Ky
wet her lips, careful to avoid making direct eye contact. Makata stood
uncomfortably close to her right side. He was near enough Ky could see the
subtle way the fabric surrounding the button-holes on his tunic strained
against his large girth. Aleth was a step away on the left.
“Go on, then,” Makata ordered. “Carry the
chest for Lord Klev.”
“Yes,
sir.” Ky made her voice as deep as possible, ducking her head as she stepped
nearer the carriage. She looked the chest over, wondering how she was ever
going to manage to lift it. It looked like it was made of solid wood, and
probably weighed twice as much as she did herself.
“I’ll
show you the way,” Aleth said.
Ky
looked at him. He had also stepped forward and was standing just in front of
her, within arm’s reach. He was tall enough to look down on her, but her build
was slight enough that that was true of most men. He had thick brown hair that
swept to the right and flipped out on a partial curl on the side, and a thick
goatee that surrounded his mouth but didn’t extend up his jawline. His green
eyes were harsh behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles.
“Yes,
sir,” Ky said again, stepping forward to grab the chest. She turned slightly
away from it and grabbed the leather thongs, gritting her teeth as she hefted
the chest onto her back. It was so long it nearly dragged on the ground behind
her, forcing her to bend forward slightly to keep it in the air, using her core
to support the burden. She staggered under the weight, trying to catch her
balance.
“Got
it?”
“Yes,
sir,” Ky grunted, not entirely sure if she had it or not.
“Good.”
Aleth turned away and started leading the way into the castle.
Ky
felt her legs start to buckle. She forced herself to take a deep breath,
focusing on planting each step firmly as she struggled up each step that led to
the landing, legs burning with exertion. She swallowed hard as she tottered
after Aleth into the palace, desperately hoping that he was staying on the
first floor. Aleth turned down the first hallway to the right, slowing his pace
slightly.
“What’s
your name, boy?” Aleth questioned.
“Ky,
sir.”
“Ky?
What’s that short for?”
“Kyber,
sir,” she answered, the lie flowing swiftly off her tongue after so many years
of repeating it. It was beginning to feel more like her name than her real
name, at this point. She stared at the tiles beneath their feet, breaths
starting to come in puffs as she walked.
“Kyber…?”
Aleth prompted.
Ky
hesitated. She didn’t like how inquisitive he was. People in the Mountains
didn’t go by last names. There were so few people in her town that they all
just agreed that only one living person should have the same name at any given
point – she was the only Ky, Talia was the only Talia, Myrond was the only
Myrond. It made more sense to do it that way, rather than call two people by
the same name and tack a second name on to everyone. That was just silly.
Father
had been a Merchant in the City before he settled in their township, however,
and she’d seen on his ledgers that he once had a second name. She adopted it
when she came to the Castle and people started asking her second name, but it never
seemed quite as natural to lie about as Kyber. “Ruirac, sir.”
“Kyber
Ruirac,” Aleth repeated slowly. He walked up a narrow staircase, stopping
briefly to let her catch up. Her thighs felt like they were on fire, arms
trembling with the exertion of keeping the chest hefted in the air. “That
sounds like a name from one of the southern Tribes. Your people from the
Plains?”
Ky
turned her head to glare at him suspiciously, the weight of the chest suddenly
not taking up quite so much of her attention as he led her down several winding
corridors. She definitely didn’t like his interest. When she’d first come to
the City, she resented how little attention the high-born people paid to their
help staff. She’d long-since accepted that as a servant she was virtually
invisible to royals, and had come to relish the anonymity that came with her
position. The fact that Aleth cared to ask so much about her didn’t bode well.
And
yet, she knew as well as he did, that she wasn’t allowed to ignore a direct
question from him any more than she was allowed to refuse to carry this massive
chest up to his room. “Mountains, sir.”
He
turned and met her gaze with a challenging look in his eyes. “How far back?”
“We
got roots as deep as the mountains themselves, I reckon.” It was mostly true.
