My room was on the upper floor at the end of the west wing, literally as far from my father's apartments as he could place me without requiring me to sleep on a perch outside. Trina had a hot bath waiting for me there, and was putting the finishing touches of a warm meal on a table in my old room. It would've been easier to accept my punishment if that food had all the aroma of a barn floor, but sadly it didn't. Woodcourt cooks were second only to those who served Endrick and could spin delicacies from straw, if necessary. Trina curtsied to Gerald when he entered, like a proper handmaiden would, and when he acknowledged it, he said, "The lady's father has ordered that she is not to eat until she agrees to attend a supper with him tonight. You will enforce those orders with absolute strictness."
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sp; "Of course." A wicked smile crossed Trina's face. "It's a pity to see this lovely meal go to waste. I could eat it, I suppose. My lady hasn't fed me as well as she should have."
I exhaled a stiff breath, loud enough that if I were convicted of treason one day, at least Gerald would know I'd already been sufficiently punished.
"You may eat it, this once," Gerald said. "But remember she is your mistress, not the other way around."
In any other circumstance, Trina would've argued that. But now, she immediately sat down, attacking the food like it was her first meal in months. She must have been hungry, for most people outside the Dominion didn't like the spicy way we prepared our food, or the expense of the spices, perhaps. Gerald remained in the room long enough to assure himself that she wasn't going to share with me. If only he knew how unnecessary his concern was. Trina would lick the plate before letting me have a crumb.
I didn't care. Or, at least, I tried not to care. I spent most of the time pretending I couldn't hear the smack of her mouth as she ate, instead reacquainting myself with my old room. The walls had once been lined with golden fabrics, though I'd heard that Lord Endrick banned the use of gold cloth for anyone but himself. My other furnishings were still here: a bed, a writing desk, a reclining sofa--yet the things I'd cared most about were gone. On a shelf in the corner, the rock collection I'd spent years gathering had disappeared. An autumn leaf, plucked from a tree the day my mother died, was nowhere to be found. Whatever clothes I'd left behind when my father rushed me away were gone too, though that was understandable. I'd grown taller in the last three years. I'd grown up.
"The water will be cold by the time you get around to bathing me," I told Trina, who was finishing the last of the boiled meat on her plate.
"Probably."
"Let's do it now."
"Do it yourself, brat. I'm not your servant."
"Here at Woodcourt, you are."
She tossed her head upward, hard enough that I wondered if she'd cracked her neck. "I am superior to you, Kestra Dallisor, in ways you cannot imagine. I should be the one having a bath, not you."
"As you wish." I marched over to the large basin that had been placed in the center of my room. It was nearly full of water, and the soaps and rinse-water buckets were set out on a nearby stool.
I put a leg up on the edge of the basin, aware of Trina's eyes on me. By the time she realized what I intended to do, it was too late.
"Don't you dare!" she cried, leaping to her feet.
I pressed my foot down and with it came the entire basin. An avalanche of water splashed into the room, soaking everything on the floor and probably already leaking through the floorboards into the servants' quarters below.
"You are so clumsy today," I told Trina as I opened the door to my room, spilling even more water into the hallway. "Since you're my servant, why don't you clean up this mess and draw me a new bath? I'm going for a walk."
There would be consequences for what I'd done, no doubt. But whatever they were, as far as I was concerned, it was entirely worth it.
After a fair amount of searching, I finally found Kestra in the gardens behind Woodcourt, about the farthest she could run without leaving the gates. She was lucky it took so long to find her. Even a minute sooner, and I would've stormed in loud enough for the whole estate to hear.
She turned to see me, then folded her arms and faced away, suddenly fascinated by a nearby rosebush. She could try her best to ignore me, but it wouldn't work.
"It took every servant in the household to get that cleaned up!" I wasn't yelling, but my tone was just as harsh. "All that, because Trina wouldn't help you bathe?"
"Go away." She started to walk deeper into the gardens.
I crossed in front of her, refusing to let her escape so easily. "You are spoiled and selfish to the core. How dare you compromise our plan?"
"It's your plan!" She spat the words out, suddenly as angry as I was. "Not mine! None of this is what I want! I shouldn't be here."
"Well, you are, and you know the consequences if you try to betray us."
She snorted out a laugh. "The consequences to Darrow, who arranged a meeting for me with the Banished last night? Or the consequences to Celia? Tell me this. When did Celia first betray me?"
I stopped, unsure of how to answer. Kestra was not supposed to have figured this out.
In the face of my silence, she continued, "Celia sent a letter here, agreeing on my behalf to accept a marriage of alliance. That's why I was summoned back home. Not because anyone missed me, or cared about my well-being, or whether filthy Corack rebels abducted me on the way home to force me into treason!"
"Hush!" I did a quick survey of the area, then stepped closer.