Her Cinder Throne (Completed)

Chapter 17

Bastian did not reappear the next morning for any of his meals or for the court session. The girls were forced to attend all his functions since they were his servants, even though he never stepped out of his bedchamber. They watched as his father sat on his throne in the audience chamber and listened to the grievances of rich landowners who bickered over property lines. Cole searched for any sign of concern on the king's face that his son was so badly injured that he could not leave bed. But there was not even the smallest wrinkle out of place along his brow.

The king of Soma was a tall man slightly padded with the softness of good food, but also boasting hard muscles underneath that could endure battles and make him a formidable opponent in a fight. He was not a handsome man, with blonde hair that seemed to nearly blend in with his skin, and watery green eyes that drooped at the ends. All the features that were uncommon and pleasing on his son, looked wrong and awkward on his own face. The plush lips were too large for his face and the high cheekbones shadowed his eyes. He looked altogether unpleasant, and all Cole saw when she looked at him was the flash in his eyes as he slammed the metal belt into Bastian's back.

As the king listened to a baron complaining of improper drainage in his pastures, Cole glanced at her fellow servants tucked away in the shadows and keeping their eyes respectfully trained on the ground. Their subordination was as obvious on their hunched shoulders and tightly folded hands as if it had been drawn on to them in ink. Everyone in the room was higher than the servants, and whatever they wanted to do to the women and men dressed in plain woolen garments would be fair game.

Cole's eyes landed on Meegan and Dia, and the rest of the girls. How many times had they broken a rule or had an accident like Adrie had? Had Bastian saved them from whippings that might have broken them? Wounds like the ones she'd seen on Bastian's back would put a servant out of work for days, which would surely lead to being dismissed.

Her jaw tightened as she tried to figure out this prince. He was no one she wanted to pity or see anything good in, but she struggled to find what nefarious purpose sparing his servants whippings could bring. Of course, it could be a case of being too spineless to dish out the punishments himself, but then again was it spineless to not want to injure another human?

Cole shook her head to rid herself of the thoughts. She had a job to do and her mother to save. One good deed by a prince who ruined so many lives could never be enough to make his life worth more than her mother's.

As she shifted her weight to get more comfortable for however much longer the court would last, she glanced up at the dias where King Thijs sat on his throne and saw that his watery eyes had landed on her. They were almost marbles in his skull, cold and glassy, and Cole could think of nothing more than the blank gaze of dead fish rotting in the sun. She almost felt as if his gaze was boring into her, ferreting around in her thoughts and searching... searching... searching for something hidden.

Heart pumping against her ribs, she dropped her gaze as all servants should, and shuffled so that Meegan stood in front of her. Seconds felt like hours as she held her gaze fixed on the flagstones and the plain boots of the servants around her. Her breath yanked in and out of her lungs, until she was sure that everyone in the audience chamber would be drowned out by its noise. The king would surely come down from his dias, searching for the girl with shaved hair and breathing that betrayed the secrets she was hiding.