Princess Elodi's Arc

Chapter 9 of 55

The music faded behind her as Elodi pushed through the door into the servants' hall. She had a count of one hundred, no more. Damon held her mother's eyes upstairs. Down here, the air smelled of bread and smoke. This was the last stretch. Past the kitchen, down to the forge, then the vent and the tunnel beyond the castle walls. But the hall was not empty. Kitchen staff crowded the narrow path. Servers rushed with trays. Two women scrubbed a long table. A boy hauled a bucket toward the ovens. Any one of them would know her face. One shout would bring the guards, and the ball would end with her locked away again. Elodi pressed against the wall. Her orange gown glowed against the gray stone. She could not walk through them like this. Her eyes swept the room and stopped on a plain brown cloak, thrown over the end of the scrubbed table. She moved fast. She snatched the cloak while the two women bent over their work. She swung it over her shoulders and pulled the hood low across her face. The bright gown vanished under rough wool. Her braided bun disappeared into shadow. Now she was just another servant with somewhere to be. Something tugged at her boot. She looked down. Her otter had followed her, its jeweled collar bright in the torchlight. Elodi scooped the animal up and tucked it under the cloak. "Quiet now," she whispered. It went still against her chest. She walked into the crowd. She kept her head down and her steps quick, the way the servers moved. A cook barked at her to mind the trays. She nodded and slid past him. A woman shoved a bowl into her hands without looking. Elodi set it on a shelf and kept going. No one stopped her. No one called her name. The path to the forge opened ahead. She reached the stairs and went down. Heat rose to meet her. The forge sat quiet and dark, the fire banked low for the night. There, in the wall above the cold coals, was the ventilation grate. She pried it open with shaking fingers. Everything was there. The hammer. The packed bag with food and blankets and matches. The folded letter for her mother. Elodi pulled out the bag and the hammer. She held the letter a moment. Then she set it on the anvil where the smith would find it come morning. Someone would carry it to the Queen. She was done hiding her words. She shrugged off the borrowed cloak and left it on the floor. The tunnel mouth waited past the forge, dark and low. She slung the bag over her shoulder, gripped the hammer, and stepped into the passage. Behind her lay the castle and the ball and her mother's watching eyes. Ahead lay the rusted grate, and past it, the open world.