Chapter 2

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Warnings - Mentions of alcohol, mentions of violence, mentions of abuse from an establishment

I decided if I had to be social I would speak to Katherine. I headed towards the small girl, her ink-colored horns dipping as she reached for a small bun from the table.

"Hello, I'm Y/N," I curtsied.

"I'm sorry, I would curtsy too but my hair might come undone."

"It is all right, that must have taken ages to do, did you do it yourself?" I asked kindly. Katherine's expression turned from politely observant to confused and almost wary.

"Of course not, my lady in waiting did it all."

"Of course," I nodded turning red. I was of the lowest rank here and did not have a lady in waiting. I suppose if I had really wanted one, my father would have obliged. The feeling of someone touching my hair brought me back to the long hours at the Academy where my hair had been yanked and curled and pinned. My scalp scraped from the clips and ears burnt from the scalding styling tools. The Academy has so many conflicting ideas. We weren't meant to look at ourselves or be vain, and yet we spent hours on each other's hair. It seemed that whatever was the cruelest was what was best.

"You must come from the province of Endovia, I recognize your accent."

"Oh yes," Kathrine nodded taking delicate bites of her bun. "My ancestors have ruled that province for ages, I am the fifteenth generation of Glasswells."

"Have you a large family?" I asked.

"My family is moderate in size. I have three brothers, all of them cowardly. I had to learn how to throw a punch at a young age to protect them from the sniveling evil, boys who tormented them."

I beamed at her. Another woman, proud of her power, not caring about the rules that we usually had to bow to in the kingdom. I wanted to ask if she had any other combat skills when Juliet made her way over to us.

"That hag Vangelina just stepped on my foot so hard the blood vessels popped," she whispered. I turned to see a smug smile on Vangelina's cat-like features.

"What more can you expect from a Vale," Katherine said offhandedly, her upswept eyes narrowing.

"Who are the Vales?" I asked. I had known all the other surnames but Vale was new.

"Her father is a new dignitary. He swooped in with some paperwork, most assume it was a forgery, but it showed his bloodline to be bluer than that of the old Baron and Baroness."

"As the law dictates," Juliet took up where Katherine left off. "Blood is power. Once the papers were looked over, it was determined that they should take over the Province of Arland.

"They've been nothing but cruel ever since, they're running it into the ground with all their lavish tastes."

Both girls seemed genuinely angry, not what I'd expected. It seemed these two really did care what happened to the kingdom.

"Vangelina is known for being especially cruel," Juliet's voice lowered to that of a whisper. "I don't know if it's true, but I heard she had a fairy dewinged for not bowing before her."

I shuttered. Dewinging was the highest form of torture for a fairy. A large number of nerve endings made the process excruciating. Some legends even say that it is not only physically painful but damaging to the mind as well. The old stories said that half the fairy's soul was stored in its wings, and when they were removed, they became like half a person. Devoid of feeling and purpose. Some just stayed in their numb state, staring at walls and sighing until they wasted away, others became sadistic and cruel without a whole soul to guide them.

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