A Lesson in Predators
930 Words
I met Lady Amaris in the rose gallery. That is what they called it, though no rose grew there. The name was ceremonial—like most things in this palace. A relic clinging to beauty long since carved away by blade or ambition.
Instead of flowers, the walls bloomed with velvet drapery the colour of drying blood, and statues of lovers long dead lined the corridor. Their faces had been worn smooth by time—or perhaps by design—until only vague outlines of mouths remained, open as if still whispering secrets.
Lady Amaris fit the room too well.
She moved with the quiet grace of a serpent just out of sight, her hair a curtain of sable waves, her lips always slightly parted—as though tasting the air for weakness. Her presence hummed with a tension I could not name. Not magical. Not merely noble.
Something older.
“I trust you are not easily frightened,” she said without preamble, circling me like a storm-cloud gathering its intent. “Though perhaps you ought to be.”
“I am not,” I replied—honestly, though not bravely.
A slow smile crept across her face, beautiful and cold. “Good. You’ll need that spine, girl. Kael’s court is not kind to delicate things. It crushes them beneath perfume and protocol.”
She gestured for me to sit upon a low velvet bench near the central hearth, and I obeyed without delay.
Thus began my first lesson.
Etiquette, she called it. But it was not the kind found in books.
“Never drink anything you haven’t watched poured,” she said, gliding behind me. “Unless it’s from Kael’s hand. And even then, only sip. Slowly.”
She reached out—too fast—and plucked a loose thread from my sleeve, her fingers brushing the inside of my arm. I flinched.
“Oh,” she murmured. “Sensitive. How precious.”
I steadied myself. “You mean to help me. I’ll try to learn quickly.”
Amaris crouched before me then, her hands resting upon her knees, gaze level with mine. Her irises were a strange color—like rusted gold left too long in the dark.
“You still think kindness holds currency here. That learning the rules means you’ll be safe.” Her head tilted slightly. “Sweetling… he likes to play with his food. You’re lucky if that’s all you are.”
I felt the heat crawl up my neck, but I refused to break her gaze. “I am no one’s food.”
A pause.
Then, strangely, she laughed—softly, genuinely.
“Oh, darling. That’s the first true thing you’ve said all day.”
She taught me how to bow—not too deeply, never lower than one’s title allowed. How to smile without showing teeth, for too much warmth was often mistaken for desperation. How to walk without turning your back. How to nod, to curtsy, to decline a dance without insult, how to accept an invitation that was meant to threaten.
“But never run,” she said, voice low near my ear as I practiced turning away from an invisible nobleman. “Not even in jest. He’ll smell it on you. The fear. The flight.”
And still she said he—never naming him.
But I knew who she meant.
On the third afternoon, she asked if I missed the sun.
I did not answer. I did not trust her with that kind of softness.
So she pressed.
“You’re not like the others, you know. The last companion Kael brought to court cried for a week over a dying lily. They say he gave her a garden and then let it wither.”
I kept still.
Amaris leaned in, fingers brushing the ends of my hair. “But you… I think you’d bury the garden before you let it die. I think you’d salt the earth.”
Her words were praise—or prophecy. I could not tell.
And then he came.
Not announced. Not escorted. Kael moved like silence, and somehow, the room felt him before I saw him. The hearth’s flame shivered. My breath caught.
Amaris straightened at once, her face a perfect mask of indifference, yet her eyes flicked to me with unmistakable amusement.
She said nothing.
Neither did he.
Kael merely stood in the doorway—tall, dark-clad, still as stone. His gaze swept the chamber like a blade but settled on me, and did not move.
It wasn’t hunger I saw in his eyes.
It was something colder. Deeper. A quiet storm that refused to break.
I rose instinctively, hands brushing my skirts. My breath was slow, deliberate.
But his stare didn’t falter.
He said not a word. Not even a greeting. And yet—I felt as though I had spoken aloud every secret in my heart.
When he left, Amaris exhaled the breath she’d been holding.
“Be very careful,” she murmured, almost to herself.
I turned. “Of him?”
Her lips curled.
“No, darling. Of you.”
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I hope as the story progresses you guys can see how I bring my ideas together, I hope the ideas come together for real, it's harder than I thought and extremely hard to do this bringing two different inspirations together. And my one support right now is that I have a weird Playlist that I'm listening to and my 14 readers.
Question to anyone who cares to respond what do you think my inspiration for this book is?
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