One Day More - a Sartorias-deles fanfic

Chapter 11

Her mother had asked her so many questions about her time in the library, but Iris refused to answer them...at least for the first day.  Cassiopeia secured her in her bedroom, the door only locking from the outside.  It was not challenging to understand the tactic—if Iris would not speak, she would not leave.  Which meant she would not eat or drink, either.  Iris had resisted the temptation to beg for escape for over a day until her roaring stomach and dizzy head told her she could do so no longer.  When Iris had spoken her acquiescence, Cassiopeia opened the door and escorted her to their small eating table.

On any other day, Iris might have thought the provided portion no more than an average meal, but right now, it looked as delectable as a feast.  She sat down and started cutting through a piece of meat.

"How was your time with him?"

"Pleasant.  We laughed." Iris paused to chew and swallow. "We share the same favorite novel."

"How nice," Cassiopeia said, although her tone was unamused. "How did you enter?"

"Enda walked with me into the residence then left me in a hall that seemed sparsely traveled.  Alaraec took me down a servants' passage after that to the library.  I haven't seen so many books in all my years combined.  It was...unbelievable."

"A hidden passage?"

Iris hesitated.

"Do tell me more, daughter."

"He...opened a wall." Iris struggled to find a proper explanation for the sight. "I don't know how."

"Interesting." Cassiopeia scratched at the back of her wrist, a subconscious habit Iris had never understood. "So you spent the entire time in the library?"

"Yes.  Besides when it came time for me to leave." She stuffed a forkful of peas into her mouth.

"Smaller bites, Iris," her mother said, sounding exasperated. "How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Does it matter so much when I am with my family?"

"It always matters.  Appearances are very important.  You never know when a knock might disrupt a dinner."

You probably would not like, then, that I was shoeless with Raec.  And that I tripped and fell on the floor, Iris thought.

"How did you leave?" Cassiopeia continued.

"Through the same passageway.  Partly.  We took a different turn and eventually exited in the courtyard."

"So there's a passage that leads outside?" Iris did not like Cassiopeia's tone.

"I suppose.  But I could not find it again."  I was too enamored by the prince.

"You must try.  Get the prince to take you through it again.  Then...mark it with something."

"Why?  Any mark would be noticed." She finished the food on her plate and reached for the goblet of wine sitting beside it.  She would have preferred water, but her parched throat hardly cared at the moment.  In the time it took for her to swallow half the liquid, Cassiopeia left the room and returned, holding what resembled a quill in her hand.

The feather itself was black, yet when Cassiopeia twirled it between her fingertips, the fine fibers refracted blue and green. The shaft was the same color-shifting black; Iris found herself both mesmerized and repelled at once.  The color of that quill was unnatural, and she lost her appetite.

"It will not be noticed if you use this." Cassiopeia held the writing tool out toward Iris. "Take it."

"I don't think I want to."

Sighing, exasperated, Cassiopeia took Iris's hand and dropped the quill into it. Iris felt a peculiar tingle prickle her fingertips. Dread filled her belly, and for a moment, she worried she was going to be sick. "Is this...enchanted?"

"Prick your finger with the tip."

Knowing resistance was futile, Iris did so with a grimace.  Blood formed in a little ball at the top of her finger.  She gasped at what she witnessed.  The quill's point seemed to suck in her blood, and the shaft darkened.  Every time more blood leaked to the surface of her fingertip, the quill drew it away and into its once hollow shaft, which turned a murky red with her blood.  Iris blanched. "What is this...this sorcery?"

Cassiopeia snatched away the quill and twirled it before Iris's eyes. "This, my daughter, is the key.  A mark written with this pen can only be seen by those who share the same blood."

"You and Father."

"Indeed."

"But...why?  I don't understand."

"There is so little you do seem to understand," Cassiopeia snapped. "It is not of your concern."

"Everything regarding Raec is my concern."

"Raec, is it?"

Iris's hands went around her upper arms, her voice quieting. "He asked me to call him 'Raec.'"

"Good!  That is very good!  You're growing closer to him.  This is going exactly according to plan." Cassiopeia squeezed her daughter's shoulder. "I am very proud of you."

"Proud?" That was a term Iris had never heard leave her mother's lips.  She did want to please her mother; it was all Iris had ever wanted—her parents' approval.  Iris did everything they ever asked of her, even when she had no desire to do so.  She had trusted them because they were her parents.

But they had never loved her. She knew that now. They saw her as a means to an end.

Did she even know what love was?  Iris knew for a fact it little resembled the stories in the novels she read, but the nonfiction books hardly touched on love.  Marriages were matters of convenience, not matters of the heart.

"You are doing well," Cassiopeia said. "Just trust that your father and I have your best wishes in mind."

"I don't believe you anymore," Iris responded. "I'm not as gullible as I once was.  Father hurt me.  And that man he hired to be my brother hurt me.  How is that acceptable to you?  How could you let it happen?"

"We all have our place in this realm," Cassiopeia said. "You are no exception, even if it may take force to make you see it."

"I don't believe my place is one in which I am destined to be used as your pawn—as a weapon against Alaraec," Iris challenged.

"Bite your tongue, girl.  Remember, I am the only reason you have this roof over your head, and I can take it away from you."

Iris whimpered without meaning to at the venom in Cassiopeia's tone.

"Wipe your tears"—had she been crying?—"and clean yourself up.  Those puffy eyes of yours are unseemly."

Iris sniffled and took a deep breath, wondering what she had done in life to deserve a fate such as this. "Yes, Mother."