Iris~~
The guards lead me through a door that opens into a sitting room. Fabric is draped over the stone walls and rugs are laid out on the floor. A leather-bound book sits on a black chaise, and a platter of fruit is in the center of a small table.
We pass through the room and into a curving hallway. Portraits hang on the walls, all of the subjects easily identified as Amorian with their purple eyes.
Up ahead there's an opening in the wall large enough for a door to fit, and the guards give me a little shove in its direction. I step underneath the archway and into a dining room. The wooden dining table stained black fits ten chairs, all of which are empty save for the one at the head of the table where Odette sits, her posture utterly perfect. Her black hair falls around her shoulders, and a dark grey laurel wreath rests on her head.
She merely waves her hand to dismiss the guards from the room and gestures at the seat at the other end of the table.
I move toward it to take my seat but pause when she says, "Turn for me," in Amorian.
My hand on the back of the chair, I hesitate.
Play her game, I remind myself. I can't win if I don't play.
I inhale and start to turn in a slow, steady circle. "Is this dress one of yours?" I ask in Amorian, not daring to attempt English after Anastasie made clear their disdain for anything other than Amorian.
"My grandfather brought one like it from Amoria. I had it remade." She lifts a crystal glass filled with white wine to her lips. "I thought it might fit you." She sips from her glass.
"It's a lovely dress."
"Ol." Yes. She holds out her hand toward my chair. "Sit."
I sink into the wooden chair, stained black like the table, the red cushion a cloud compared to the stone floor in the cells.
"I hope you found the Digamma's condition satisfactory."
I bite my tongue to hold back my retort. Seeing his condition ripped up my heart.
A lid covers my meal, and I remove it, expecting to find a head—this is a dinner with Odette after all. It's a pleasant surprise when the appetizer is only snails.
Living at the Society, I've been forced to broaden my pallet. Grilled cheese is never on the menu, and the only time I have it is when Jonas slips into the kitchen to make me one. I don't need a three-or-more course meal every night or ever, and sometimes I just want a sandwich; there are just some nights when a peanut butter and jelly would be better than a steak. Like Erik, Jonas doesn't appreciate the taste of ketchup on a grilled cheese, but I definitely once saw Riley sneak a small bottle of ketchup out of his jacket and pour it on his escargot.
That was horrifying.
"I was surprised to find him not worse than he was." I did expect him to look closer to death.
"We do like to treat our guests well." She raises her snail fork to her mouth and takes a bite from her escargot.
They've given me a pair of tongs and a fork with two prongs like Odette's. I don't need a knife for escargot, and I can't help but feel that was intentional.
I maneuver a snail onto my fork and eat it, relishing the buttery taste. The Amoris have been giving us food that's the consistency of oatmeal but with the ingredients of soup.
Jonas fed me my first bite of escargot in the grand dining hall of the Estate in front of his friends and family. In that moment though it felt like it was just the two of us—with me looking at him like I would kill him if he stuck that snail in my mouth and him looking at me like he was a demonic trickster.
"What of the woman?" I ask Odette.
"I'm finalizing where to put her body."
My food threatens to come back up. She's still alive. "It's strategic?"
She sets her fork down. "I'm marking my territory."
"I didn't realize Amoris were dogs."
She pushes her chair back and with grace rises, stepping out from behind the table. "You mean to tell me humans are not territorial as well?"
She glides her hand over the tops of the chairs as she walks toward me, her violet dress flowing and rippling around her legs. This is different than her attire that night I arrived. The color is lighter, and the top of the dress is a deep V that ends where the skirt begins, the two sides of the V cinched and creased. She truly does look the part of a Greek goddess.
"You have me there," I say.
Reaching me, she places her hand under my chin, her skin cold, and puts a slight pressure on my jaw, a silent command to stand. I obey, my dress rustling as it straightens, and she draws her hands back.
Her eyes rake over me. "Your fiancé taught you Amorian well. Has he taught you our native alphabet?"
"Ol."
She takes my left hand in hers and slips my engagement ring off my finger. It takes everything in me not to lunge for it. Holding it up, she turns it over, reading the inscription inside.
With a sigh she hands it back to me. "All my life I've heard stories about the boy who was to grow up to be the next Preeminence of Elleany. He was going to be terrifying. Be more ruthless than his father. But now I see he's turned out to be a sentimental sap. Such a waste of talent." She lays her hand on my cheek, and my body stiffens, all of my focus going to where her skin touches mine. "He couldn't even keep you from me."
I step back, and Odette wraps her hand around my arm, removing her other hand from my face and strikes me across the cheek with it.
My skin burning, I let out a trembling breath, glaring at her.
"Shh . . ." She brushes her fingers down my cheek where she slapped me, her long nails scraping my skin. "Don't pull away from me, Raggioet." She yanks me closer, so we're pressed against one another.
"How do you plan to study me?" My tone is bitter. "Cut me open? Test my blood?"
"Patience." She trails her fingers over my neck, down to the top row of mesh on my dress. She traces the Amorian symbol that's repeated around the dress. "I don't like rushing with things that are mine."
Mine.
"You've learned our alphabet. Have you studied our symbols?"
"A few."
She barely presses against the thread, but she might as well be dragging a knife over my skin for how uncomfortable it makes me. "I suppose you wouldn't know this one. It's ancient and has been replaced by a newer symbol."
"Why not use the newer one?"
"It's less complex. It's simple. Plain. But the marking for possession deserves to be intricate."
My breath hitches, my thoughts racing. She said she was going to mark her territory with Ines's body. We thought the bodies might have been being left in a way to form an Amorian symbol. If the symbol was ancient, it would explain how none of the Order recognized it.
Odette's marking France as her own.
"Do you think I made it too hard for your fiancé?"
"You want him to find you?"
She moves her hand from my arm and presses it against my lower back, causing me to arch my back to lean away from her.
"I would prefer to have the Society and French come to me. Then I can defeat them all at once. Amoria will recognize me, a female, as a legitimate Preeminence. France will be mine and I will have you to study as long as I desire."
My dress suddenly feels too tight. "And then you'll kill me?"
She lowers her head to the crook of my neck.
Everything in me tells me to run, to tear myself from her hold, but I have to play her game if I am to win.
"If given the choice, who would they choose?" Her breath tickles my skin. "Their Digamma or you?" She straightens, pulling her face from my neck.
"The Digamma."
"But you're far more interesting. Much more valuable." Her hands snake up my arms. "There have been countless Digammas but you are the only Raggioet." Her hands stop at my neck. She doesn't press down, just rests them there. "How do you suggest I test you? Should I take you to the brink of death and bring you back?" She puts pressure on my neck. "Again and again?" Her grip tightens, and I claw at her hands as she cuts off my breath.
"This will be easier if you don't fight." She turns us around, pressing me against the table, my back leaning over it.
I gasp for air. The fork. If I can just get a hold of it. I drop my hands from my neck, grasping along the table for it.
"You have nothing fear. You won't die. Tornair qui." I promise.
My fingers close around the knife, and I muster the rest of my air to stab it into her side.
With a cry, she releases my neck.
I yank the fork out. Blood blossoms in dots through her dress. I jam the fork into her side again—in and out—and push her off me as guards rush into the room.
Gasping, she presses her hand against her side. "I had hoped to not make you return to your cell, but I see you're still not feeling amiable."
The guards grab me by the arms and haul me against them, their fingers digging into me, and I know bruises will bloom on my arms as well as my neck.
"You can play this game, Iris, but you'll only lose in the end." She grits her teeth. "Take her away."
This edit for Colton was made by dode_zengana!