Promises of Glory

“By the time the night wears off, I will be standing my ground.”

-The Adventures of Dwyer

The first step was timid, a small squeak on the hardwood floor. She was walking on sea legs and unable to properly hold herself. Static buzzed through her tip toes. It’d been so long, so very long, since she stood on her own two feet.

She was unlocked but confined to the bed in numerous other ways. Whenever the maids came in they hurried her into bed and sat her down with some tea and small sandwiches. The boredom also kept her in place, or the books that Alys brought her from the library. Or the affairs that happened in the room, the little tea parties where everyone coddled her and made sure she sat right on that fluffy mattress. She didn’t remember the names or the faces of anyone that came by. Only Alys.

There was a slow turning hatred for the woman in the pit of Rhode’s stomach. She had ruined a perfectly good evening with Livinus and taken her against her will. Rhode had killed people for less.

But her moral system wasn’t the easiest to understand and she just couldn’t bring herself to kill someone that wasn’t for a client or out of necessity. Besides, surely staying here wasn’t that bad, she often thought to herself. There’s plenty of books about handsome knights that come to the rescue and plenty of good food. So much she’d never go hungry again at this rate. But something about the whole thing just wasn’t right.

So she got out of bed, becoming a wobbling mess, just for the sake of proving her gut wrong.

Her room wasn’t much different from the elegance she saw at Livinus’ house. Though her current accommodations were much more glamorous and louder then Livinus’ house ever got.

She longed to be with him again. They hadn’t even spent a year together and she was already wishing she could be back there with him.

Then the idea struck. Merek had stolen a part of the puzzle when he got kicked out. Perhaps there was another hiding in this house. And so, she made it her mission to search this house until she knew and memorized every nook and cranny.

When she slowly opened the door to the hallway, she began to see just how big that grand plan of hers was.

She prayed, almost silently, more reverently than the priests back home. But no guidance came to her aide. She was still just as clueless as to what to do.

The hallways was long and stretched out before her, making her almost queasy. She’d never been in a room so large, and it wasn’t even a room! Livinus’ house could not compare.

She decided to go right, since it was right to go right.

Her hand trailed along the wall, bumping over the curvy, deep mahogany trim. She stepped only where the sun wasn’t glittering onto the floor, jumping in front of the windows to avoid the sunshine. It seemed to her that nobody was around. She didn’t try to open any of the doors she passed though, because who knows what she’d do if she actually found someone. Who knows what they’d do to her. She didn’t particularly care for the legends of the cruelty of Fae but she knew at least some of the stories were true.

Soon she came to a large opening with a staircase leading down and another leading up. “Gods, how big is this place?” The staircase down was grand, wide and elaborate in a fashion she imagined that castles had. The staircase leading up was narrow and tucked into a corner, and she moved closer to it, noticing a door at the top. Her curiosity tumbled to the forefront of her mind. An attic was the best place to dig up the dirty secrets.

She looked left and she looked right, making sure that no one was around. And besides from some birds mocking their freedom outside, there was not a sound.

Her agile toes were silent on the hardwood floor, and she had a flashback of the day that she tried breaking into Livinus’ castle. But it was night then, and while she had no idea what she would encounter, she knew it would not be a broken hearted boy looking for a friend.

The dust that piled in the attic was thicker than the layer of dust in Livinus’ little hidey-hole. She coughed, gagging on something. She quickly made her way over to a round window on the closest wall. Unlatching and opening the window, she stuck her head out and breathed in a deep breath.

“By the gods,” she muttered. “How long since they last cleaned up this place?” Because surely a house this big contained at least one maid.

She turned around and surveyed the room. The sight of boxes, trunks, and covered furniture was basically all there was to see. There were a few of those mannequins that seamstresses used mixed in, which she found neat. When she was a younger girl she wanted to be a seamstress, like her mother, but she didn’t have a chance to learn.

She made her way into the center of the room, glancing up and down the long hallways that reached from one side of the mansion to the other. “Great, more hallways.”

Rhode decided to plop down by the door, to start her rummaging closest to the exit. Just in case any ghost wanted to make themselves known.

She wasn’t particularly superstitious but the thought of the dead still roaming always did scare her the tiniest bit.

The first box was full of fine china, the stuff that she never stole. Too fragile and unlikely to make it in the run out. The second box was full of do-dads and thingy-mu-wops. Basically stuff that was never useful, more for decoration. The third was full of books, books older than her existence. She flipped through a couple, just to see if she could get anything out of them, but it seemed as pointless as haystack of needles.

