Chapter 14: The Stag

The intimidating doors of the ballroom were flanked by two columns draped in gauzy gold fabric. That plucky string music spilled out, drawing the guests in.

At least Sasha was entering with a crowd. Isabelle was stationed at the door, hurriedly trying to announce the names of everyone who passed. Additional attention he didn’t need.

Alas, she caught him. He didn’t exactly blend in. “Sasha Neaux!”

So many heads turned. He immediately understood what had happened; she wrote ‘no’ as his surname, made it fancy. Sasha Neaux. Of all the ridiculous–

The thought was dashed from his mind when he stepped into the ballroom. He stopped in his tracks. Slowly, his helmet tilted up and up as he made sense of what he was looking at.

Hands down, the largest room he had ever seen, lit by thousands of tiny votive candles. So many elegantly dressed bodies already twirling and mingling in their light, so many servers dodging to pass around food and drink.

Wood everywhere: twiggy berry wreaths, bark table runners, humongous flowering branches suspended by wire overhead. Doves. Real doves flapping around overhead, roosting in the branches, the engraved emerald ceilings, the pillars that lined the room. Was that sanitary?

His unwieldy frame was causing a traffic jam. He stepped off to the side, a looming gargoyle, and found solace in front of a pillar atop which two doves were mating.

The solace did not last long.

“Since when do you have a last name?” Lark jangled slyly up to ask. “Since when is it Neaux?”

“It’s not,” Sasha replied. “Are you okay?”

“After one more drink, sure. Why?”

“You’re in chains, Lark.”

“Ah.” Lark jangled again, made a sour face. “That tree fucker, Nathair, got Hel on my case. I thought the stocks were punishment enough, but he claims I enjoyed them too much…I was tired of walking, to be fair.”

“I met him,” Sasha said. Predator. “I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

“Like I’m a tasty treat?”

“If he approaches you again, find me.”

There it was, Lark’s squinty eye. “Well – hang on there, prince charming. First of all, un-clench. Second, I am a grown man. Save the heroics for your damsel.”

Right. Sasha knew who that was now. “Maeve.”

“Ooh. Interesting choice. But how does that work with your…y’know, your, um –”

“The ‘damsel,’” he cut in. He didn’t know where that sentence was going, nor did he want to. “It’s Maeve.”

Lark gasped so loud he startled a passing server. “Get out!”

“Quiet.”

“Sasha – what?”

Sasha ushered him behind the pillar, away from curious ears. “She wrote the note,” he said, quietly. “Doesn’t remember writing it. I’m meeting her here.”

“That’s…” Lark’s face scrunched. “…convenient. How do you know she’s not having you on? Malmuir is full of actors, some better than others.”

“She wasn’t acting. I could smell her fear.”

“Ew. Can you smell mine?”

Sasha dragged Lark back around the pillar to survey the ballroom. “Help me look.”

Lark wriggled free with another sad jingle. “They’ll have my balls in a box if I don’t perform. Just…sniff her out, or whatever.”

“All I smell is your perfume.”

Lark ignored that, blew an even sloppier kiss than the first – he needed to stop; people stared every time – and disappeared into the crowd as they prepped for a dance.

One hour of lurking later, Maeve finally slunk in. Being ‘fashionably late’ was a thing in Malmuir. The queen hadn’t even arrived yet. What was the point of missing your own party?

No matter. Maeve was there in full lavender getup, not a hair out of place. Her skin looked sallow under the makeup, though, like she hadn’t slept.

She drifted to the sidelines. Sasha drifted with her.

She looked surprised to see him. “Savior,” she said with a small curtsy. He wished they would stop calling him that.

“Why did you write the note?” he asked. Right to the chase.

“Note?” She blinked. “What note?”

“On the invitation.” Once this was over, he would never say ‘invitation’ again. “In milk.” Or ‘milk.’

“I…don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You told me to meet you here. You were frightened.”

She swayed back a step, shoulders hunching. Her forehead wrinkled, and her lacquered fingers came to press down on her temples, hard. “Please stop.”

“It’s all right,” he said calmly. “I can help. Just tell me why–”

Then she screamed – a frustrated, piercing, horrid sound. The music screeched to a halt. The dancing faltered. Across the ballroom on a table, Lark was frozen mid-split.

Sasha backed away from Maeve as she crashed to her knees, now clutching her head. “Make it stop,” she pleaded. “Make it stop, make it stop, make it–”

Isabelle swooped in, the picture of composure. She got Maeve back on her feet, murmuring sweet and soothing reassurances in her ear.

Sasha was at a loss. “Is she–”

“Have you never had a headache, savior?” Isabelle snapped. “She needs rest. Nothing more.”

They left the party in a hurry. Sasha followed that time from afar, but Isabelle – true to her word – only brought Maeve to the floor above his and put her to bed.

Back to square one. Tomorrow for sure, he would check out the barn and the kitchens, question the servants who worked them. Someone was clearly hurting Maeve. He would help her.

Like tracking monsters in Sculpin, all he had to do was find where the trail began.

༻❁༺

Sasha returned to his quarters to find the door unlocked. Whoever unlocked it wasn’t in there anymore, but they left behind a gift, a note, and turned down his bed. Chocolate on the pillows. Why?

The gift was a polished steel helm that had been crafted to resemble the head of a stag. The only cutouts were around the eyes, two almond-shaped slits, and the snout. The antlers were made of solid gold.

