Chapter 2 Dragonhold

SERAPHINA

The soldier who approaches me asks my name. He checks it against a second scroll. He notes my age and nods. "Platform, then."

I take a deep breath. But before I take a step, my mother pulls me against her chest, her chin pressed to the top of my head. I feel her breathing, how she has to work to keep it even. Angie wraps herself around my waist from the other side and asks me twice what is happening, and I tell her I am going on a trip, that she needs to help Mama with the bakery while I am gone.

"I'll be home," I tell them both, and I mean it as a promise, and I do not let myself think about how many girls have stood in this square and meant exactly the same thing.

I do not look back when I walk up the steps. I know if I see their faces I will not be able to keep my own still, and I cannot afford to fall apart here. So I look forward.

That is the last I see of home.

The journey to the Capitol takes just over two weeks. The transport wagon is built for cargo, not comfort. Every city and settlement we pass through adds more girls to the wagon until there are thirty of us pressed together, and we learn each other's names mostly out of necessity, because there is nothing else to do during the long rolling hours except talk or stare at the canvas.

I talk very little. I spend most of the journey doing arithmetic. Ten years. If I keep my head down, I walk out at twenty-nine. Easy piece of cake. I can make it. I'll come back home and reunite with my family.

By the time the wagon passes through the Capitol's outer gate, the fear has mostly reorganized itself. I am not thinking about home anymore. I am thinking about how to survive.

The Palace sits on the hill above the main city, a structure so large it looks like a geological feature. We are brought through a side entrance, processed through courtyards, and then left to wait outside a set of tall, heavy doors.

A girl beside me, pale and sharp-featured, leans over and introduces herself as Ivy. She has been here four days already, assigned to a holding group while they sorted the new arrivals.

"That building," she says, tilting her chin toward the structure whose doors we are standing before. "That's Dragonhold. The king, Aldric Drakemoor, lives and works there. His temper has been getting worse. Girls have been dying for no reason at all, so they keep needing replacements. Today they're probably selecting people for the empty positions."

I study the doors. "What positions are safest?"

Ivy looks at me like I have asked something obvious. "Anything far from him."

Before I can ask more, the doors open, and a woman steps out.

She is in her late forties, with her hair pinned precisely and a stone-like expression. She steps forward and says in a voice that expects no interruption: "I'm Mira, Head of Servants." Her gaze moves across our group. "Which of you has experience preparing food?"

Is she recruiting for the kitchen? Kitchen work means staying in the kitchen. Not where the king spends most of his time. I think of the bakery back home, the morning bread, the spiced rolls, the honey cakes... That counts, right?

I raise my hand. "I know baking."

Mira's eyes settle on me. "Name?"

"Seraphina Baker."

Something shifts in her expression. "Come with me," she says. "The rest, wait here."

She leads me through stairs and corridors that grow progressively quieter and colder the deeper we go, and she tells me the background while she walks.

The girl who previously held the cooking position died three days ago. The position needs filling immediately. The king's current dietary requirements are specific, which she doesn't explain further. She does say pastry and confections are unexpectedly appropriate.

"You'll be working alongside Verna," Mira says. "She'll show you the protocols."

I file them away carefully. Then I ask: "The girl who died... May I ask, how?"

Mira does not break her stride. "Testing poison for the king."

I believe approximately half of that.

She also tells me my name is convenient. The four girls assigned to serve the king directly are named by season: Verna, Sera, Aura, Hima. The previous Sera is gone. I am, by coincidence, her replacement in more than one sense.

I am still processing the economy of that when we arrive at a door where another girl is waiting, holding a food tray, posture careful.

That must be Verna. She is looking at me with alert eyes.

Mira instructs us to bring the king his meal and leaves without further ceremony.

Verna falls into step beside me. "Don't panic," she murmurs. "I've been here two months. Just follow what I do."

Two months? Great. My hope of surviving reassigns itself to a simpler goal: if it comes to it, let it be fast.

The king's chamber is dim and smells of crushed lavender. He is asleep at the table, utterly alone.

Verna steps forward and speaks in a clear, practiced voice. "My king. It's time to eat."

The man lifts his head slowly. Aldric is just a tall, well-built young man with a calm face. I had constructed something more monstrous in my head during the wagon ride. This is harder to reconcile with the body count.

His golden eyes sharpen, and he looks at the tray Verna is holding, and his expression closes like a shutter.

"That's garbage," he says flatly. "I won't eat it."

Verna's smile does not waver. "My king, do eat some. Let me help you." She moves to set the tray down and reaches toward him.

"Don't touch me."

She reaches anyway.

What happens next does not take long. Verna's hand makes contact with his arm, and then she is airborne, and the window frame shatters outward, and her scream trails away before cutting off with a sound like a sack of wet grain hitting stone. The tray clatters to the floor. Food splashes, and some of it catches Aldric across the jaw and cheek.

The room goes very quiet.

The king does not wipe his face. He simply turns, and in the next instant he is in front of me with no perceptible interval between there and here, one hand closing around my throat, tight enough to make the option available. His eyes are flat and cold. "Did you come here to force that garbage on me as well?"

I try to say no.

And then I hear a voice, clear and distinct as though spoken directly into the cavity of my skull: If she says no, I'm going to snap her neck.

I stop with the word half-formed on my tongue, shocked and bewildered.

Aldric's hand is still around my neck. He did not move his lips.

And I'm certain there is no one else in the room right now besides him and me.

So... who said that?