Eris Vanserra | Ignis Aurum ✓

Chapter 1: ALBA

~ 4 months prior~

It was just another one of those evenings.

Alba lifted the glass filled with sparkling wine to her lips and took a tiny sip. Soon a sentry hurdled over and once again filled her glass—for the third time already and they did not even have the first course yet. A warm hand slowly stroked up her bare thigh, squeezing slightly when lips coasted over her ear. "Go a bit slower on the drinks, yes? Don't want you wasted before the night has even started."

Sighing, Alba turned her head, meeting her fiancé's gaze and dipped her chin. Lord Karzine quickly averted his gaze and also withdrew his hand, joining in on the conversation of Helion and the High Lady of the Day Court, formerly the Lady of the Autumn Court.

The meals were brought out by the sentries—one course after the other.

It was not really boring but on the other hand it was. There were too many talks about politics and the courts of Prythian. Well, it was boring. But Alba knew how much it meant to be here. How many others would offer their right leg to be in her position: Second in Command of the High Lord of the Day Court. It was a job she had been doing for ages and she loved. She had earned herself this rank through hard work and determination, nights and days spent in libraries while doing research, over and over proving her loyalty to Helion and the Day Court. I had all been worth it, but thinking back at the time she had started that job always made her stomach churn and twist and a kernel of pain bloom in her heart.

"So what is you want to tell us?" Alba's mother questioned, shoving her into the dining room of the big estate. Alba's younger brother had just returned from the war camps, now being the general of on fo the lower bands. Alba was proud as hell, her parents as well, but finally Alba would also have something that her parents could be proud of. "Well, I have good news. You know I have been working for the High Lord for quite some—"
"Can you pass me the salt, Alba." her father interrupted her. Nodding, she quickly handed it over.

"And apperently the job I had been doing was good and so—"
And the pepper, Alba." Swallowing her rising anger, the female's fingers curled around the the small glass jar and she handed it over as well.

"And—"
"Oh sweety, please take more of the chicken," Alba's mother told her younger brother. Her throat starting to burn, Alba smacked her palm flat onto the table. "Are you even interested in what I have to tell you?"

"Yes, go on, child. Make it quick, we want to eat," her father said, signalling her with a wave of his hand to continue talking.

"I am the High Lord's Second-in-Command now," Alba then proudly announced, smiling from ear to ear and deciding to ignore her parents absolutely not-delighted faces. Only her younger brother gave her thumbs up, smiling over the brim of his glass.

"What did you do to get this position?"

Alba's father laughed loudly at his wife, shaking his head. "I was thinking the exact same. It hopefully is not what I am thinking."

Alba's brows furrowed, her heart sinking into her belly."What are you thinking?" she questioned, feeling pain and anger rise inside of her.

"That you slept with the High Lord for this position. Is there any other way he would hire you? Someone like you? A pretty face but nothing beneath it." It was nothing new. Those words that she had gotten used to still cut so damn deep.

"He hired me for my good work."

"In the bedroom? After spreading your legs for half of the Day Court, the High Lord does not come as a surprise."