Ashes to Stardust | Sihtric Kjartansson

Chapter 17: The Lady of Mercia

Two uploads in one day?! 😱 little bit of a slower chapter, but needed to give Stjarna a second to calm tf down haha. Enjoy, as always please leave feedback and comment below ❤️

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I flat out refused to dress for dinner when one of Aelwyn's handmaidens came with another sultry gossamer gown. I nearly spat at the poor girl, but opted for merciless insults until she ran from my chamber with tears brimming her eyes. The flickering candlelight dances across the walls of the chamber, casting shadows that seem to mock my smouldering anger. I've paced the room at least a hundred times, hurled various objects across it—even tried screaming into the re-fluffed pillows—yet nothing eases the fury within me.

Nothing to take away the memories of Sihtric's insults about me to Aelwyn. The image of the two of them together. The admission of what she is doing to her poor husband. But most of all...his face. The pain in his face as I compared him to Kjartan. Who slaved and raped and murdered his mother...Fuck.

I slump onto the edge of my bed, fists clenched tightly as the moonlight dances over the burn scars marring my hands—and if the moonlight could cast its dim light over my heart, I have no doubt that there would be countless fresh scars formed there, too.

"What am I supposed to do?" I mutter under my breath, blue-grey eyes reflecting the hearth's tempestuous glow. With every thought of Sihtric's betrayal and Lady Aelwyn's sly grin, the fury within me threatens to boil over like a pot left unattended on fire.

Do I attend dinner with Aelwyn the treacherous serpent, pretending like this never happened? I scoff aloud to the empty room. I'd rather dine with Loki himself.

But solitude is not mine for long. In the bathing room attached to my chamber, I hear the splashing of water into the porcelain bath. They must have entered through the door in the dressing room. I drag my feet across the polished wood floor and swing open the door, finding three new handmaidens huddled over the bath pouring in various oils and elixir's with divine smells that only fuels my annoyance. Lavender and citrus and some other floral I'm not familiar with fill my nostrils, the only thing so far to offer me even the slightest hint of calm. They halt abruptly, all whirling their heads toward me and quivering at the site of my frame in the doorway, as if my very presence were to curse them all.

"Out." I snarl.

The two younger handmaidens whimper and make to stand, but the crone in the centre halts them. "Forgive us, Lady Stjarna," the crone says calmly, holding my gaze. "We were ordered to bring a gown for you and ensure you are cleaned up. The Lady of Mercia is to dine with us tonight, and all are commanded to attend."

The steam rises in delicate, ethereal tendrils toward the wooden beams overhead.

"Commanded?" I echo sharp as an arrowhead. "By whom?"

"By Lady Aelwyn, of course," she replies, gesturing toward another gown—a rich tapestry of yellows and golds that complement my fiery temperament—on the nearby stool tucked beside the bath. "One does not ignore the summons of a Lady," the crone says plainly, staring at the gown as if it were a gauntlet.

I don't give a fuck what your Lady orders, I nearly say, if it wasn't for the deep rumbling of my stomach interrupting the silence. All three handmaidens look at my stomach as I clench my abdomen in an attempt to shut it up. The day of training churns in my belly, begging me for fuel and my muscles scream out as I look between the servants and the hot glistening water in the bath. Please, my muscles beg, relieve us.

Reluctantly, I glide across the bathing chamber and begin to unlace the back of my 'drab' gown. All three handmaidens finally rise to their feet, and I could swear they breathe a sigh of relief in unison, before one of them steps behind me to assist in unlacing my dress.