Tales of the Vangen: The Dead King of Danic (Book 3)

Chapter 44: Schedules and Conspiracies

Elba's mornings began every day in the same way, with the sound of her breakfast sliding across the floor. She peered over from her goose down pillow, saw the hatch at the bottom of her door slam firmly shut, a piping hot bowl of porridge with bits of smoked fruit and a cup of weak, mulled wine sitting neatly on a platter.

She ate the lot in silence, her room as quiet as the royal library back in Byzantia, save for the hissing rock in the middle of the room as it relentlessly poured out heat to drive away the cold. A snowstorm had been brewing outside for some time ago, fat flakes whipping past the window sill, a thin layer of frost creeping along the panes.

Elba mused over her situation as she chewed. Strange, how quickly she'd grown accustomed to the new routine. Three days had passed since her arrival at Kel Dracon, and already she'd settled well into her new home, and the new schedule that came with it.

First there was breakfast, then free time, which usually involved either pacing about the room like a caged animal, staring at the incredibly strange hissing rock and its metal cage and burning a few fingers in the process, or pondering endlessly over what the next step of her plan would be.

She sighed and settled down after a fretful bout of pacing, one hand rubbing gingerly over her tender belly. They'd confiscated her traveling gear and weapons after she'd been taken to her room, but the gown they'd given back in exchange was comfortable enough, stitched accordingly to allow room for the eventual swelling of her stomach.

After that it was time for lunch. On Elba's first day she was happy to discover, much to her own joyous surprise, that the food was not in fact cabbage soup, but a hearty, and rich shepherd's stew. It seemed even with Danic being an icy hell under King Erik's rule, there was still some chance for luxury. She blessed her lucky stars and wolfed the food down greedily.

After lunch she was escorted to the great room, or the stitching room as Elba had come to know it as, where she was expected to socialize and practice odd hobbies with the other women. Usually, it was needlework, but on one occasion they'd gathered to read books together and discuss what was in them.

Incidentally however, only three out of the six women there could actually read, and out of those three only one of them knew the languages they were written in. Elba had been classically trained to read and write in Byzantian when she'd married Libro, even took the time to understand Danic's gruff language, but reading it was completely out of her skill set. Saga, meanwhile, had her own excuses.

"I'm from the Eastern Isles," she'd said, her accent sounding like a soothing harp being smashed to bits by a savage. "I don't understand any of that gibberish."

"This word means sheep," Emme had told her once, trying in some vain attempt to help.

"Then why not just draw a picture of a sheep like how my people do it? That's just a bunch of squiggles."

The argument was quickly settled after that. Emme ended up reading the story for everyone, answering questions like Elba's old storytellers used to back when she was little. She remembered sitting by the fire and listening to the old men and women tell their tall tales, frowning each and every time a hand shot up to cut the story short.

Good times, great even, but long since gone. The past only existed in her memories now. Everyone else had simply forgotten them.

After socializing, Elba was escorted back to her room with dinner arriving soon after, and from there she would lay in bed until sleep finally took her, whisking her back into the darkest corners of her nightmares, where the ivory mask waited to chase her once more.

Three days had passed since then. Three days of good food, decent company, and a little room she could call her own for the time being. Never before had she been so comfortable, so well fed, so warm in all her life, and it made her feel all the more guilty for it.