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Chapter Text

Solomon was not a man to be kept waiting.

Miryam kept her spine ramrod straight as the Lord of the estate had her presented to him in his study. Cold eyes the color of ochre raked over her with the same appraisal as a buyer assessing livestock at market. Each clack of claws drumming across the granite desk made Miryam tense further and further into a spool of anxiety.

Her eyes snapped away from papyrus scrolls resting upon cypress shelves when he spoke.

“It would be a waste to leave you to labour to death as your mother did.” Solomon spoke in a tone as cold and distant as glacial ice.

Holding her fists clasped at her sides, the nervous bob of Miryam's throat was her only response.

“That reticence will keep you alive. Good.” Solomon rubbed his temples as if bored of glowering at a girl with the continence of a skittish deer, “Have you no curiosity of you being summoned, girl?”

Miryam’s mouth was dry, her voice cracking as she dared to speak, “My lord, I move where I am directed, such is the way of things?” 

“I require you to be knowledgeable enough to not ignore the severity of what is to come. Tribute has been demanded of us in commemoration of our Queen’s impending marriage.” Solomon spoke slowly, as if the malaise of his cadence might yet instill comprehension in a girl too fearful to think.

Tribute. A dangerous word in the commodification of any and all tangible things, Miryam stiffened. As the noose tightened she realized that the recent months of fuller meals, softer labour within the estate, apathy of the guards towards a pretty girl, were not kind coincidences. Her jaw tensed into a firm line, her shoulders taut as she ground out, “...I’m a part of that.”

“Yes.” Solomon nodded, “...A foot out of line will earn you a painful and drawn out death, girl. Prepare yourself to be presented within the week, I can say no more as to what will become of you within the Queen’s custody.”

“It's a death sentence!” Miyram’s tone sharpened.

Solomon glared, unblinking and unphased by her outburst, “You were born into a body that would wither and die from the moment of its conception. The diluted glory of a fae does nothing but forestall the inevitable. If you die in a month or in a century is within your control, Miryam.”

She hadn’t thought he would know her name, would care or deign to remember. It was not spoken with kindness, merely cruel certainty and focus.

“Go. You will be under guard until the celebrations unfold. My men know not to let their hands wander.” Solomon offered as a token assurance.

Miryam’s glare was a hateful one, even as dread lanced her stomach, “Why me, answer me that?”

“I know you come from good stock.” He replied with casual ease, “We are finished here, go.”

Calloused hands closed around her shoulders, tugging the girl with trembling knees and unsteady feet away from the Lord’s study. Miryam’s eyes burned, not daring to let them see her weep as her throat constricted.

The tremors in her form did not stem from fear alone.

Miryam was bereaved of her chores and tasks, losing even the thrall of routine to dull her awareness of the inevitable. 

Each day inched forward to a crawl as she was confined to a spartan but clean chamber, rather than the barracks of the lesser staff. By the third, she was a pacing and restless thing, almost relieved to see the two serving women sent to bathe and dress her. Miryam almost greeted them until she saw the fine taper of their ears and elongated length. 

Two women, one with olive skin and brown locks, another tall and lean with a shorn skull and feline eyes.

Lesser Fae, yet with undiluted blood and having never known a chain. Miryam’s gaze turned hawkish as she reared back with clenched fists.

“Out with it, is it time?” she spoke, each word leaden.

The pair nodded, one attempting to soothe her with a smile and gentle whisper, “It shan’t be an ordeal, I assure you.”

“I’m going to die.” Miryam pressed, “Perhaps tonight if a Queen finds me lacking.”

“Then for all of our sakes, perform.” The second spoke, harsher and lacking the patience to soothe her nerves. A firm hand gripped her forearm, almost enough to bruise before she was shooed away by her companion.

“She’s to be undamaged, fool-” the pale, gentle faced fae hissed with surprising severity as sharp fangs were bared.

Miryam shrank back with a hitch in her breath, only to be tugged forward by the front of her tunic.

Nose to nose with the severe maid, feline gold eyes narrowed and candlelight reflecting off of her shorn skull, held Miryam close, “Cooperate girl. You need only be physically unharmed. The mind is another battlefield.”

Claws stroked at her psyche, not yet shredding walls or memories, yet Miryam felt the threat with the stuttering of her pulse. With a nod, she didn’t fight as she was led from her cell.

She’d been scrubbed, scoured, and perfumed like a fine dress. Feeling raw and peeled, Miryam was thankful for the white linen dress yet loathed the heavy bangles of gold and bronze.

These were the trappings of a lady, not a servant, she initially thought. Yet as kohl was applied to her eyes and red paint to her lips, her nails filled and painted a lovely lapis hue, Miryam realized she was dressed to catch the eye in a way more than polite fashion or etiquette would.

