Page 8 of Oath of Revenge
Knox put his hand on her shoulder and shook his head. “No, you stay here. I’ll serve.”
Helga fussed, and Scarlet pulled out her dagger to pick at her nails. They weren’t dirty, but making Helga glare at her put a smile back on Scarlet’s face.
The housekeeper’s hair kept falling into her face, and she kept blowing it away. But the tea leaves had a mind of their own.
Eirwyn had confided a few months ago that Helga had taken scissors to them repeatedly, but they always grew back like weeds overnight. So she’d put her curse to work and had packaged tea into bags to transport to the other two new villages in the forest.
Scarlet sighed and sat up, taking the offered tea from Knox. At least the tea leaf hair made a relaxing drink, she thought as she sipped.
“How is the little dragonling and the queen?” Scarlet asked.
Knox pulled up another chair as Helga parked the cart at Eirwyn’s elbow.
Eirwyn rubbed her stomach protectively, shadows and light swirling around her as her nerves went higher. “Eh, as well as expected I suppose. Lailant says it’s going well, but I would feel better with more information. We have read almost every book in this castle, and Leopol has been very helpful.”
Although a ghost, Leopol was the only one who was an actual dragon, other than Knox. He knew what to expect from experience, if not the books in the library.
Scarlet sipped her tea as Knox stared at his wife with concern. She swallowed, the heat burning her tongue. “Yet you’re still worried?”
Knox pushed a plate of olpertine closer to Eirwyn and moved a second plate between himself and Scarlet on a low side table.
He nodded. “Wouldn’t you be? But everything will be fine. This has been done for thousands of years before, remember?”
Eirwyn nodded, distracted as she practically inhaled the olpertine’s sugary fried dough.
Scarlet met Knox’s worried gaze and understood. It was like watching her dad ride off to war, not knowing if he was going to come out unharmed or not. The reminder of her dad sent her own worry and frustration sky high.
She took a deep breath and tried to control herself. Her antlers weighed her down, causing a throbbing headache like always. Every damn day, she pushed her body, pushed past the pain and tried to live a semi-normal existence.
She could live with the tail and the nose. The antlers were the biggest problem. They spread as wide as her shoulders and had twelve points. Was it any wonder she was cranky all the time?
Not as cranky as Eirwyn. Thankfully Scarlet wasn’t the one carrying a giant egg. That honor fell to her dear sister-in-law.
“Just ring if you need me, Your Majesties,” Helga said, dipping a curtsy.
Knox and Eirwyn both nodded but didn’t look up as she left. Scarlet smirked. She never would’ve thought her big brother would become king, but it suited him. He’d taken to it like a fish takes to water.
Unlike herself and the curses. She just couldn’t accept that this was her life now.
Other villagers both here in Hartsgrove and over in Vidrland were cursed too, like Helga and Hobbs, but they all gave Scarlet a wide berth. She was used to setting people on edge when they found out she was a Hunter, but this was something completely different.
She’d had months to get used to these cursed changes in her body, but every time someone looked at her in horror, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Anger seethed under her skin, making her scratch behind her long ears to find some sort of short-lived relief.
Eirwyn frowned, rubbing her stomach absently. “So what’s the news in the capitol? Did you find out what’s going on? Is Bella alright?”
Scarlet reached for an olpertine and popped it into her mouth to keep from snapping about the queen. The confectioners sugar dissolved on her tongue as she chewed the fried treat, and her nose twitched as if phantom whiskers were tickling her cheek. She shivered at the memory and took a drink, re-centering the weight of the antlers.
Thankfully, the whiskers hadn’t made a re-appearance since that day at the castle.
She cleared her throat. “Of course I found out what’s going on. I may be a freak, but I’m still the best Hunter in the land.”
“You’re not a freak,” Knox said. “You’re just cursed like nearly everyone else here.”
She almost crushed the next olpertine and glared at Knox. “No one else has multiple curses here. I’m the one who sticks out in a sea of weirdness. I’m the abomination in a crowd of tea ladies and candle and clock men. Of all the people who’ve been merged with inanimate objects, you can’t seriously think that I’m just like everyone else.”
Knox crossed his arms and leaned back in the straight chair. He certainly looks royal enough with that stern stare.
“It’s not like you to have a pity party, Scarlet. You know we’re going to break the curse.”