Page 22 of A Royal’s Soul (Soul Match #3)

Persephone Flores

The kitchen was busy—not busy like the kitchens at the castle, but it was the most servants I had seen at any other time during my short stay at the Ardens Estate. The noisy room grew quiet when I entered, the loud voices trailing off as it felt like everyone turned to look at me. Not to acknowledge me, but stare.

After what felt like an eternity, where I might have died from the levels of awkwardness, I turned to leave. I didn’t need to eat. Not really. I could survive until the evening.

“Wait,” an older man called, and I grimaced as I turned back to him.

“Get back to work,” he angrily told the others, and soon a murmur of voices cushioned the embarrassment I felt.

“You’re the Princess’s flower girl,” he stated.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“What you doing here?” he asked.

“I was hungry,” I told him. “I thought I could make myself something.”

“You can’t just walk in here and do what you please. Not today. I’ve got meals to prepare,” he told me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling small. “I can wait.”

He shook his head aggressively.

“No, no. You’re here now and I can’t let you go hungry, but servant lunch was served over an hour ago,” he told me.

“Really, it’s fine,” I protested.

“Listen I won’t have it. The stew is ready. Keeping it warm on the stove. I’ll get you a bowl. You eat meat?” he asked a little aggressively, walking over to a large pot on the stove and pulling a blue checkered towel from his apron and using it to lift the lid of the pot.

“Yeah?” I replied. I did—but it felt like any other answer would have personally offended the man.

“Just checking. Never know with you lot. Last time we had a southerner here, they asked for oat milk!” he said, affronted. “It’s oats. It’s not got any damn milk. Turned out they wanted watery porridge!” he huffed as he stirred the pot with a large ladle.

“It’s rabbit,” he told me—I assumed referring to the stew. “Someone get me a bowl,” he called into the kitchen, and a woman with her hair tied in a tight bun and net over her head took a bowl from a stack and handed it to him.

“You want bread?” he asked, but didn’t give me a chance to answer.

“Bread!” he shouted, and the same woman who had given him a bowl, walked into the pantry that Elise had shown to Selene and I, and returned with a small roll. He poured a few ladles of steaming stew into the bowl and handed it to me.

“Careful, it’ll be hot,” he warned as he shoved the roll towards me, and I managed to hold the bowl with one hand and take the roll with my other.

“Go sit in the servant dining room,” he ordered.

“Thanks?” I replied, confused by the whole interaction.

“You don’t know where the servant dining room is, do you?” he asked, and shook his head. “You’re new, I’ll forgive you,” he said, again speaking before I could reply.

He turned around to shout, but the woman who had answered him both previous times, stopped him.

“Give it a rest Daniel,” she said, chuckling, “You’re going to scare the girl.”

She smiled at me and stepped forward, taking the hot bowl from my hands.

“I’ll carry this for you, hun, and show you to our dining room,” she offered.

“Yeah, thank you,” I replied, grateful to have the hot bowl out of my hands. It was always a little chilly in the Ardens mansion, but the palm of my hand stung from the heat of the bowl.

I followed her out of the kitchen.

“Don’t pay any mind to Daniel. He takes his role too seriously. Thinks he’s better than the rest of us because he went to some fancy cooking school and gets paid more than most here. I’m Abigail,” she introduced herself.

“Percy,” I said, “Yeah, he was a bit intense. I worry what would have happened if I had said I was vegetarian.” I laughed.

Abigail laughed too. She was older than me—certainly out of her youth, but not old enough to feel like I was talking to my senior.

“He’d have burst a blood vessel. You’d have still left with rabbit stew.” We both laughed.

“The servant dining room is just down here,” she said. “Not far from the kitchen. You can get a meal here every morning from six until about eight, and then again in the afternoon—usually something cold like a sandwich—at around twelve. There’s no set time. If you turn up and there’s something left, it’s for the taking. If not, there’s another hot meal around four until about seven. Again, it’s first come, first serve. But if you miss a mealtime, you can grab something from the kitchen.

