Within the Walls [NEW VERSION]

Chapter 8

The girls hoist me from the tub, wrapping soft towels around me, and rubbing my skin. They lather my limbs with rose-scented lotion, before plucking and waxing more hair from my body in crevasses that make me shriek and curse. I am a chicken ready for the spit.

Someone slides a white robe over my shoulders, and the girls scurry out of the dressing room just as quickly as they came. Larissa materialises from the flurry. She rifles through the gowns in the wardrobe.

I blow out my cheeks, slumping into the seat by the vanity.

Larissa laughs, glancing at me with a sparkle in her eyes. "They are a lot of energy."

I smile, feeling warm for the first time in a while. "I think they're wonderful."

She purses her lips, stepping up behind me. I almost flinch when she reaches for my damp curls and grabs a paddle brush. "They tend to bicker like angry old ladies. The prince apparently put them in a good mood."

She gently rakes the brush through my hair, pulling out the tangles. "The prince is that powerful, huh?"

She swats at me. "Let's not fuel his already full-to-the-brim ego."

I laugh, watching the flush of my cheeks in the mirror. Larissa towel dries my hair and massages a thick cream into the ringlets, her nimble fingers rubbing my scalp, and I almost start purring. She arranges the curls around my head and drapes them down my shoulders.

"I am surprised you aren't going to give me one of the hairstyles that all the young Concave ladies wear," I say, catching her eye in the reflection.

"The braid updo?" Larissa snorts and shakes her head. "Not for the king. He should fear you as you are."

"The king?"

"Yes. Didn't Prince Talin tell you? You're to meet the king." The words spill out, almost catching in her throat, as if she realised I wasn't meant to know.

"What for? I didn't think he cared for Convex like us."

"Well, he knows what you did. A few of the servants know, too. From when the prince stumbled into the palace after you... hit him with the knife." A nervous pause. She chews her lip. "We about the girl who dared to kill a Tranquillity. But we have been sworn to keep it secret from others."

"Almost the prince, too," I remind her, waggling my finger.

"It is a dangerous game you are playing," she says, again in a way that tells me her conscious and subconscious are at war. Drawers of the vanity grate together as she pulls them open and digs for a palette of colours. Pinks and browns. She dusts powder onto my cheeks and swipes my lashes with black, and my eyebrows with brown pigment, made from dyes and oils.

"I didn't ask to starve," I say, a lump forming in the back of my throat as my father's voice, masking my own, rings in my head. What have you done, Elle? I push the panic back. "The Tranqs attacked me first. It was self-defence."

"King Talin won't care." Her eyes, like molten earth, burn into me with a ferocity that turns my limbs to stone, instinctively rallied by her rebellious spirit. "You have made a grave mistake, Elle. The people you love will suffer for it."

"I know," I say, guilt chipping away at my mood, piece by piece.

"He is afraid of people like you, people who defy him. Growing your own food is an act of defiance because it means he doesn't entirely control you. Killing his Tranquillity is another. Both are crimes no one has ever dared to commit."

"How do you know this?"

Her eyes gather the shadows in the room. "My brother committed a crime, in the king's eyes. He tried to find a cure for the blight. He found a treatment that would prevent the blight from growing in the first place. But someone in the village tattled on him before he could announce his findings to the Convex mayor. The king swiftly destroyed his fungicide treatment. Then they destroyed him."

"They banished him, didn't they?"

"The king simply ordered the execution of my parents in the gallows and banished him. But of course, exile is far worse than a quick execution."

My stomach churns, and bile stings in my throat, as my palms moisten with sweat. Larissa sweeps into the wardrobe and plucks a red dress from the rack. Dark and vibrant as blood. As she helps me into the piece, she says, "I feel sick with anger at the way they destroyed him." Her nose wrinkles and her eyes redden. "I think the monsters got him."

"You believe in the monsters, too?"

"Don't we all? Creatures of the night with sharp teeth and no soul." She fusses over the placement of the material, pinching and pulling. Her eyes flick me up and down until she sighs, stepping back.

"You're still alive, though. How did they let that happen?" I ask, clearing my throat when she gives me a strange look. "I mean, how are you here?"

"I was only a young child when my brother committed his crimes. So, they sent me to the palace to learn to become a king's servant."

I bite the inside of my cheek, my mouth filling with acidic saliva. "Do you still live in the Convex Sector as a servant?"

"Yes. But I also have a room in the servants' quarters. We rotate in and out every few days."

Larissa smiles, tilting her head to the full-length mirror beside the vanity. I turn and gape at myself. The dress, bold and bright, makes me look like I strutted straight out of the depths of hell. Tethered to the flames and heat. My orange-red curls tumble around my face and down my shoulders. The paleness of my skin is a stark contrast to the red adorning my hips and cut low across my breasts. The collarbones poking out are tell-tale of my malnourishment. But my eyes, though grey, are for once, bright, as though the storm waging within me is forged from the goddess of war and hope.

"Too few are brave enough to do anything to protect the ones they love," Larissa says, her voice a hush no louder than the wind brushing the windows outside. "Even at the risk of their neck. You would have gotten along well with my brother. I have a feeling about you, Elle, like we might have been looking for you all this time."

Heat seeps into my cheeks and a knot tugs at my gut. "You have done the work of the Gods, Larissa."

She grins, and something wild glints in her eyes. "Let the king tremble at the mere sight of you."

That's when Ruben returns, leaning against the doorframe, an expression hewn from the darkest reaches of the forest on his face. I clear my throat, shooting him a glare. He rolls his shoulders back, and he swallows as he takes in my appearance. My skin bursts aflame.

"You look... like a human and not a dirty creature dragged from the gutters."

"Pig." I roll my eyes, stalking forward.

"You can just say she looks beautiful, my lord," Larissa says, clasping her hands together and glancing at her feet like she's afraid of her words.

He scrunches his nose as if the words taste foul on his tongue. "You look lovely, Elle."

"And you are an unpleasant fool," I snap. Although, a strange feeling stirs in my chest as I stare at him, the man seemingly handcrafted by the God of Night.

His gaze meets mine and he scoffs, running a hand through his dark brown hair as he paces towards the window. "An upgrade from a pig. I will take it."

"Don't get used to it."

Larissa giggles from a few paces behind us as we slip through the corridors and mount a wide, spiralling staircase. The higher we ascend into the palace, the faster my heart hammers in my ribs, and the louder the blood roars past my ears. We pass an arching window, and the sun has long since raced beneath the horizon, revealing the star-freckled night. Outside, a winter storm brews. The wind sings, battering the glass.

Ruben, leading the way, turns to me. He heaves, blowing out his cheeks. "Are you ready to meet the king?"