The White Sheep's Disguise ✓

Chapter 26

If I'm starting to look for bright spots, I'm glad to be back in the presence of the palace's kitchens. Theoden always put a meal on the table three times a day and without complaint, but Gudgeon Village is far enough from advanced civilization that our ingredients—bread, vegetables, flour, and an array of other components that have become luxuries rather than standard supplies to have in a cupboard—aren't of the best standard.

At the palace, I've come to expect nothing less than the freshest ingredients. The servants baked the bread this morning, diced the vegetables merely an hour ago, and plucked the fruit from bushes and trees when the sun rose over the eastern mountains. The palace has sun houses mixed in with their outdoor garden that grow the freshest of fruits and vegetables for royal consumption, maintained throughout the year by what I now realize to be controlled Luminaries.

I'm sickened at the thought of what these Luminaries went through to lose themselves among the fray of unstoppable power, but the Raven Queen will have no one more prevailing than her biding their time until the throne is empty.

Amongst other members of the palace, those invited to court from distant lands or relatives to the queen, I hug close to a window and pick at the mound of beef hash to the corner of my porcelain plate. The white ridges along the side twist together at the end, swirling upwards to tie into a two-strand braid.

The soup at my elbow, steam rising over the rim of the matching bowl, is muddled with thick vegetables and clumps of meat; the broth thickened with almonds. The slices of cabbage float towards the top, their deep green sinking underneath clumps of garlic and onion. This is only the beginning of my meal, also my first since arriving back to the capital the day before. I slept through the night without incident and woke in my Luminary form to the harsh sound of someone laughing on the other side.

At first, I thought the queen had discovered my false identity and was starting my murder by laughing herself into it. Peeking my head out the door, I realized it was only a pair of servants carrying stiff piles of towels in their arms. Jumping off my cot awoke my appetite, along with my need to vomit, but I swallowed down that horrid desire and forced myself to make the trek to the dining hall.

I dip into the hot stew, sipping carefully. At the table next to me, a young man presses his cheek into his fist and tries to focus on the small text sprawled over the crinkled page of a thick book. On the spine, the careful words: Bones of the Ancient—fade into invisibility. The palace libraries have only a handful of novels that don't revolve around the kingdom's history, but that is one of them. Years ago, a passing soldier had accidentally dropped it from his pack and never returned to see how the story ended. As it was the only book I had, I read the story repeatedly until I memorized each word on each page.

Then, when my parents died, I sold the book to afford food and received only a few coins. No one in Gudgeon Village needs books, especially not a tale of a young man searching for the truth of his land's falsehood. Many fishermen and low lives in the village never learned how to read; they considered eating and surviving to be more important. While my parents always ensured hot food simmered on our table every evening, at the expense of their health, Castiel and I discovered how to decipher sprawling texts over signs, old records, and books.

I tear my eyes away, back towards the window, and the room turns hushed. I don't notice it at first, the two birds pecking at each other along the stone banister is enough to distract me, as is the warming in my stomach from the thick soup, but silence wears heavily on my shoulders. I pivot towards the entrance to the dining hall, my eyes immediately locking with Gustus's.

And his summer sky stare is not kind.

He strides over, Theo in tow, and sets himself easily into the chair across from my own with a full plate of food and a glass of wine on the side. My stare darts involuntarily to the rest of the room. Everyone is already watching me to see what I might do at this sudden attention. Will I break out in tears or bow my head to the floor and thank them for thinking of me as anything more than a peasant?