“Daniel’s loud and arrogant, but he won’t see any of us hungry. He’ll chew you out for messing with his kitchen, but it’s all show—got to remind us he’s in charge.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said as we entered a large room with lots of tables closely packed together, and longer tables that were mostly empty now apart from large jugs of water and juice and stacks of cups.

Abigail placed my bowl down.

“I’ll leave you to eat.”

“Thanks, Abigail. Before you go, what do you guys do around here for fun?” I asked.

At the castle, there were games rooms, a swimming pool, lounge spaces, open areas to bathe in the sun or picnic—so much for servants to do in their spare time. I assumed hidden in some dark, cold corner, the Ardens mansion hid similar spaces for the servants.

“Not much,” she sighed unhappily. “We mostly just work. Some of us go on hikes up the mountains when the weather is nicer. We take cakes and wine,” she smiled. “Otherwise, there isn’t much to do until we’re home. We work in shifts here. Six months of work followed by six back home. We don’t get much free time,” she explained.

“The servants don’t live here, with their families?” I asked, confused. I had assumed that Ardens Estate would be where the servants lived, like at Borealis Castle.

“Some do. Daniel’s got his wife with him, and he works full year. But most of us don’t. I’m a winter servant. The weather is harsh here, but it means my family doesn’t have to feed me during the worst of it, and I get to enjoy my summers. Why would you think we live here?” she asked, amused, as if the suggestion was absurd.

“The servants at the Borealis Castle—they live on the grounds. For generations. But not everyone is a servant. Some work outside of the Castle grounds in the King’s City, but they still live with their families on the grounds. Things are different there,” I said, my voice trailing off. I worried revealing my sadness.

“Really? Woah. I couldn’t imagine spending my whole life here!” she said, and it was obvious the thought of living within the Ardens mansion was not pleasant.

“Me neither,” I replied.

“Yeah,” Abigail said, almost solemnly, and I didn’t like the way she looked at me—like she felt sorry for me, like she thought I might be stuck here forever too.

“Listen, when the weather gets warm enough—before I head home—you’re more than welcome to come with me and a few of the girls on one of our boozy hikes,” she offered.

“Thanks, I’d like that,” I replied. But I doubted Selene would allow me. I wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol.

“I’ll see you around, flower girl,” Abigail said more cheerily, and I smiled and waved at her with my hand still holding my roll.

The room was empty then. Only me and my steaming bowl of stew.

It was only when I sat and looked down at the stew that I realised the lack of a spoon. I looked at the bread roll I held and wondered if I could use it to eat the stew. I really didn’t want to have to walk back to the kitchen to ask for a spoon. I felt an odd mix of apprehension at interrupting the kitchen’s work again —and embarrassment. It didn’t make much sense. What was embarrassing about needing to ask for spoon?

I decided that I was being ridiculous. I couldn’t eat the stew without a spoon, and I was hungry. Embarrassment was a poor excuse to not eat—and how rude would it be if I didn’t eat the stew and the untouched bowl was found later?

I stood from my chair, my nerves wrangled under logical control, and turned towards the door. As I did, three other servants entered the room. Their eyes were instantly fixed on me, and I was filled with a foreboding that made my stomach turn in something far from hunger.

It was the smile of the shortest of the three that scared me. It was eerily reminiscent of the Vouna guard—Rick. I remembered his face. I saw it sometimes in my dreams, only his smile was twisted high at the corners in my dreams, and Remy was lifeless, faceless, bloody, at his feet. I felt my heart race—so fast it was painful—and I clutched my hand to my chest.

“What do we have here?” The leader of the trio asked—‘leader’ because he stood slightly ahead of the two others flanking him. I felt bile rise up my throat and had to swallow down the urge to be sick. The large room felt suddenly smaller, like it had shrunk to only what was directly in front of me, and despite the cold, sweat made my hands clammy.

“A southern bitch,” the one to his right laughed. “Sorry, witch,” he corrected.