More akin to a strutting peacock, eyes would fall on the adornments, oiled curls left to hang loose, combs of gold and turquoise standing out sharply from the rich brown hue. Solomon’s assessing gaze certainly left her feeling like a spectacle once she was presented to the lord in the courtyard.

Shaded by palms and catching the scent of jasmine and figs, Miryam fought to keep her expression neutral as she stared at the Lord. Solomon nodded once, “Fine work, I hear that you haven’t given your handlers trouble as well.”

Miryam remained obstinate in her silence. The sharp tug of broad digits clasping her chin made the girl bare her teeth, her eyes flashing with an instinctive urge to bite until Solomon's ochre eyes met her own. Like a hound bid to heel, cold fear stilled Miryam.

“You will be dead with your skin flayed from your body before sunrise if you greet Amarna with that attitude.” Solomon grimaced, his grip tightening in warning over her jaw.

Never had she heard their Queen addressed by her name alone, spoken like a general regarding their rival across the grim canvas of a battlefield. Miryam’s questioning look earned a tired sigh from the fae.

“I grant you as a necessary expense to a hungry and mercurial woman. I expect nothing short of excellence from my household, be it my own kin, servants, or those who lay in the middling quandary of those echelons.” Solomon explained, his disappointment transforming into something more material as Miryam’s mouth struggled to form words.

“Mother was-” She shook her head. Stifling the words and severing any farcical notion of paternity in the man.

Solomon clasped his hands behind his back, casting his gaze northwards to the black pyramids cresting the horizon, “Was a servant who birthed me a moderately useful child. Come, to be late to a royal ceremony is to invite misfortune and ire.” 

The Palace of Amarna was accessible solely by barge. Seated within an isle hemmed upon both sides by the swelling river, Iteru, the palace was a strange monolith of black stone mirroring the fertile riverbanks. 

Monolithic and austere, the palace was erected in the shape of a pyramid, capped in gold to a gleaming point and surrounded by geometric paths and green gardens. Rumored to be a menagerie where tigers and lions roamed freely, Miryam had never glimpsed the complex so closely.

Always seen at a distance through the haze of heat, Miryam had never been so close as to glimpse narrow windows following the incline of the pyramid’s slope, subtle balconies formed by recessed carvings. As the prow of the barge brushed over tall reeds, bobbing to a halt as the oarsmen brought them to the slate steps of the water gardens.

Beached and tied to port, the dull thud of a gangplank being positioned was what snapped Miyram from her stupor.

Her eyes flicked to Solomon first, the one familiar face in a strange environment. His hand closed over her bicep, leading her forward.

“...Reconsider, please.” She hadn’t screamed, nor had she begged - until now.

Solomon shut his eyes with a low sigh, “She won’t savage you, girl. Our queen cares for the opposite sex alone.” 

Miryam blinked incredulously at the fae, if not by royal hands, she was still at risk. Only Solomon's warning look kept her from thinking of leaping overboard, testing her luck with the infested river littered with flesh eating fish and too large lizards with countless teeth. No, only death laid in the Iteru, or in him if the man’s patience finally snapped.

Without another word spoken between them, Solomon led her as a lamb to the altar. 

Chapter Text

Garbed in sheer black, adorned with gold, and sporting jewelry of lapis, pearl, and obsidian, the Queen of the Black Lands was an unparalleled presence. More severe than beautiful, her eyes were a deep wine red, sporting olive skin, and silken sheets of lustrous black hair. Sharp cheekbones, an angular face, long neck, her body was thin as a reed yet lithe as a cat. Proudly displayed claws tapped the armrests of her throne, surveying the tribute amassed by her court.

Some had brought gold, rare beasts with their cuts of meat and prepared pelts, even weapons of yore and foreign make. Solomon, the rake that he was, had presented neither of things. Before Amarna knelt a woman garbed in finery few humans would ever know in their fleeting lifespans.

Calculating eyes swept over the girl, taking in her tapered ears, mundane brown eyes, the proud curve of her nose and elegant curve of her jaw. She was a halfling, graced with the blood which made her beautiful and perhaps more everlasting. Voluminous curls, full lips, and wide eyes which might be pleasing if not bulging in fear, Amarna sighed. 

The girl was not worthless, and perhaps a treasure in her own right.

“You play a dangerous game, Solomon.” The queen rested her cheek atop her palm, lifting her gaze from the servant to her pet aristocrat, “What use do I have for a fair faced girl with half of our glory and half the stain of mortality?”

“The Seraphim are fabled for their stamina.” Solomon’s tone with the Queen was vastly different than the cool pragmatism Miryam had experienced. His voice was…sharp, warmth with mirth yet teasing upon the line of propriety, “Surely your consort would be grateful for a woman to slake his baser needs upon.”

