Page 16 of Fae Tithe (The Cursed Courts #1)

E leanor wore a silken gown in a walled courtyard full of roses.

The sickly, sweet scent filled her nostrils, turning her stomach.

Her gaze scanned the enclosure. Silent Manor Guards stood obscured amongst the shadows of the towering brambles.

They were inconspicuous, but she still felt the burn of their eyes.

Other human girls were also dressed in pastel dresses and spread throughout the area.

They would not make eye contact with Eleanor, and when she tried to start a conversation, they would lower and shake their heads.

I’m a bird in a gilded cage. She scowled to herself, pulling angrily at the stitches of her attempt at embroidery in her hands. First, they tell me I’m a guest, and then they lock me in a bedroom for two nights.

The small room she had been kept in was the most luxurious she had ever experienced.

Once she had awoken from her nap in the armchair, the bump on her head still aching, she had explored the room thoroughly.

The bed was plush, covered in a goose down quilt, and the carpet was velvet beneath her feet.

The room was cast in a cosy glow with a floating, illuminating orb.

Despite herself, she was amazed by the adjoining bathroom, featuring a carved stone bath and toilet.

Eleanor had noted there was no other door, concluding it was just for her to use.

She had come out of the ensuite, washed, with a towel wrapped around her.

Eleanor had found her saddlebags gone. A dress, silk slippers, and a faerie had taken their place.

I don’t understand. She glanced down at her wrist, where the red welt from the manacle had formed, but was now smooth and pink.

That faerie, they sent her in to use her magic to heal me, but they took my things and made me wear this Faedamn dress!

It also had not escaped Eleanor’s notice that the faerie had her wings clipped.

I saw that silver bracelet on her wrist, too.

It looked a bit like the manacle the captain made me wear.

Does it control her? Is it keeping her here?

I haven’t seen her type of faerie before.

Eleanor shifted uncomfortably in her seat, stomach turning as she thought of the ruined purple wings, hands tangled in her embroidery.

The silk dress that clung to her screamed against her skin, setting it on fire with irritation.

It was the finest thing she had ever worn, but it was stifling.

Eleanor longed for the linen shorts and cotton shirts of her summers. She even missed her school uniform.

Two of Eleanor’s fellow captives at the Tithe Manor sat at her wrought iron table in the courtyard.

They were also fussing with stitches and needles, refusing to meet her eyes.

At the opposite table sat three other girls, crocheting.

Another pair of teenage girls sat at a separate table at the far end of the courtyard, a golden vase between them, as they arranged roses plucked from the brambles.

All of them were eerily silent. The lack of noise sent a jolt of unease up Eleanor’s spine.

They were all human and young, like her.

I fucking hate embroidery, Eleanor screamed in her head.

The girls around her had been taken from the courtyard one by one to be interviewed. Each were returned to the group shivering and pale. Two had been brought back with terrified faces and rubbing their red, swollen hands. Then one had not been returned at all.

Eleanor ripped at the stitches protruding haphazardly from the round embroidery cloth, a scowl set on her face. She felt the hair rise on the back of her neck and snapped her head to the right.

“Governess!” she exclaimed, dropping her mangled project in shock.

The teenager had briefly met the Governess the day before.

The woman had appeared in her room while she slept, rousing Eleanor early in the morning and introducing herself.

The Governess had carried a tray of buttered toast and soft-boiled eggs in one hand, setting it on the mahogany bedside table.

She gave Eleanor the book she had been holding in her other hand, resting it on her lap as Eleanor sat up in bed.

She was insistent about that, that I should read it as soon as I could.

Eleanor had carefully inspected the leather cover.

The book creaked as she opened it, and she flicked through the pages.

It contained detailed information about Fae, Court Etiquette, and how to serve a Fae Lord.

By the time she had looked back up again, the Governess was gone.

The teenager had leapt up from the bed and jiggled the ornate brass door handle, finding it still locked.

Driven to tears by boredom, Eleanor had read the book cover to cover in one day.

“Miss Neycur,” the Governess greeted with a bob of her covered head, only her face visible.

Eleanor had spent enough years in Portson to recognise a faerie when she saw one.

