Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

53 - Chapter LIII: A Token of Remorse

Eight hours later.

Though she guarded her tongue throughout the day, Rena had seen many things from her perch above the eastern stairwell. She saw the travelling box being carried back and forth down the hallway. She saw Raze and Singe arguing before they left for morning roll-call. She saw Lucian striding up the stairs, two at a time, before pausing on the last one. Turning to look behind him. His eyes spotting her in the dark before he reached a scent out to her.

Something he had not done in years. That quiet melancholy. That mournful stare asking her to come down. Like in the days after the revolution. The guillotine on fire and she still searching for her sons among the dead.

But she would not come down...and unless her clothes were on fire, he would not force her. So he walked on, wrapping the scent in a void again. Entering the room of the small bird and staying until his bark became loud, his conversation angry. The door slamming shut and the key turning in its lock. The grey wolf pressing his skull against the door, almost in pain, before he stormed from the east wing. Too enraged to look up or even remember that she was still there.

The wing staying silent and abandoned until Rena dropped from her perch, venturing to the kitchens and searching for the meal she ought to have collected hours before. The blood cold, the scullery maid missing and Mrs. Fulligan in a mood to scold someone. Two of her lycan boys larking about the front stoop, trying to muss each other's hair up...and then quieting their tongues as she passed. No one ever spoke to her. She was a guard...and she would not speak to them if they did.

So with the tray laden with blood and marrow, Rena entered her charge's room. Stepping silent around the small bird asleep on the floor with her silver head resting upon her arms. The veil abandoned and the woman dressed from her boots up to her neck. The blood left on the side-table and the door closed. Locked once more.

Her perch resumed and her head resting on her fist. Waiting through the afternoon until something new entered the eastern wing. First a pair of eyes reflecting at the bottom of the stairs. Then a shadow lowering itself to its hands and knees, creeping slowly like a cat across the hallway...step by step...turning its head this way and that until it stood before her charge's door. Small and barely in possession of a scent, it had the manner of a child...but it smelled like the lycan-master.

Rena pounced.

The ensuing scuffle so brief that her hands were over Sabine's mouth and holding her up by the scruff of her neck before the handle could turn. The child starting to struggle, her growls less ferocious than a small hedgehog, but her nails speaking volumes of the indignity. The scratches small compared to the field of war.

The two of them taking the long walk down to the dusk-lit balcony of the east wing. The stones green and the iron-wrought chairs covered in rain-washed dirt and mouse droppings. An adequate setting for an interrogation. Far enough away to avoid waking sleeping birds, but close enough to keep an eye on the door.

So with her back to the sun, Rena forced Sabine's hand open, confiscated the bag she was hiding, and then dropped her in a heap beside the rail. The bag light, but containing everything the girl had collected over the past seven months. Tobacco, cigarettes, matches, perfume. An inkwell, Reinette's journal...and her iron-ring puzzle.

Everything stolen.

She could hear the girl yowling. Screaming at her to give the items back. Furious and scratching until she saw that Rena did not care. That Rena was stronger than her. Sabine then reacting as most children did. Hissing with blunt teeth and then storming to the other side of the balcony. Crawling under one of the rusty tables and burying a tear-stricken face into her knees. The trimmings of her dress now stained with cobwebs and dirt.