The Golden Chalice

✰✦✰ Chapter 27 ✰✦✰

✰✦✰ Chapter 27 ✰✦✰
" Gossip "

THE FIRE CRACKLED as Luna continued to stroke her hands through my hair. I kept my knees tucked into my chest, leaning my head on them and stared into the spitting, warming flames.

"But she was horrible to me!" Luna ranted. "I never got any explanation, sort of just went on without knowing why she hated me."

"I know why," Sarinne replied, tossing another dagger at the dart board. It hit the centre instantly, quivering as it landed. "Because she was a bullying shrew with disgusting manners by the sounds of it."

Luna sighed wistfully, as if she still couldn't let it go. "But she wasn't a shrew. Well, to be fair, she was very ill-tempered but she was a gorgeous girl! Once upon a time, she'd actually been nice to me."

I shrugged. "I think I would've killed her if I were you."

"Oh, I could never even joke about something like that."

I lifted my head slowly, desperate for Luna to continue playing with my hair. There was something so intimate and so lovely and peaceful about someone touching your hair like she was. "Everyone should be nice to you, Luna. It's kind of the bare minimum—and I have to agree with Rinne: who punishes their servant when they forget to polish your shoes?"

I heard Luna suck her teeth. "Yes, it was very uncomfortable and unheard of."

"Well," Sarinne went on, "if we're speaking of people that hated us for no reason, there was this hussy back home—"

"Amala Kuschiv!" I snapped my fingers as I remembered the cow.

"Yes, her! Heavens, she was unbearable."

Luna tittered quietly. "Why? What did she do?"

"What didn't she do?"

"She truly was a menace, Luna."

"Thing was," Sarinne snatched her dagger from the board and spun it in her hands, making her way over to us, "she was infatuated with the guy that I worked with—Thomais Brekken—and she hated whenever I was on shift. You see, she would come by the pub solely to see him—not to speak to him, no, no—to stare at him creepily from tables away."

Luna glanced between us innocently. "I think that's sweet. She was shy, no?"

"Yes, but it started bordering on stalking when she started to come up to me and bitched about Thomais not showing up. I'm not joking"—Rinne sat down across from us—"she'd walk up to me and scold me for not making him work my shift so she could see him!"

Luna let go of my hair and clapped her hand over her mouth. "NO!"

"YES!"

"Oh my. . .that's elaborate."

I snorted. "Very friendly way of putting it."

Sarinne nodded with me. "Considering she loathed me because she thought Thomais and I were together romantically—don't get me wrong, I would've corrected her at some point but then she just got so bloody aggravating that I wanted her to be jealous and then feel absolutely humiliated when she found out."

I high-fived my best friend and blew her a kiss.

"Ooh, and I had this girl—a daughter of one of my maids," I began, "at the castle back when, and she detested me because I looked better than her in my own tiara."

Luna sighed heavily and continued to plait my hair. "The girls back at home never liked me and I don't know why. There was a single girl I somewhat gpt along with but both genders seemed to hate me for no apparent reason. Perhaps I did something. . ."

"Or maybe," I suggested, "they were all pricks."

"Why do they do it?" Luna asked.

"I couldn't tell you," Rinne admitted. "All I do nowadays is pray for their downfall."

"On whose downfall?" The question arose from behind us, by the door. My head naturally turned and I began studying the way that Jacks stared at Rinne and only her as he entered the room, followed by the other two boys.

When Darius's cold gaze clashed with mine, I looked hastily back at the fire and mentally tossed any attraction towards him into it.

Rinne's entire happy demeanour deflated at their presence. "Yours preferably, Zacrus."

"What are you doing here?" I demanded. I'd quite been enjoying my time with the girls alone, just chatting about various things, things that boys—or men—wouldn't understand and simply couldn't.

Jacks raised his hands in surrender. "Are we not allowed to join you?"

Sarinne tilted her head. "I wasn't really really in favour of it."

"Unfortunately, you're just going to have to deal with it."

Rolling my eyes, I wondered aloud, "Ambers put you up to this?"

Darius stopped, hands in pockets as he stared at me curiously. "No. What makes you say that?"

"Just that you have a particular fancy for making me want to thrust my dagger into my throat."

Hours and hours passed and with each progressing second, I held deep eye contact with him while the others usually chatted amongst themselves. Perhaps "chatted" isn't the right word—it was more of Rinne and Miles bickering endlessly; Jacks and Luna being the only ones who could have a civilised, normal conversation; and sometimes Jacks and Rinne pissing each other off deliberately to get a reaction. Only now did it occur to me how strange our group's dynamic was. Eighty percent of us hated each other. It seemed Luna was the only person who didn't have an issue with anyone else.