Chapter 6: The Servant

I woke the morning after my meeting with Felipe, and the first thing I saw was the tray of food on the table, still untouched from the day before.

The fire had burned low while I slept, and the room was cold enough that I could see my own breath hanging in the air. My back ached from pressing against the headboard all night, and my legs were stiff from being pulled up against my chest for hours. I had not meant to fall asleep, but my body had given out, and now I was paying for it.

I thought about Felipe, his smile, his words, and the way he had looked at me like he already knew how this would end.

"I am going to use you to destroy him," he had said.

Then my thoughts were interrupted when a knock came at the door.

It was soft, almost hesitant, and nothing like the heavy bang of a guard's fist. I pulled my knees to my chest and pressed my back against the headboard and said nothing, because silence was safety, and silence had kept me alive before.

The door opened anyway.

The woman who stepped inside was human. I knew it before I saw her face and before she spoke, because she moved like someone who had learned to make herself small, to take up as little space as possible, and to avoid being noticed by the monsters who ruled this place.

Her hair was brown and lifeless, hanging around a face that was too thin. Her cheekbones stuck out sharply, and her eyes were grey like mine but empty, so empty, like someone had reached inside her and pulled out everything that mattered and left nothing behind but a body that kept breathing because it did not know how to stop.

She carried a tray of food with bread and cheese and a cup of something that steamed in the cold air. She set it down on the table without looking at me, without speaking, and without acknowledging that I was there at all.

"Who are you?" I asked.

She flinched like I had hit her.

"No one," she said, and her voice was flat and dead. "I am no one. That is how I survive."

She turned to leave, and I should have let her go. I should have stayed quiet, but I could not.

"You are human," I said. "Like me."

She stopped at the door. Her hand rested on the handle, and her fingers tightened around it like she was trying to decide whether to stay or run.

"I was a sacrifice," she said, and her voice was so quiet I almost did not hear it. "Ten years ago. They brought me here in chains, just like you. I knelt in the snow and waited to die. But the king did not kill me, and the court did not kill me. I survived by becoming nothing, by being invisible, and by giving them no reason to notice me."

She turned her head just enough that I could see the side of her face, the dark circles under her eyes, and the pale skin that looked like it had never felt the sun.

"You should do the same," she said.

"My name is Serena," I told her.

She shook her head slowly. "Names are dangerous here. Names make you real, and real things can be hurt. I learned that a long time ago, when I was still young enough to believe that being seen was the same as being loved."

She opened the door, and cold air rushed in, carrying the smell of stone and snow.

"They call me Camila," she said. "But that is not my real name. I gave up my real name the day I arrived here. I have not spoken it since, and I will not speak it again. Speaking it would mean I am still the person I used to be, and that person died a long time ago."

She left before I could say anything else. The door closed, and the lock clicked.

I looked at the food on the table: bread, cheese, and a cup of something warm. My stomach growled because I had not eaten in days, because I had been too afraid to trust anyone, and because I had been so certain that death was coming that I had forgotten what it felt like to want to live.

But I was not dead yet.

I picked up the bread and took a bite.

It was warm. The warmth spread through my chest and made my eyes water. I had not eaten warm bread since my mother died, since my stepmother started controlling every piece of food that went into my mouth. The taste of it made me stop. It made me sit there with the bread in my hands and tears on my face.

I ate the whole thing: bread and cheese and the warm drink that tasted like honey. I did not know if it was poisoned, and I did not know if I would wake up tomorrow, but I did not care anymore.

The rest of the day slipped by and I did not notice because I had sat there waiting to either die from the food I had eaten or for someone to come drag me out to my death. But none happened, and I fell asleep instead.

Camila came back that night.

She did not knock this time. She just opened the door and slipped inside and closed it behind her. She stood against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest, like she was trying to disappear into the shadows.

The fire had been relit while I was sleeping. The flames cast orange light across her face, and I could see her better now. I could see the lines around her eyes, the cracks in her lips, and the way her hands never stopped trembling.

"You should not have eaten the food," she said.

"You brought it," I said.

"That does not mean it was safe," she countered.

"Was it?" I asked in horror, and my hands flew to my chest.

She was quiet for a long moment. The fire crackled, and the wind howled outside, and my heart pounded in my chest.

"No," she said finally. "But I did not poison it either. The kitchen is full of Lycans who would love to see you sick, to see you weak, and to see you beg. They watch everything I do, everything I touch, and everything I bring to this room. I brought you the food because I wanted to see if you would trust me."

"And now?" I stared at her.

She stepped closer, out of the shadows and into the light. I could see her grey eyes looking at me, so tired and empty and full of things she would never say.

"Now I know you are stupid," she said. But her voice was soft, almost gentle, and I saw something flicker across her face, like recognition or kinship or something I did not have a name for.

She sat on the edge of the bed. The old mattress creaked under her weight, and I pressed my back against the headboard and watched her.

"Do not fall in love with him," she said. "He will destroy you. Not because he wants to, but because he does not know how not to."

"I am not in love with him," I said. But the words felt wrong in my mouth, like a sweet and bitter lie.

Camila looked at me, and her grey eyes were sad, the kind of sad that came from years of watching bad things happen and being unable to stop them.

"He is not being kind," she said. "He is being careful. There is a difference. When he stops being careful, and he will stop because he has ruled this land for three hundred years and he does not know how to be anything else, you will wish you were dead."

"He stopped," I said, and my voice was smaller than I wanted it to be.

"He stopped that time," she said. "But there will be another time, and another. And one day he will not stop. And you will learn what it means to belong to a Lycan king."

She stood up and walked to the door. Her hand rested on the handle, and she did not look back at me.

"He will try to be good, Serena," she said, and her voice cracked on my name. "But he does not know how. He has never known how. And when he fails, you will pay the price. I will watch, but I will not be able to stop it, because I am no one, and no one cannot save anyone."

Then she left.

The door closed, and the lock clicked.

I sat against the headboard with my back to the wall and my eyes on the door. I thought about what she had said, about the king, about the bond, and about the price I would pay when he failed.

I thought about his golden eyes, his shaking hands, and the way he had looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.

I thought about how that should have terrified me, and how it did not.