Chosen By The Dragon Kings novel Chapter 8

The next morning, I was awakened by someone opening the door. A woman stands in the doorway. She looks to be around my age, but her skin is chafed like she spent a lot of time outdoors in the cold. Her blue eyes look at mine with curiosity before turning away.

“I’m Abigail, follow me please,” she says, looking at me before noticing Lilith who is also awake and alert to the newcomer. We quickly sit up and walk to the door. Peering out the door I notice Abigail was waiting at the end of the hall. She waves us to follow, which we do obligingly. She walks us to a large kitchen area where people are busy preparing food and cleaning dishes.

One thing I noticed was all their slaves are human or at least appear to be. The room is huge and modern looking, different from the rest of the castle’s traditional look. It has stainless steel appliances and black marble bench tops, a huge island bench sat in the middle with three women standing around it chopping different fruit and vegetables.

They look up when we enter, their eyes darting away before snapping back to mine. I see the woman in the middle nudge her friend and her brown eyes dart to mine widening, a huge grin lighting up her face. She has freckles and red hair that looks wild and untameable. “A Fae,” she whispers.

At her words, everyone in the room stops to look at Lilith and I. To which, Abigail clears her throat before speaking, her tone harsh. “Yes, the girl is a Fae, now get back to work and stop gawking,” she says, dismissing them as they hurriedly resume their tasks. Abigail hands both of us an apple before telling us to follow. We eat our apples while following behind her as she stops at the front of a huge cupboard in the hall. Opening the doors, I can tell it was a cleaning cupboard, with various chemicals on the shelves and mops and brooms along with a cleaning cart.

“You will both be cleaning the library at the front of the castle, when you're done with that come and see me for more work” she tells me, pushing a cart with cleaning supplies toward me and pointing us in the direction of the library.

I walk down the stone corridors towards the front of the castle, stopping when we finally find the room I noticed yesterday. Pushing the cart to the side, I grab out a cloth and some polish, as I hand a duster to Lilith and tell her to dust the blinds. I tidy up the desk surface before polishing the wood, which appears to be oak. Then, silently, I move to the mantle where I dust and polish. This continues for what feels like forever, so much wood and so many lamps. Lilith finished doing the blinds and was wiping over the lamps with a cloth while I started the bookshelves. I can’t help but notice most of the books were diaries and books on the different sorts of creatures roaming the earth.

I continue dusting the shelves before coming to the last one, where I find the entire bookshelf is full of books on Fae history. Most books on the origins of our people and our magic were destroyed after the war. Yet, there I stood, amazed at how many books they had. My grandmother had one book on our history which we always kept hidden but here, there were hundreds. I let my fingers skim over the leather-bound books that held the stories of my ancestors, when I hear someone clear their throat.

Turning around I see Matitus standing behind me, making me jump, my backside brushing up against the bookshelf. He is staring at the book my fingers were touching. His eyes darken as they move back to mine which makes my heart rate pick up and a chill crawls up my spine making me fight the urge to shiver under his deadly gaze.

“What were you doing?” he asks. I wanted to shrink under his hardened gaze.

“I was just looking, I didn’t mean to do anything,” I tell him, my heart skipping a beat. He nods before sitting at the desk. For the rest of the time, his eyes remain fixed on me, unmoving. As soon as I am done, Lilith and I rush hurriedly out of the room in search of Abigail.

Abigail escorts me to a bedroom upstairs while Lilith is left in the kitchen to help clean up. Abigail opens the door and reveals the same room I was in yesterday. She hands me a basket with all different cleaning supplies before walking out and retrieving some new linen and placing it on the chaise.