Chapter 1
The washwater was warm, warmer than it had ever been when she took a bath, being youngest of two girls and fifth of eight in birth order. but Saffir was the chosen for today’s presentation, as well as every other day of Aeryn’s short life. Saffir was only a year older, but for all that she lorded it over her younger sister, she may as well have been first in the birth order. Aeryn scrubbed the perfect, milky skinned back just a little harder.
“Quit yer struggling, girl, ’tis only soap and a brush.”
“Aye, and half my skin’s scraped off on’t.” The girl complained as she writhed in the wash tub.
“Yer only a little pink, is all.”
Their mother came into the room and laid down a dress: the good dress, the dress that Aeryn could only ever hope to be married in, it was here, and it was going on Saffir’s back, not hers. There were no regrets for her earlier actions as she saw the overscrubbing leave pink lines all over her sister’s back. A small bit for vengeance, but it was all she had.
The dogs started barking outside, not the way they did when a cat was among them, but in the inane and repetitive way they used when excited about strangers on the homestead.
“Go!” Her mother ordered, “Go see t’the kingsmen, I’ll take care of Saffir.”
How that differed from any other day, Aeryn couldn’t say, but she went to greet their guests anyway.
She pulled the curtain that bisected their main living area shut behind her, walked past the kitchen and out the door that creaked even in wet springtime. Five men were placed around a cart of some kind, two atop it and the other three looking smart and regal in their bright yellow jackets and tall black cylindrical hats. Their belts bristled with sabers and gleaming, well oiled crossbows peeked out from behind their shoulders, securely strapped across their backs.
The last two men were consulting together, and Aeryn noticed a strange bronze colored tube that curved around to where the driver usually sat, a large book rested on the seat, and the smaller of the two looked older, a large, grey mustachio with waxed tips leaping up and down with every word spoken to his companion.
She looked to the other man and noticed row after row of burnished shapes and symbols adorning a dark sash that he wore across his chest. The dark field let her see every honor, where they would have been hidden in the colors of the rest of his uniform. These were the newly minted kingsmen, and they were here to find a handmaiden for the equally new princess, and they had chosen to look here, in the Outskirts of all places, cursed to cats, prone to plague, and out at the furthest fringes of Kingsgrove.
The shining one that she had been looking at gave her a glance and she curtsied her best, the way she did when she and her brothers were play acting at being high lords and ladies and imagined that was how the nobility did it, she had no other point of reference. A glance to her left showed that BROTHER 1 AND BROTHER 3 were gawking near open mouthed at both her and the kingsmen until she hissed a warning at them and they were bowing, their form the same play version she had used.
“Yer...lawdsheps?” Aeryn ventured, not knowing what title to use. “Welc’me ta our ’umble ’omestead, ’ow kin we serve ye?”
“At least I can understand this one.” Shining man said, getting down from his cart and walking toward Aeryn, ignoring her brothers and every scrap of their Outskirts protocol that one followed when visiting a homestead. Father then eldest son to youngest of ten or older, if none of those were near the house, then you could speak to a wife or daughter, but not otherwise.
BROTHER 1 AND 3 looked like they’d been smacked with a sheaf of rotted flax, but kept their tongues inside their fool heads anyway, instead of making things worse for her.
“I’d like to see and speak with all the good and fine ladies of this homestead, if it please you.”
If it please me? Aeryn thought, incredulous. Who was this man, and why didn’t he know how anything worked.
“All git ’m, lawdshep.” Aeryn nodded, before rushing back to the house, where Mother was buttoning up the last catch on the ‘good’ dress and Saffir’s hair was spun into its last curling fall. “‘E wants ta sees ‘s” she hissed at them, “alluvus ‘foin ladees’ ’e sez”
“Alluvus?” Her mother echoed, sounding worried.
“Alluvus.” Aeryn confirmed.
So there she stood, looking like a field in blight next to Saffir, their mother beside her wringing her hands with worry, kingsmen didn’t come out this far, and now that they had once, they might come again, and who knew what that would mean for them, fair or ill.
