There’s a candle tapering away the last of its life on the table. Phila watches the wax congeal in the crevices of an elaborately wrought iron sconce, and feels sick to her stomach. They need to leave. They need to leave, now.
But she doesn’t leave. Instead, she is takes the seat offered to her with a ‘Thank you’ so quiet it’s almost inaudible. It lulls her with its familiarity. Old memories of meetings with diplomats, of standing vigil behind her Grace’s chair, of staring down those men who wanted to eat her alive, and knowing that she could do nothing except whisper those words: thank you.
The table is enormous, large enough to house at least a hundred of them: a gallery of pale-faced cowards, bright innocents and monsters. No, monster was too fanciful. The man who guided to her seat, and pushed her chair in with the force of a gaoler, was not a monster. He was far worse.
A monster can be killed, after all.
Across from her sits the man the monastery sent. Does he know? They’re leagues apart, her at one end, he at the other, their host in the midst. If she attempts to make a communication that their esteemed Duke is unaware of… She can’t afford it, can’t risk an unapt word.
They had arrived that morning. Phila was far from gifted in magic, and the remnants of what this land called ‘Faith’ had long since been drained from her. What use could dead hands be, in tending to the living? She had been sent as a piece of flesh, to carry things, or sort the inventory. And she knew this. Was quite reconciled to it. But he, her companion. She could not allow harm to come to him. To sully the memory of her sister's sacrifice would not do. No more innocent blood, she had sworn it.
‘Shall we dine?’ The Duke asks.
And, without waiting for their comment, he seizes upon a knife and fork. He moves them with careful precision as if they didn't quite fit in his hands. There is silence, except for the sickening squelch of a knife cleaving meat.
He eats quite happily, for a man who just hours ago had transformed into something hideous.
Phila hadn’t meant to see him, she had just been inspecting the halls. The portraits fascinated her, and a selfish impulse had lead her in search of a music room. Most self-respecting nobles were in possession of one.
Instead she had found him, door ajar, writhing and screeching in pain and she had drawn closer, ready to do battle with whatever was making an attempt on his life, only to encounter… It was impossible to describe. She wasn’t a poet. Nightmares were supposed to be their realm.
He hadn’t seen her, and that was a small mercy. But now she had been brought to a more acute awareness of their entrapment. And she was, as ever, as always, utterly helpless.
Phila bends her head, she takes a bite of something warm.