The sun was starting to set as she came across a small, white vanity. At first she paid it no mind, but when she realized there was a speck of dust on it, she paid closer attention. “How odd.” She grazed her fingers over the wood. It was cheap, like the kind in human houses. Her eyebrows raised, not something she ever thought she’d find in a Fae’s home.

She was pulled from her thoughts at the sound of a swift knock on the door.

Rhode stumbled a bit, thrown off by the noise. Kicking a box, she went down, face planting into the floor.

The door was vigorously opened, Alys appeared, her eyes drawn up in concern. “Rhode, are you okay?”

The girl shoved a smile on her face, knowing the part she’d have to play if she ever wanted to escape. “Yes grandmother.” She stood and wiped the filth from her dress. She was still in the gown from the ball, she wanted to make sure she didn’t get it dirty. “I’m over here.” She offered Alys a reassuring smile, and her grandmother sighed.

“Don’t scare me dear. Dinner’s ready, come down and eat it at once.” She looked at the girl’s dress, “How come you still aren’t changed?”

Rhode thought up a lie, she didn’t want to say that she was afraid she’d never see the dress again if she took it off, or that she wasn’t really in the mood for a crazy person’s hospitality. So she lied, “I didn’t see any other clothing in my room.”

Her grandmother laughed, she still looked only thirty years old. It astonished her that this woman was the mother of her mother. that was the Fae blood for you. “Oh, sweetie, that’s a guest room, I was planning to show you to your room tonight. Some room that small certainly wouldn’t do for my granddaughter.”

Rhode bit back the bitter laugh that was bubbling its way up her throat. For a girl that had grown up with less than the average person, the writing off of that extravagant room as merely average irked her. But she willed a smile onto her face. “I do hope to see it soon.”

“Let’s get you to dinner, then we can get you cleaned up.” Alys’ eyes trailed down the girl, taking in the soiled dress, the dust, the disgusting human craftsmanship. It had no room in her court, let alone her presence. At least, that was what Rhode assumed Alys was thinking.

Rhode wanted to defend the dress, to pry her grandmother’s eyes away from it. She had no right to look at her like she was garbage when she was even worse. The girl was playing a part though, and so she looked down at the dress and sighed, “It really was very lovely when I first put it on, but it seems I am still a child, messing up my clothes like this.”

“Indeed you are, the humans may have their entrance party at sixteen but the Fae have it at one hundred. You are certainly still a child in my eyes and the eyes of every Fae you will meet.” Alys held out a hand for the girl, to take as they made their way down the stairs and into a small dining room.

The table was set for two and the girl skipped to her chair like a carefree child. The grandmother smiled, a peaceful look setting itself on her face. She did not see the look in Rhode’s eyes as she skipped, had not seen the calculating grace that settled there.

They sat at the table, digging into some salad and a small piece of meat. “Grandma,” she paused to see Alys’ face soften, “what’s that vanity in the attic for? It seems like it was made by humans. Why do you have it?”

“Your mother bought it when she was young, younger than you. We had taken a trip to the human realms when we happened across an old store. That vanity was sitting in the window and your mother wouldn’t stop whining until I bought it. It was cheap, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, I still don’t understand why she wanted something so crappy.”

The metal fork in her hand bent slightly at the disregard for humans. Rhode had definitely checked it out, it was nice, probably made the shop keeper’s life that someone bought it. But she made the effort to put a smile on her face, “That’s a nice story.”

Her grandmother sighed, “Well I think it’s about time we end the night. I’ll have a maid show you to my room.”

She nodded her goodbye. Maybe she should have hugged the leaving woman, put on more of a show, but it hadn’t crossed her mind at the time.

By the time that Rhode had finished pushing around her food and a maid showed up to collect her, she was ready to just give up on everything. Staying awake, the crown, escaping, breathing, just everything. What was there to keep her motivated?

But Livinus was the sole thought coming up. Her first friend. The first time someone had actually cared about her since her mother’s passing. Her chest ached. She still hadn’t come to terms with losing her mother, Rhode thought of the sickness as an unfortunate event, but still wondered why it didn’t take her too.

She collapsed into bed, too worn, too overwhelmed, to take in her surroundings, or even form an semblance of a plan.