatures' games. All that Elli knew was that eventually she would be hidden away among her king's other concubines and only brought out when he wished to play with her again.
The worst part of that? She really, really wanted to be his favorite toy and feel his massive tool inside her again.
And until there are more concubines and the renovations of Aecaster's inner sanctum are finished, Elli was going to be very lonely and cold.
Maybe...
Half-frozen toes seek out the bitterly cold stone beside her bed. Maybe he wouldn't mind a little surprise visit? Arisselia certainly wouldn't complain if another served in her place.
Elli makes it all the way to the door, hand poised over the handle.
But what if she got caught? Elli went to sleep in only a thin shift and her silver collar. Just the thought of running into anyone...
The grunts would report it. The soldier beasts would... Elli doesn't want to start a fight and she already doubts her safety around those monsters. The human servants and supplicants are almost worse. She can't brave the judgemental stares without her king or queen. And the robed ones, Elli supposed they were all generals or knights or something, they'd probably have some preset punishment waiting until the demon king could hand out a final one.
Elli fingers the thin metal 'round her neck. No. She must be a good pet. That's the best way.
Instead, she returns to her bed and gathers all the bedding she can carry before plopping it in front of the nearly dead fireplace. A little skill with the poker, a fresh log, and some luck fills the room with the crackle of new flames.
It might not be safe, falling back asleep in a bundle of fabric in front of the fire, but it is warm. And it's safer than leaving her room without permission.
"Are you that defeated, my pet?"
At first, Elli thinks she must still be dreaming. But she blinks away the sleep from her eyes and looks up, and up some more, to find a bemused expression on a pale, greenish face.
"Or are you more comfortable down there?" King Orduzell questions. The tapping of his clawed fingertips on a crossed arm indicates that he expects a proper response from the sleepy girl.
"It was cold." She doesn't exactly know what to do with herself, but she lets the bedding drop from her shoulders as she kneels before him. "And lonely. I only had the fire to seek comfort from."