Amarna’s nails scraped against her throne with a biting note, her painted lips thinning into a firm line, “To skirt upon the edge of propriety is a common dance with you Solomon, one I will not tolerate with my prospective husband!”

“What is the allure of Prythian gold, the pelts of Scythian lions, or any bauble the man has yet seen in his travels. To contain the vastness of the world in material treasures is a fool's errand, to capture the fleeting vitality of youth, of our own people? To anchor his interests upon a pawn is preferable to a potential rival. Even Fionn was not invulnerable to the poison of betrayal.”

The names were little more than air to Miryam’s ears, foreign names and figures from maps and scrolls she had never been entitled to peruse. Yet Solomon's words held a gravity that begged her to listen, begged even Amarna to listen.

Amarna furrowed her brows, contemplative as she watched Solomon for any tell of deceit. Like a minstrel strumming their harp, he played the proper notes and watched her sway to the desired tune he spun. With the flourish of her hand, the queen relented.

“I accept this gift, now begone with you all.” The queen rose from her throne, descending the steps to survey her gift. Miryam didn’t dare meet the queen’s gaze as she gripped fistfulls of her thin dress.

Without a word, Solomon cast Miryam to the wolves with his departure, smug in his first hook sunk into the queen and court. 

There was a scent beneath perfume and honeyed fruits which never left Miryam’s sharp sense of smell.

Blood. Cool and clean though the court may be, the coppery tang never quite left the air of the palace, even in the midday sun and cool breeze filtering through square columns of black stone. The waters of the Iteru did nothing to purge the scent from her mind, and could not erase what the foundations of this hellish palace marinated within.

Miryam eyed the columns as if they were bars to a cage, the cogs in her mind ever turning as she lingered over one escape plan after another. No one was coming for her. Not Solomon.

She would have to dig her own way out of the lion’s den.

Amarna held few words for Miryam in thsir days together, yet often red eyes followed the woman when the halfling was instructed to attend to the queen. Wine had been poured by Miryam’s steady hands, her head dipped in deference as the glass was offered.

Claws lightly tipped Miryam’s jaw upwards, the queen noting with a begrudging sigh, “Solomon has only sired sons as stone faced and opportunistic as him. You have a deer’s anxiety about you, girl. Why?”

A dangerous question to answer before the source of her woes and fear. Miryam swallowed thickly, “...I’m to entertain your prospective consort, your grace. That prospect… It intimidates me.”

Amarna’s smile bloomed, not out of consideration or care for her charge, “Good. A mouse will likely always feel fear in the shadow of an eagle. Learn to not be cowed by your fear, it diminishes your beauty. A mask need not be made from genuine bravado.”

Knuckles brushed Miryam’s cheek, like one would admire a sculpture or fresco. There was no want in Amarna’s eyes, merely satisfaction at the pretty object in reach. 

Miryam nodded once, “As you wish.”

“I hope you last. A pretty thing like you would likely entertain a whole flock of Seraphim.” Amarna mused, withdrawing her hand, “Keep my consort a happy soul where I would not. Yet,” her tone sharpened, “Never presume to hold a seat more lofty than at my feet or his bed.”

Miryam shook under Amarna’s gaze, unable to choke out a reply. Her silence was enough it seemed, a silken palm patting her cheek with patronizing fondness, “You are dismissed, girl.”

A week of frenzied preparations unfolded in anticipation for the Seraphim’s arrival. Miryam watched as the gardens were hemmes into perfection, lions were caged and the palace became a stage more so than a home.

Nearly three weeks spent and not a blemish littered Miryam’s skin. Amarna had spared her the worst of her ire, Miryam’s fellow servants were never so lucky. A cup bearer’s unsteady hands had stained the queen’s gown that same morning. In the aftermath three servants still scoured marble with a bucket and rags to blot out the stain of blood.

There were no illusions of safety. When the evening arrived, Amarna had her pawn brought to her future consort’s chambers. Intended as a surprise, Miryam supposed that was the Queen’s logic. Anxiety pooled in her stomach as she gripped the balcony’s banister. 

The Queen had seen fit to dress Miryam to the same regal perfection as Solomon had in presenting his halfling daughter. Miryam raked the twisting combs and pins from her hair in a petty measure of defiance, glaring down the sloping length of the pyramid. Slick stone would see her topping to her death. Should she survive, the rapids of the Iteru and its fell ecology would hold another death in store. 

Miryam groaned, letting her brow rest against a pillar as she contemplated her shit array of options. Suicide, or await a prince’s arrival. A consort chosen precisely for a Queen which had built an empire on mortal blood and toil. It was a match made in hell, she was assured of that.

As the doors to the chamber opened, Miryam steeled herself to meet whatever hellish consort Amarna had chosen.