Coming in a myriad of kinds, they all had an ethereal shimmer that set them apart from humans.

This woman, though, did not fit that description.

Her frame was too ordinary, her features too human.

When the Governess had come to fetch the other girls for their interviews, Eleanor had observed that she made no sound.

As the Governess drifted across the cobblestones, there was no swish of her skirt or scuff of a boot.

A chill had crept up the teenager’s spine throughout the day.

She had read in her schoolbooks about people who defied the orderly classifications the Fae had put in place.

Those individuals who could move without sound – Wraiths.

She looked slightly older than Eleanor’s mother, except for her eyes, which looked like they had seen too much over too many years to count.

“You must come with me now, please.”

Eleanor sighed, rolling her eyes. She glanced at her embroidery, abandoned on the table in front of her, and stood. The chair she pushed back scraped loudly over the herringbone red brick.

“Fine. Anything to get out of this ,” she said, scowling down at the wrecked material on the table.

“You do not like embroidery?” the Governess asked. Her long red skirt swirled silently as she turned on her heel.

Eleanor followed a step behind. “Honestly? I would rather put the sewing needle through my eye,” she bit back with venom.

“Enough of that sass,” tutted the Governess. “You must be on your best behaviour for your Interview, or it could be very bad for you.”

They entered the interior of Tithe Manor from the courtyard, passing through a trestle arch grown with rose briars.

The perfume of the blooms showering the pair as they crossed the threshold.

They walked down a red-and-gold-leaf hallway, the walls of which were lined with portraits of previous Kings and Fae Lords of the Seelie Court.

In between the paintings floated orbs of light, illuminating the way.

Fae Lights are a simple magic that all Fae can conjure and maintain passively.

All Fae – be they citizens, Lords, Seelie Lords, or the Seelie King – can weave them into existence.

Eleanor recalled what she had read in the book she received the day before, and she could not help but look at them in awe.

At the end of the opulent hallway, the Governess lightly tapped on an ornate red door, inlaid with gold leaf, weaving intricate patterns of roses and vines.

It was the only noise she had made since scolding Eleanor.

Behind the door, the teenager heard a muffled affirmative.

She watched as the woman, or Wraith, extended her thin hand and turned the dragon-head brass handle of the door. The Governess gestured her inside.

Eleanor met her gaze, ignoring the mounting fear in her belly. “Let me go home? Please?”

The Wraith offered her a sad smile. “I cannot. Please go inside.”

The teenager worried her lip, about to answer back with a negative, before she heard the very deliberate chink of armour shifting. In the corner of her eye, she saw the movement of two Manor Guards.

I didn’t even know they followed us.

Eleanor swallowed. She looked down at the silk slippers on her feet, missing her riding boots and the buckled bar shoes of her school uniform. The teenager took a deep breath. She set her eyes straight ahead and crossed the threshold.

In the Interview Room, a Fae man sat behind an elaborately carved, dark wooden desk.

Eleanor’s eyes tracked his long, extended arm that gestured to the oak chair opposite him.

Her silk slippers were silent over the red plush carpet as she made her way over to the desk, seating herself on the velvet cushion of the heavy matching chair.

Her toes just scraped the floor as her feet dangled.

Eleanor examined the Fae man’s face. She could not pick his age. Maybe he is in his thirties?

She knew that the rate at which Fae aged was drastically slower compared to humans – and some faeries – so really, she had no clue.

He was flawlessly handsome with straight lustrous black hair swept up into neat ponytail, his pointed ears particularly obvious due to the way his hair was pulled from his face.

His skin was tawny and glowed with good health.

Eleanor was distracted from taking in the Fae opposite her when the hairs on her arms prickled. She felt unseen eyes on her, and the lurking presence sent a chill up her spine.

“Who else is here?” she asked.

“We have an observer,” the black-haired Fae replied, gesturing a well-manicured hand to the right.

“Why?”

The Fae narrowed his gaze. “That is not your concern.”

Eleanor’s eyes followed the direction of his hand. She saw a huge figure lounging on a wide sofa. She could not make out any more, as the Fae lights had been dulled on that side of the room and the heavy velvet curtains were drawn.