Mama’s family had been living in the mountains of Lytias for as many
generations as anyone could recount. And it was easier to claim her late
mother’s lineage, than to explain her Father’s saga of moving to their township
after falling in love with Mama. Ky dropped her gaze back to the floor. There
was no point in picking a fight, despite how much she desperately wished he’d
stop asking questions. “Sir.”
“I
see… it’s this room,” Aleth stopped and pushed the door just to the right open.
She stumbled in after him and gratefully set the chest down by the window where
he gestured. “Get the spurs out. They should be near the left.”
“Yes,
sir.” Ky dropped to her knees and un-did the leather thongs holding the chest
closed tight. She opened the lid and began digging through the items within,
jaw set and shoulders still heaving, forcing her face to be carefully devoid of
emotion.
The
chest was filled with standard items – clothes, some books and writing
utensils, a few pairs of shoes. She forced herself not to shy away from
touching his undergarments to move them out of the way. She’d been wearing male
underpants ever since taking her post in the stables, but somehow touching another
man’s underpants still disturbed her now as much as it had back when she’d been
allowed to be a girl.
A
moment later she found the spurs he’d asked for. She turned, holding them out
to him as she started to rise to her feet. He put his hand on her shoulder,
forcing her to stay on her knees, and stepped uncomfortably close to her.
“Actually,
could you be a dear?” He put his left foot on the edge of the chest, directly
in front of her face, hand still planted on her shoulder firmly. His crotch was
mere inches from her face, entire presence dominating and looming over her. She
set her jaw again and pushed one of the spurs onto the heel of his boot,
cinching it in place.
He
put his other hand on her left shoulder, stepping across her with his left leg.
He straddled her a moment too long, then propped his right foot up on the edge
of the crate, still holding on to her and looming too close. She decidedly
refused to acknowledge how near he stood, instead keeping her gaze on the spur
as she cinched this one on as quickly as possible.
“Thank
you, Ky.” Aleth put his foot down on the ground, then bent and pulled Ky to her
feet. Her breath caught as she found herself staring up into his face, body
inches from his. He had his hands wrapped around each of her upper arms,
holding her in place directly in front of him, as his eyes flicked across her
face.
It
would be rude to pull away from him, and yet she wanted nothing more than to do
just that. She longed to yank free and run away. She swallowed hard. He leaned
in close to hear ear, breath tickling her neck as he whispered. “I’ll see you
after the ride, Ky.”
Suddenly
he released her. Ky stumbled backward, wetting her lips, staring at him in a
stunned silence. He looked at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read. His
gaze almost seemed hungry as he looked her over. She’d seen that expression on
Makata’s face once, when he was with a girl from his harem. But she’d never
been on the receiving end of that gaze.
“Sir,”
Ky said, turning and opening the door to the room. She slipped into the hall
and closed the door behind her, starting back the way she’d come from quickly,
before he could change his mind and call her back.
She hurried down the flight of stairs and walked back out into the
courtyard. She stepped down from the ledge right as she heard the palace doors
open behind her, Aleth’s spurs clinking as he walked. She took a deep breath
and took the reins to Aleth’s carriage from Tadaaki, refusing to meet his gaze
as carefully as she avoided Aleth’s and Makata’s gazes. She briskly walked the
horses and carriage towards the stables without looking up from the cobblestone
under her feet.
Finally, things were returning to the way they should have been.
She could have tended to the horses while Aleth’s coachman had
hauled the chest up to the room. He was easily three- or four-times Ky’s size.
It would have been easier for him to handle the weight, and it would have
avoided her the awkward one-on-one time with Aleth. She was grateful to be back
to the horses – she knew how to keep them from becoming dangerous to her.
Ky hurried around the corner to the stable, leaving behind nobles
in the courtyard, before either of them thought of a reason to call her back. She
hoped they took a long ride. A long, long ride.
ew
Points: 14090
Reviews: 351
Donate