Chapter 14: Below the Hearth

"Is this the best the Southern packs can offer to clear three hundred silver pieces?"

The voice was like grinding stones.

A tall, broad-shouldered woman stepped out from the arched stone doorway of the lower keep. She wore a stained leather apron over dark wool clothing, her graying hair braided tightly against her scalp. A severe scar sliced down her left cheek, pulling her thin lip into a permanent, cold snarl. At her waist hung a ring of heavy iron keys that clanked with every stern step she took.

Mistress Veda. Head overseer of the lower castle staff.

Vorak bowed nervously, holding out the stamped parchment. "She’s young, Overseer. Stronger than she looks. And completely silent—vocal cords torn. She’ll do whatever work you give her without complaint or backtalk."

Veda ignored the parchment and walked directly up to me. Her icy blue eyes—sharp as a hawk’s—scanned my shaking, bruised body. She reached out a calloused, heavy hand, grabbed my jaw, and shoved my head back to inspect my neck.

Her rough thumbs pressed directly against the inflamed, raw skin over my ruined vocal cords.

A sharp spike of agony shot through my throat. My eyes watered, white heat flashing behind my vision, but I bit my lip until I tasted copper, refusing to scream—refusing to let out even a weak, pathetic gasp.

Veda’s eyes narrowed slightly as she noted my silence and the fierce, unyielding glare in my hazel eyes.

"She’s burning up with fever," Veda said bluntly, dropping her hand. "Her nightgown is drenched in stale blood. She smells like birth and fresh infection. If she dies in my kitchen before sunset, slaver, I’ll personally strip the hide off your back."

"She won't die!" Vorak stammered quickly. "She survived three days in a mountain storm! She’s tough, I swear it!"

Veda snatched the parchment from Vorak’s hands, pulled an iron quill from her apron, and scribbled a violent mark across the bottom. She tossed the paper back at his chest.

"Take your debt token and get out of my courtyard," she barked. "If I ever see your ugly face in the Spire again, I’ll lock you in the cage instead."

Vorak didn't wait to be told twice. He grabbed the token, signaled his companion, and scrambled back up to the driver's bench. Within seconds, the heavy wooden carriage turned around and rattled out of the trade yard, leaving me alone in the heart of the Lycan fortress.

Two broad Lycan kitchen guards stepped forward, heavy brass keys in hand. With quick, unceremonious clicks, they unlocked the heavy cold-iron shackles from my wrists.

The moment the magical metal released my skin, a wave of dizzying relief washed through my blood. My suppressed body tried to adjust, but the raging fever immediately took advantage of the opening, making my head throb violently.

"Get up," Veda commanded, pointing toward the heavy oak doors leading beneath the castle. "You don't get a bed, and you don't get medicine. If you want to eat, you work."

I forced my trembling legs to stand. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest, but I kept my chin up, taking my first agonizing step into the darkness of the subterranean corridors.

We descended a long, winding flight of damp stone stairs.

As we went deeper, the biting chill of the mountain air faded, replaced by an suffocating, blast-furnace heat. The smell of cold slate gave way to the overwhelming odors of roasting wild boar, boiling lard, coal smoke, and sour sweat.

The lowest kitchens of the Obsidian Spire were a living inferno.

Massive stone hearths lined the far walls, roaring with bright orange flames that cast long, flickering shadows across the vaulted ceilings. Huge iron cauldrons, big enough to drown three men, bubbled over open fire pits. Dozens of servants—mostly defeated omegas and human captives dressed in coarse gray burlap—moved frantically between chopping blocks, water troughs, and roasting spits.

Overseers walked the perimeter with leather crops tucked under their arms, their harsh shouts echoing off the sweat-slicked stone walls.

This was the machine that fed the Lycan King's massive army.

Veda grabbed a rough, faded gray burlap tunic from a wooden peg on the wall and shoved it into my chest.

"Strip off that filthy Southern rag and put this on," she ordered, pointing to a dark, damp corner near the scullery pits. "You belong to the hearth now. You have no name, no pack, and no status. You are Scrubber."

She gestured toward a massive iron cauldron sitting in the corner, caked with hardened grease, charred meat, and soot from weeks of unwashed use. Beside it lay a wooden bucket of cold water and a stiff wire brush.

"Clean the great cauldrons," Veda said coldly. "All twelve of them. Before the dinner bell rings for the upper hall. If I find a single spot of grease left on the iron, you go without water for two days."

She turned on her heel and walked away, her keys clanking against her apron.

I stood alone in the suffocating heat of the scullery, holding the coarse burlap tunic against my bruised chest. Around me, the other servants glanced at me with hollow, exhausted eyes before quickly turning back to their own endless tasks. No one offered a word of welcome. No one offered help.

Slowly, I peeled off the ruined, blood-stained nightgown—the last remaining piece of my old life as Ethan’s mate—and threw it into the roaring furnace coals.

I pulled the rough burlap over my head. The scratchy fabric bit into my feverish skin, but I didn't care.

I walked over to the massive iron cauldron, dropped to my knees on the hard stone floor, and dipped the wire brush into the bucket of water.

My raw throat throbbed with every heartbeat. My body burned with fever. My hands were blistered and bleeding.

But as I shoved the wire brush against the hardened soot, scraping away the dark grime inch by painstaking inch, a dangerous, quiet calm settled deep inside my chest.

They thought they had reduced me to a nameless slave in the dark belly of the earth.

They were wrong.

Every stroke of the brush was a heartbeat gained. Every drop of sweat was fever burning out of my system. In the fire and blood of these dark kitchens, I would hide, I would heal, and I would grow strong.

I scrubbed until my hands bled into the wash water, holding fast to the silver light in my memory.

I am coming for you, my son.