Chapter 8 : The Withering Fang Pub

Ayda's POV

I knew it was stupid of me to drink as much as the others, being a mother of one so young, but by the time the waitress topped off my goblet, I couldn't remember why drinking had been such a bad idea after all.

The Withering Fang Pub was a charming little bar made out of the charred innards of a manor's undercroft that had burned down during the Uprising. It was owned by a man named Georgios Papadakis and his wife Gabriella, who met during the Uprising along the Bornite-Chalcopyrite border on opposing sides.

They'd both been mercenaries rented out to lesser lords to protect their lands from the common folk whilst also simultaneously trying to gain the others' territory. They'd been trapped in a manor house when the fires began, unwilling to leave due to fears of being caught in the crossfire outside. So, they had to learn to rely upon each other just to survive.

Hearing them tell the tale was both gripping and romantic, especially when Gabriella declared that Georgios had taken a bullet for her when common folk captured them, intent on killing these "hounds of lords."

"Shot me right here," Georgios gestured to the shiny lump of skin above his heart; the halo of argyria around the wound told me the bullet had been coated in silver nitrate. "Would have killed me dead if Gabbie hadn't had an emergency vial of seawater on her."

"Works like a charm for silver nitrate," she held up her necklace, a heart-shaped vial of seawater around a leather cord. "Never leave home without it!"

Nicolette sighed wistfully next to me, curling her hair around her finger.

"I wish I was lucky in love like that. Seems like all I ever do is meet the wrong ones."

"I'm sure you'll find someone," I patted her on the back, a little heavy-handed, thanks to the wine running in my veins. "There's one for everyone; remember the soul bond!"

"But I'm far past my Calling!" Nicolette dropped her head on the table with a dissatisfied thump. "It's easy for you to say you haven't had yours! You could be one of those instant ones, I can tell! If you haven't found the one already!"

I thought of the unknown man with the amber eyes and Prince Sebastian.

Nicolette gasped.

"Veda was right! You are lovesick!" She cupped her cheeks, a ribbon of red across her nose extending from ear tip to ear tip. "Who is it? Marco? Sinclair? Derek?"

"Derek the Poulterer? Isn't he like forty?"

"He's still handsome!" Nicolette sputtered, nearly knocking over both our glasses. "He's got such lovely gray eyes and his chest! So—" And she mashed her own breasts to appear flatter like pecs. "You know???"

I didn't, but likely I'd notice now.

"It's not Derek," and I gulped down the rest of my wine to deter from saying anything more. Nicolette just waited. "It's not him, I swear."

"Oh, I won't tell, Ayda," she hopped her chair closer; lavender eyes went starry at the thought of another story. "Honest, I won't! And Liv's not even here at the moment to blab!"

Olivia, or Liv as she liked to be called, was the castle's planter and Maud's middle daughter. Her other name in the castle happened to be Morning Post on account of her propensity to spread rumors. I peeled my eyes for her tow-headed self and breathed a sigh of relief when I found her with Nicolette's other friends clustered around the dart board. Well, this had been bothering me for a while…

"You cannot tell," I made Nicolette promise, extending a pinky. "Or risk the sake of our friendship!"

"I swear on my brother's grave," Nicolette said, curling her little finger around my own. "Now, what did I just proclaim fealty to? You haven't killed someone, have you???"

"Nothing of the sort," I'd hoped, but I was stalling. I took a deep breath, hoping the truth wouldn't change her perception of me. Be brave, Ayda! "I'm a princess."

There was a pregnant pause as Nicolette stared at me.

"Holy shit," she shrilled. "You aren't joking? A PRINCESS???"

"Keep it down," I hissed, watching Liv narrow her eyes at us before going back to darts. My heart beat double time. "You said you wouldn't tell!"

Nicolette clapped her hands over her mouth, aware now of the volume of her voice.

"Sorry," she said into her clasped hands. "But truly, a High Alpha's daughter?"

"Yüksel Emir Ihsan Sabine of the Emerald Lake pack, my father."

"And so that makes you…?"

"First Princess Ayda Yildiz Sabine, at your service," I'd given her a proper Emerald Lake greeting, the one I'd practiced in front of the mirror a dozen times when I was younger. Part third position in ballet and part bow, the demure lifting of the skirt was the only thing comparable to a central land's courtesy.

Nicolette applauded drunkenly, nearly tipping out of her chair. Her bubbliness was infectious.

"You really are, aren't you?" Nicolette looked at me in awe, and I was so relieved that she wasn't disgusting. I would hate to lose my first friend at the castle. "What on earth are you doing playing stylist to Narcissa of all creatures!?"

"I ran away from home and got pregnant." It surprised me how much shame still dogged me after a year of being on my own. But here I was, about to cry in the back of a pub about it.

I bit my lip, focusing on the pain to deter them from falling and embarrassing me further. "There was—my father—it all happened so fast—"

"You know we don't have to talk about it. If you're not ready." Bless her; she was giving me a way out. Nicolette covered my hand with hers, a sign of support as I struggled. "We go at your pace."

"I want you to know. Out of everyone, I want you to know. There's a connection between us. I can't explain it, but—"

"I feel it too!" Nicolette chirped excitedly and then floundered with the implication of what she said. "B-bu-but I wasn't sure if it was mutual, is all. That's-that's nice to know. That it's mutual."

"It is," I said firmly. "Promise you won't judge me too harshly?"

"Of course, you have my word, Ayda."

"I was betrothed to an Alpha who…" I didn't want to say his name out loud. It reminded me that he was still out there, hunting for me possibly.