How gaudy. He picked up the note. If it was another cry for help, he was fully committed to stuffing it in his mouth and swallowing it whole.

Dearest Savior,
The pintail celebration is in two days’ time. Every guest is required to don the face of an animal. I present you this in lieu of a mask, for I know you prefer to remain hidden.
The stag is a noble beast that symbolizes sacrifice and…

To expedite, the note wasn’t a cry for help. It was from the queen and went on to talk about the noble worth of stags. Sasha didn’t eat it, but he did crumple it up and toss it in the bin.

Later that night, there came a knock on his door. He was reading a dusty old book from one of the shelves in his room, something about fairy rules, and occasionally glaring at the stag.

He contemplated not answering at first – when the person outside loudly booed and kicked the door, he stood and stuck his helmet on (the normal one) with a grumble.

It was Lark, no surprise there. In one hand he had a large bottle of red, in the other a gold knight’s helmet with a sliding visor. The shackles were gone.

“Nice scene you made,” he said by way of greeting. He sloshed into the room, sounding like he’d just crawled out of that bottle. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

“Come right in,” Sasha muttered, closing and locking the door.

“Don’t be like that. I brought gifts.”

“I have enough helmets.”

Lark dropped the bottle on the rug with a cringeworthy thunk and fumbled with the gold one he came in with.

“But this,” he said, offering it up with both hands like it was some rare treasure, “is a drinking helmet. See? Easy access, smooth bottle-to-mouth action. Also, we’re getting drunk. Er.”

It took a lot of convincing. Eventually, they reached a truce: if they blew out all the candles except one, drew all the curtains, and sat back-to-back, Sasha would have a sip.

But the wine felt nice on the way down, warm and floaty under his skin. The tension he’d felt upon switching helmets released with every breath, dissipating into the sticky night air.

Normally, with a human sitting close enough to rest against their back against his, he would be on edge…but Lark’s was a steady, grounding weight. It kept him from floating away.

Sip after sip. Sasha’s claws were cramped. He unclasped his gauntlets and removed his gloves to stretch them out. A small gesture, but he felt Lark’s breath hitch all the same.

He could only hope Lark wouldn’t steal a sneaky peek. And credit where credit was due; Lark didn’t even try. They remained seated like that, back-to-back with neither so much as glancing at the other, long into the night.

They spoke, of course. About a great many things: Maeve, the note, the creepy stag. Lark gave some insight into the strange dynamic between himself, Tamsin, and ‘Hel’ – what he called the queen. They became adults under the same roof. Once upon a time, they were friends.

When Tamsin and Lark first moved in, which they did together at the impressionable age of fifteen, Tamsin and Hel took to each like moths to flame. Lark was their third wheel, a weak one if you asked Hel. She thought he weighed Tamsin down.

This three-way deteriorated two years ago, right after King Kerr, Hel’s beloved father, passed. Heart attack. Rumors of cannibalism in the countryside were swirling, crops were dying, and the nobles were getting restless. They believed Hel was too green to rule.

Shortly after, the elves came into play. Nobody liked that. And the crops suddenly flourished. No one knew how. More rumors circulated, that she was using the cremated remains of their dead to make them grow. She was in a precarious spot and needed support.

Lark cracked a stupid joke at the banquet she held to officially announce the alliance with the elves and curry the nobles’ favor by serving more food than they had seen in years. His exact words were, ‘I’d toast the queen next, but she’s far too rich.’

Everyone but the queen laughed. The next night, Isabelle handed Lark a bundle of parchment at supper – pages of alliteration, lines Hel knew he practiced daily and had never quite mastered. Until then, only a precious few were aware of his impediment.

Everyone, including the queen, laughed as he stumbled through the lines – nerves always made it harder to control. The court’s treatment of him steadily declined over the next two years, fueled by Hel’s own contempt.

Before, he had been like a son to her father. He used to make Hel’s younger half-sister, Hyssop, laugh so hard milk came out of her nose (Hyssop was a whole other thing, he said when Sasha asked, but she was long gone).

Now, his station was level with that of a servant’s. Hel moved him to the top floor of the northern tower, took his nice bed and all his pretty things away. He wasn’t even allowed to crack jokes anymore.

The story got waylaid there. Lark reached for the bottle to drown his sorrows right when Sasha, hating what he was hearing, moved to do the same. They both froze when soft hand met callused claw around its neck.

Save a single candle, the room was dark. The curtains were shut.

Just them. No one else.

Sasha forced himself not to jerk away. His let his hand linger, and Lark – still without turning to look – cautiously started to explore. Neither spoke, holding their breath.

As Lark’s cool, clammy fingers traced a path along Sasha’s rough grey skin, hellishly hot black veins, and filed black talons, Sasha felt a flicker of something new. Vulnerability.

He didn’t mind, did he? Not when it was like this, slow, deliberate. Not when it was Lark.

After a quiet minute, Lark gently slid out. He returned his hand to his lap, rested the back of his head against the back of Sasha’s. He released a contented sigh.

“I said it when we met, and I’ll say it again,” he murmured, wine knocking his words together. “I’m glad to know you, Sasha.”

“I…” Sasha’s mouth had gone dry. He swallowed thickly, tried again. “I think I’m glad to be known by you.”