Wind Wielder

Chapter 46 - Romantic Flight

It was quiet in the servants' halls the next morning.

Or maybe it was just Zara. Maybe it was just in her head. Zara's morning routine, which had consisted of reading and writing letters every day for the last three weeks, seemed dreary and dull.

It seemed the news has spread quickly.

The minotaur's seemed quieter at breakfast, the cloudy skies above extra gloomy. Even the fire sprites had no smoke or sparks atop their heads to be found.

But that was nothing in comparison to Tina.

Fire Sprites could not cry. A fact that Zara grew to view as quite cruel.

After a sober and solitary breakfast, Zara entered the laundry rooms of the upper echelon. A place where Tina and Annaise had shared their lonesome for the past 50 years.

Zara had been here for less than two weeks. She had never gotten the chance to become accustomed to Tina's constant blabbing and Annaise's quiet chastising.

But Tina had.

She sat on a stool in the corner of the drying room, thorny hands folded over one another. Her skin, usually so bright and crimson, had faded to a desolate brown.

She raised a quiet look towards Zara.

"Do you know, Penelope?" Tina had whispered.

It was all she could do to nod.

"Yes."

"Do... do you know how? Or... why?"

It was the second question that felt like a suckerpunch to the gut. Zara swallowed to hide the rising bile in her throat.

Because of me.

"No. I don't."

Tina lowered her gaze. Staring at the fireplace that was dull and grey and cold. "Me neither," She whispered.

For all the world, Tina looked like she wanted to cry. From the puncture holes in her palms from her talons, and the wrinkled, crumpled mess of her tunic, she resembled the sculptures of misery in the artists quarter of Velaris.

But her eyes remained dry. For there was nothing more lethal to a creature of fire and ash than a single drop of water.

So Tina rose to her shaky feet, and said, "I'd better start the drying soon. His High Lordship will be expecting his bedding shortly."

And that was that.

No space to cry. No space to grieve. Not even for a creature incapable of tears.

Zara thought of Kazia. And of her own months of utter ruin and grief she had allowed herself to rot in.

Not for Tina. Never for a servant of the Autumn Court. There was a High Lord to please.

Beron had called her a slave. Zara knew, legally she wasn't. Legally she was a servant.

But looking at Tina, and her dry, bloodshot eyes, it all seemed the same.

⤧

It was nearing nightfall when Zara finally crept down from the castle.

All day. She had worked all damn day in silent solitude with Tina. Never once offering conversation where the fire sprite had welcomed none. But the laundry– all the laundry– was done. And she was going home for a day.