“Thees’r m’dottrs, lawdshep.” Mother said, clearly wishing Father and BROTHER 2 hadn’t decided to check the far cat traps at the homestead edge on today of all days.
Shining man gave Aeryn a quick glance, then all his attention was focused on Saffir, asking her how many summers she had, what her skills were, and her answers were the endless litany of things that Saffir bested Aeryn at simply by existing.
All but one.
“Mum,” she whispered, “where’re our dogs?”
Her mother looked back, her eyes round, but she shook her head ever so slightly.
Don’t, read the warning, don’t you dare.
If she did not, there would be much more at stake than a position inside the castle, much as they would have enjoyed the money paid out by the Crown to purchase that extent of indenture.
“’Ave’ta,” she said, before interrupting Saffir and the Shining Man’s courting season. “Pardin, Lawdshep, ’ave’ta git a bit ‘o’a’thin’.” Then promptly spun and walked towards one of their scattered barns. The same excuses came from BROTHERS 1 AND 3 as they bolted to the barns left and right of the one she was after, Aeryn heard her brothers’ footsteps followed by the heavier stomp of the kingsmen, thinking some foul play was afoot.
She hoped they were wrong, but the wretched cry from inside told her otherwise. The half door was askew, a trail of blood from the grazing field leading all the way back to it. Was it one of the dogs, or one from their herd?
She kicked the door and slid in quietly against the wall, using the motion of the swinging wood as a distraction in case anything dangerous lay in wait.
It did. A quick whoosh of air followed by a crash and then a layer of filthy golden fur now covered the door, splintering cracks sounding as razor claws and strong teeth attacked the wood in a kill pounce.
Cat musk, thick and rank, filled her nostrils. So strong that it nearly covered the other scents of blood and spilled offal in the close space.
One of the dogs lay twitching weakly as blood spurt from a gaping wound in its neck. Next to it, the corpse of a goat, or maybe a sheep, she wasn’t sure anymore, lay ripped apart, fur and bones and organs mixing with the straw and rushes strewn across the floor.
Then the splintering stopped, and she saw that great golden head slowly turn toward her, yellow eyes fixed as its ears pricked and tail twitched, a bad sign if ever there was one. This cat wasn’t afraid, this cat wanted to hunt, and she was easy prey.
Or would be, if she hadn’t been through this at least once a moon since she was old enough to remember.
Hands scrabbled by touch up the wall, never looking away from those shining yellow eyes, slit pupils so large now that they were almost black.
Then Aeryn felt her fingers close over a familiar surface. Wood worn with use and slick with the sweat of her palms. She swung her arm around right as the cat coiled its massive haunches and pounced.
She could never bring herself to remember how fast they moved, even after seeing it time and time again. First it was crouched, then, in the air, its fangs and claws surrounding her. The filthy sharp tips reached impossibly far in any direction she could flee, blocking her in.
But Aeryn wasn’t fleeing. The device kicked in her hand as she tripped the mechanism, the butt slamming against her hip. It would leave a wicked bruise later, if there was a later. Then the breath was torn from her as Aeryn's world tilted and collapsed. The cat had closed in on her, ready to rip out her throat and feast. Aeryn swung her arms up to cover her neck and folded into a ball, trying to defend herself even as the roar shook her to the marrow and hooked claw tips ripped through cloth and skin to the blood and fat beneath. She gasped in pain, knowing this for her end, the same as SISTER 3 AND BROTHER 4, but instead of the the ripping gouges that would drain the blood from her body and hopefully kill her before it had a chance to start eating, the claws retracted, pulling from the rents in her body. Then the full weight of the cat collapsed on her, pressing rancid fur against her face and into her nose and mouth.
She tried to push away, to scream, but every exhaled breath cost her ground as the slack body crushed downward, inexorably suffocating her the same as sucking down lake water. One futile, fought-for breath as red lights from inside her own head flashed against her backs of her eyes, and then the smell of musk and blood faded, and only the darkness remained.
