Page 58 of A Monarch's Fall

“Sergeant? Am I being enlisted into your army?” I asked. “I won’t fight in any army; I need to make that very clear. I won’t help harm other people.”

Lady Flores smiled fondly, “So much like Damia. Don’t fret, dear. You are not being enlisted,” she laughed, “This is simply an opportunity for you to live with other Flores witches, to become accustomed to the ways of your coven. Kathrine is the youngest Sergeant within The New Foundation and has space within her squad for one more. I thought that, given her youth and that of her team, it would be a good match for you. But please, be assured that if, for any reason, you are uncomfortable, I am more than happy to find you somewhere else,” she offered.

I sighed. I wasn’t getting home today, and as much as Lady Flores made it seem like I had a choice, I knew I did not. They wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of abducting me from Ardens only to return me at my request. I nodded and stood, hating the support boot on my right foot as I wobbled slightly before finding my balance.

“Lead the way, Jack,” I said and hoped my smile looked genuine and not forced.

“Cool,” he smiled broadly, and held the door open for me.

“I do hope you find you like it here,” Lady Flores said as I was leaving.

“I hope so, too,” I replied, and she smiled warmly at me. I was shocked by how her smile struck me, how I kind of liked it, or rather, the idea that I had a grandmother who would smile at me like that.

I tried to ignore the yearning sort of feeling that formed in my chest. Lady Flores didn’t seem bad. She wasn’t what I imagined when I pictured someone heading an army or starting a war. She was an old lady, a grandmother! My grandmother. Maybe I had made assumptions about her that were tainted by how upset I was to be taken from Ardens and Selene. She didn’t know about the soul match.

As far as she was concerned, I was nothing more than Selene’s bloodslave, and I didn’t know how she really felt about that. How would I feel if I were a grandmother and had a grandchild I had never met, and then I learned that she had become the property of a ruthless royal? I’d probably try to rescue her too. But then I wouldn’t leave any grandchild of mine alone in the world, apparently uncaring for the past nineteen years, whether they were dead or alive.

“This way,” Jack said as he closed the door behind us. “All the accommodation is on the south side; you’re on the second floor. We don’t have any lifts, I’m afraid,” he said, looking down at my foot. “But I can help you if you need,” he said.

“I’ll be fine,” I told him. Why did everyone think me so incapable? It was becoming infuriating. I didn’t need anyone’s help.

“Okay, but just know the offer stands.”

There was an awkward silence that fell between us, and I could feel the anxiety at the silence rising from Jack as he guided me down corridors and to a staircase. As we climbed the stairs, slowly due to my support boot, he blurted out, “I thought I was in big trouble back there.”

“Big trouble?” I asked as we reached a landing and a new flight of stairs.

“Yeah, I’m not meant to reveal my novel ability, none of us are; it’s kind of a secret, for our own safety,” he explained, turning to me, and I hadn’t missed that he had said, us, as in plural, as inmore than just him and I had a novel ability. “But you probably understand that more than anyone, right? With how powerful you are.”

“Understand what?” I asked back, trying not to show how difficult it was to climb the stairs with the boot, or that a dull pain had begun to form in my ankle.

“That it’s not safe to reveal our abilities because King Nyx will come for us,” he told me.

“What?” I asked. Selene had warned me of others trying to use my power, but she hadn’t suggested she was scared of her father; she thought my safety could only be guaranteed within her Houses.

Jack stopped and turned to me, allowing me a moment to catch up to him.

“King Nyx, he’d either use us or kill us. You’re lucky we got to you in time,” he said.

“Lucky?” I asked, trying to keep the outrage from my tone. There was nothing lucky about my being taken from Selene. The way Jack spoke bothered me. The assumption that we were the same, that I would agree with him, that I would be grateful even.

We weren’t the same. He had spent his entire life coddled by a coven that clearly cared for him. He didn’t have to learn how to use his magic on his own with no guidance but a few books left behind by a dead mother he’d never met. He was even given lessons now for a novel ability that he used on others for fun, just to see if he could. He was spoiled, entitled, and entirely unaware of himself.

“Yeah, True North would have killed you or used you to bargain with. Neither situation would’ve ended well for you,” he told me confidently.

Was everyone here so pompous in their moral superiority? Did everyone, kingdom-wide, think me incapable of defending myself?

“You don’t agree?” he asked when I didn’t immediately respond with the agreement or gratitude he must have been expecting.

“I was perfectly safe within the maze. The same can’t be said for the men The New Foundation sent to their deaths to retrieve me. If it wasn’t for me, everyone who entered the maze that night would be dead,” I told him, unable to pretend that I was some damsel that needed rescuing.

His eyebrows furrowed.

“That’s not what the official report said,” he replied.

“Then the report was wrong. I could control the maze. It brutally killed everyone else that entered, like some sadistic child crushing bugs under its thumb for fun. If it weren’t for me and my magic, no one but me would have been left standing,” I said, unable to hide my irritation with him. Jack was surprisingly annoying, and I couldn’t stop myself from correcting him.

“Yeah, well, even if that’s true, we still got you away from the Princess, and she’s just as bad as the king. She’d have handed you over to him without a second thought —”