"You should have seen him, Nicolette. He was a gluttonous man, his hunger endless. Drugs, money, women, war—it hardly mattered the vice, only that he craved more. He'd—the Alpha helped my father during the Uprising. He sent soldiers to bolster my father's troops to protect our borders. But my father wasn't like the other Southern packs; he'd thought the Uprising a noble cause."

"He was for the people," Nicolette's eyes were sharp, impressed. "I didn't think any of the nobility was."

"There were certainly more back then than there are now."

"So what happened?"

"He blackmailed my father," anger flamed hotly in my gut, alcohol fueling the decade-old sore spot. "To ensure that the other Alpha's hadn't known that he was aiding some Uprising revolutionaries, my father had to pay him tithes every quarter."

"That doesn't sound so bad? Unless the price was high?"

"It wasn't, no more than a normal increase in taxes. We were fine for a while. Until the drought hit."

I didn't like thinking of the Starving Times, when the streets of my village ran barren, devoid of people when the funeral pyres had run out of logs to burn the bodies. When the dead, young and old, outnumbered the living.

My father's face when he laid my little brother to rest, his one true heir, felled when my mother was unable to create enough nourishment in her body to save him.

I knew my eyes were leaking only when Nicolette passed a handkerchief to me.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You didn't cause it. Well, when my father couldn't pay the tithe that year, the Alpha demanded the next best treasure my father had."

"You?" Nicolette was incredulous. "And your father went along with it?"

"What choice did he have in the matter? A vow between Alphas is sacred. Besides, if he didn't pay, then the Alpha would reveal all my father's wrongdoings in court, and they'd execute him."

"It's still not fair, though! To have to barter a child as If they were cattle to the highest bidder."

"It's not, but my father did what he thought best for the kingdom. Even an impossible choice like that."

"So what happened next? Did you run away? Fall in love?"

"I did run away. To Eventide City, where anyone could be anyone. The perfect place for a fresh start. I didn't want to disobey my father and put the family in a tight bind, but I was young. Scared that when the Alpha put his hands on me...."

I shuddered, gripping my capelet closer to me. "All I could think of was how badly I did not want to be tied to this man and ran away. When I got to Eventide, the first thing I did was go to a pub like this one and drink. I lost myself in the moment, wanting to just feel anything that wasn't fear. And that's when I saw him. Danced with him."

"August's father?"

"One and the same. I met him that night and only that night."

Nicolette froze, face going pale, "Did he—Goddess's mercy—he didn't force himself on you, did he?"

"No, no. He was kind, gentle even. I was lucky; it could have been a lot worse, and I wasn't in the faculties to fight him should he have forced himself on me. He took me roughly, but nothing I didn't, uh, ask for."

"That's—" Nicolette guzzled her wine, not making eye contact. "That's more than I ever got."

"Oh, I didn't think—"

"It's fine! I guess we both have our secrets now. Thank you for telling me, Ayda."

"I—" I choked on the words, taken aback by how easy Nicolette regarded me. There was no venom in her lavender eyes, normalcy I'd accepted as of late.

"You don't think me dirty? A heathen? A shameless packless whore? I was too drunk to even remember what the man looked like, after all."

"I…do people really say such things to you?"

"All the time. Sometimes worse…"

"Well, I don't see you as that, Ayda. You're one of the hardest workers I know. You're a good mother; you love your son to pieces. You are kind, thoughtful, and always helpful. An absolute gift is what you are."

I didn't know how to handle that: kindness. Giselle, I suspected, may have gone through similar hardships as myself, and Henrietta could be kind to a murderer if she'd ever met one. Nicolette was worldly, grounded like Giselle, but without the connection of motherhood. Infinitely compassionate like Henrietta without her saint-like forgiveness.

I needed some air.

I got up without excusing myself.

"Ayda? Ayda, wait! Was it something I said!?" she called after me.

"I'm fine," I urged her brokenly as I went out the back door. Liv and the others were coming over, and I didn't want to make a scene. "Be back in a moment!"

It had gotten even colder since we got here, a fine dusting of snow coating the frozen ground. The stars were out in full force, the Alaxias Kyklos weaving between constellations so that the moon knew what path to take on her route back to Olympus. It was easier to just be under the stars, to feel the oneness of the universe, and to see myself as a little part of a cosmic whole.

A more ambitious person like Narcissa or High Alpha Kostas would hate to feel small, but I found the whole process to be humbling in a good way.

My breath puffed out in little clouds as I felt the tension leave my body in waves, watching the road. Some men came out to smoke, others to cross the street to the carriage waypoint, but most left me alone.

But one, one would not stop staring at me.

Or rather she.

She stood across the street, away from the rest of the crowd, ready to go home for the night. She wore a hooded cloak with a gown made of indigo fabric, dark hair hanging in a thick side braid to her waist. She looked almost familiar, like I'd seen her before. Like I knew her from before. A name on the tip of my tongue…

Zendaya. Zariah. Zinnia.

"Zoe?" My sister—she looked like my sister! Older yes, with quite a growth spurt, she was taller than me now, but she had the same little mole on her chin.

"Zoe? Is that you?"

A carriage crossed between us, and when it passed, the woman had vanished.

Like a phantasm in the night.

I…I was imagining things. Talking about my banishment reminded me of all the words I hadn't got to say, the people that I left behind. I was tired; it was time to go home.

I went back inside just as Nicolette and the others were paying the tab, drained by the night's partying as well. We said our goodbyes to Georgios and Gabriella, promising to return when we had the time, and waited for our carriage to take us back to Castle Lykaia.

The journey passed quickly with an impromptu game of Two Truths and a Lie, the expansive gardens of the front courtyard coming into view.

And with it, Prince Sebastian, arms crossed. Angry once more.