Lord Elan woke slowly and fixed her with a long, flat stare once he realized who’d been calling his name. He ordered her to help him dress, to fix his hair, and he ran a critical hand over his chin before turning away from the mirror. “Tell them I’ll be down for breakfast soon,” he added, dismissing her.

His voice was cold, devoid of the fury he’d shown last night. As Jae hurried to the kitchen, she realized she trusted that even less than anger. Anger came with punishment, but coldness was calculating. A mask that covered everything else as he figured out what to do with her.

Elan didn’t even look at her as she served breakfast. He just drank his morning tea and nodded politely at the subdued breakfast discussions. After, he let himself be pulled into the study with Lady Shirrad and her advisors, no doubt discussing his father’s impending arrival. Lord Elan’s father, Highest Lord Elthis, was the one who would choose where each of the Avowed would go, what estates they’d be assigned to.

It was a grimly satisfying thought. Lady Shirrad and the other Avowed were used to having power, not being at its mercy. When Lord Elthis told them to leave Aredann and where to go, they’d be just as helpless to refuse as any of the Closest. Except, unlike the Closest, they’d still be alive.

As Jae worked on the tedious, pointless mending, something stirred in her chest. An ember of anger. Nothing as bright and hot as her fury the previous evening—it wasn’t about Lord Elan or the Well or their history. Not really. Instead it was about the lifetime of work she’d given Aredann. No, it hadn’t been by choice. She didn’t care at all about Lady Shirrad or any of the others, or want to serve their meals or mend their clothes. But Aredann was her home. She’d spent countless hours tending the garden and the lawns, fighting a never-ending battle to keep the grounds beautiful. Maybe Aredann belonged to Lady Shirrad in name, but it was Jae’s, too, by virtue of the work she’d put into it. When it was abandoned, that work would count for nothing. None of the Closest’s work would mean anything, and it would be as if they’d never lived at all.

Lord Elan tried to reassure the Avowed that they’d be given good positions in the central cities, while Lady Shirrad watched with a sour expression, no longer bothering with a polite smile, and Jae stewed. It was a relief when she was called away for other chores and didn’t have to listen to their conversation anymore. Preparing lunch was a hot, unpleasant task—tending a fire in the middle of the day, when the sun turned the whole kitchen into an oven—but it was still better than listening to the Avowed.

Lunch, usually more boisterous than breakfast, was subdued, too. Jae made her way through it, serving olive-topped platters and staying out of sight as much as she could. She hoped that Lord Elan would send her away to work on anything else during the afternoon so she wouldn’t have to listen to the Avowed’s petty, selfish conversation anymore.

The meal was finally ending when Rannith grabbed her arm as she picked up his empty plate. “You, Closest,” he said, gaze flicking up to her face for a moment, “come to my chamber this evening after dinner.”

The Curse settled around her, weighed her down, choked her like a yoke around her neck, and all she could do was nod.

—

The first time she’d been called to Rannith’s room, she’d been thirteen. Her mother had just died, but before she’d passed, she’d warned Jae, Gali, and Tal about the Avowed and their roaming eyes and hands. She’d told them what to expect, that the girls might bleed the first time, that taking certain herbs would make pregnancy impossible. Even back then, Gali, with her sweet smile and curving figure, had already caught several Avowed’s eyes, and Lady Shirrad had already been too fond of Tal, in a girlish and innocent sort of way. No one had looked twice at Jae, the dirt-covered gardener.

No one until Rannith.

Her mother’s warnings hadn’t really prepared her. Her skin crawled from the second she walked into his chamber, even before he stripped her clothes off her. She’d stood there shaking, and he’d smiled at the sight. She’d shied away when he touched her—she couldn’t help herself. His hands had wrapped around her wrists like manacles, pulling her close. She’d bitten her tongue until it bled, tried to keep quiet, but he’d lost his patience with her. Ordered her to lie still and be silent.

The Curse had taken over, forced her to obey. She’d tried to accept the compulsion, let it sweep her along while she shut her eyes and pretended to be anywhere else at all. She’d needed so badly to scream and run, to rake his face with her jagged nails and push him away, but the most resistance she could put up was trying to push him away as she quaked, and that brought the wrath of the Curse down on her.

The agony spread through her body, but the Curse’s ache wasn’t enough to block the pain. When she still fought, hands clenching the sheets against the urge to shove him away, the Curse had finally taken over her body entirely.

It didn’t matter that she tried to scream, tried to run. Her body went limp and pliant, the Curse still burning her from the inside out, until Rannith finished with her. He laughed, he stroked her cheek. She wanted to cry but couldn’t even do that. Not until he sent her on her way with an order to return the next night.

She’d fled to the relative safety of the back wall, hidden by trees, let their shadows wrap around her like blankets. Even so, she tried to swallow her misery and cry quietly, afraid someone would hear and find out. She didn’t want to think about it, to talk about it. Not with anyone.

Tal had found her anyway. She hadn’t told him anything, and he hadn’t asked, just seemed to know. She’d flinched away from his supportive hand on her elbow, and he’d let her. He didn’t speak, just comforted her by being there with her. And somehow he always knew when Rannith called her to his room and she needed Tal’s strength. He always found a way to come be with her until she calmed down, the overwhelming misery shriveled to just a small ember of anger.

Rannith didn’t call Jae to his room very often. He hadn’t in months.

She hated him.

—

The afternoon was more of the same pointless, unending chores that the morning had been. Mending and fixing, serving, running errands. Every time Jae had to leave the room, something in the back of her mind cried out at her to run. To run out of the house, off the grounds, into the desert. Better to die of sunsickness on her own than find herself trapped on Rannith’s mat. But she never took a single step toward the gate. The Curse wouldn’t allow it.