The Vouna guard to his left laughed obnoxiously loudly—for a joke that wasn’t even funny.

“W-what do you want?” I asked, surprised I could even find my voice but hating that I stuttered. I looked up, momentarily expecting to find Remy, with his hand on the stalk of a shotgun resting against his broad shoulders. I shook my head. I had almost felt his arm around me, pulling me close. But I wasn’t with my friend minutes before his death—I was in the servants’ dining room of the Ardens Estate. Still, something about the trio sent fear pulsing through my veins, like my life was in danger and there was no one to save me.

Rick laughed, his smile morphing to a sneer. “We want the north back,” he spat.

The look on my face must have conveyed my confusion as the leader explained, “Everyone knows you’re the cause of this famine. The reason for the collapse of House Vouna and the death of the true Marquess of Ardens. If it wasn’t for you twisting and manipulating the traitor Selene Borealis, the north would be strong and proud.”

There was a silence then, as if they were waiting for my response. But how was I meant to respond to that? There wasn’t any sense—or even a whiff of logic—in that vitriol. It was like they had decided that I was personally the cause of everything wrong they had experienced. And the absurdity of it—the nastiness emanating from them—somehow pulled me from the river side, plunging me into the cold dining room and the present.

“Are you going to blame me for going bald too?” I asked, finding my voice had strength again.

“What did you say?” the leader asked, screeching in anger.

“You heard me,” I challenged. I widened my stance slightly, mentally preparing for a fight. I wouldn’t go down easily—I decided then, with anger heating my veins.

I was the soul match of Princess Selene Borealis, the strongest vampire and woman in the kingdom. I was a flores witch, and we were more than flower girls—we were sustenance. We were life-givers. And I could do more than give life—I could take it too. I could fell entire groves.

I wasn’t weak. I wasn’t helpless. I didn’t need someone to save me.

Rick’s smile had completely left him, and he stepped forward menacingly—until his leader’s arm shot out to stop him.

“Are you going to let her speak to you like that?” he asked angrily of his leader.

“Of course not. But you got the last one. It’s not your turn to go first,” the leader responded. And without needing any further encouragement, the taller man to his right began to march eagerly towards me, crossing the room in what felt like an instant.

I had stumbled back a step, my hand skimming the edge of the hot stew bowl. As he met me, reaching out, I gripped the hot bowl—my fingers entering the scalding stew—and I swung the bowl and its contents as hard as I could against his head.

Brown, meaty stew covered his face, hair, and shoulders. Chunks and flakes of white ceramic scattered across the wooden floor. A large semi-circular sharp piece of the bowl remained in my hand.

He screamed and stumbled unsteadily away from me, falling to his knees, trying to wipe stew and blood from his eyes.

Rick was suddenly there, swinging a fist that connected with my jaw. It was hard, but it did not knock me down. It didn’t even hurt—it was more like I was aware that I had been hit rather than actually feeling the blow.

And then I was attacking him.

Attacking him with the broken bowl in my hand. Stabbing and slashing. The bowl cutting into my palm, but I didn’t care.

I would kill him. I would kill him for what he did. I would kill him killing Remy.

I didn’t even realise that I had taken him to the floor, that I had straddled his torso so I could stab the ceramic deeper into his chest and face. It was only when an arm encircled my waist and hauled me from the floor—until my legs dangled—and a hand ripped what was left of the bowl from my bloody fingers that I became aware of where I was again.

That I saw the man who had attacked me: bloody, broken, lifeless.

He hadn’t been that Vouna guard.

They didn’t even look similar—apart from sharing a smile.

But it had been him.

It had been.

Hadn’t it?

I saw the first man, moaning on the ground, a piece of bowl stuck in the side of his cheek, a pool of blood slowly forming.

The leader was nowhere.

He wasn’t in the dining room.

Had he fled?

Was he even there to begin with?

“Percy, what happened here?” Adamantia asked, shock evident in her voice.

I didn’t answer.

I didn’t know myself.

I felt heavy and disorientated.