Radiance - The Alight Archives Book #1

49. Masks on Flame

Elaine heaved as she rested the now empty wooden pale back where she had found it in one of the two feeding rooms, wiping the sweat that accumulated on her forehead with the back of a hand. 

Adjacent to this room was the hay storage, and Elaine found herself tilting her chin up at the mountainous stacks of the stuff towering several feet over her as would a tree to an ant. A sizeable block of hay was already waiting for her at the entrance; gulping in a mouthful of air, Elaine scooped both hands underneath it, squinching as the strands pinched her fingers, and steadily made her way out.

During the summer months, both Elaine and Liam would sometimes be called upon by Hedwig—Lacy's father—to help him manage his barn, a request that seemed to the child that she was as thrilling until it was that she learned of the chores Hedwig would have waiting for them. These ranged anywhere from sheering the sheep—all forty of them—to fetching buckets of water from the well to piling storage crates into a carriage for transport. 

And so, Elaine was more than accustomed to getting her hands dirty with work of this rugged fashion. However, she reckoned she was the only one who had caught the headmaster's insinuation that this job would be worse than expulsion, which, from a certain perspective, was more than accurate.

This first day alone had been...demanding, if nothing else. Not that any of the tasks were necessarily outlandish to her—she couldn't speak for the other two nobles who had received the punishment alongside her—but there was a lot to learn when it came to taking care of pegasi, and it soon became evident just how little she knew of the winged creatures. 

Sure, she'd see some soaring through the air on occasion, lugging behind them huge and grandly designed carriages, but the largest creature she'd ever had to tend to was Miss Marla, one of Hedwig's cows, and she was a far cry from how high-maintenance a pegasus could be.

A pegasus on a stall to her left poked its elongated snout out of the window, dark yet beautiful eyes scanning intelligently at the hay cube she was carrying, but that one—Hound called her Sugar—had already been fed; she was quite the greedy one, she was. 

In the stall over from her was Dawn, a long-legged mare adorned in glistening, silverish-colored fur, and she possessed a pair of palish blue wings that would sure to blend in well with the sky when it was she was allowed some exercise. 

Hound described her as the most energetic of the bunch...but that only applied when she had a full stomach. As she was at present, Sugar had her snout held low to the floor, only raising it as her nostrils flared at the scent of fresh hay.

"Here you go, girl," Elaine said happily, carefully guiding the scoop of hay through the window. No sooner had it plopped to the floor than Sugar trodded to the golden mass, eagerly shoving her snout into it to feast. "That's five down," Elaine said, hands pressed behind her as she stretched her back, standing on the balls of her feet. "A few more, and this row will be done." Wiping her hands, she turned around for the hay storage again, only to start at the sight of the tall figure trotting in her direction.

Lukas' already peeved scowl deepened into an even larger grimace when his green eyes crashed into hers. The ends of his dark-colored hair were stuck to his forehead from the sweat, and his clothing—a white-colored, V-neck shirt and a pair of trousers that coiled at the heels right above his grime-stained boots—was doused, looking as if he'd just taken a jump into a pond, although it only emphasized his broad chest and well-defined musculature to an even greater degree, which Elaine detested with sickly vexation. The silver, cross-shaped pendant of the necklace he wore swayed from side to side with each of his heavy steps.

She would have said something—though she didn't know what—had Lukas not rammed his shoulder into hers as he pushed her out of the way, not even looking back as proceeded on. "Move it, blondie," he grunted, lugging along with him a shovel that he held over one shoulder.