***Elaine Trudeau***

Elaine sat in a chair worth more than her entire home, terrified that a wrong shift might cause the gold-inlayed wood to snap, and she would be executed for treason.

Or maybe she would get oil from her skin on the tableware. And be executed for treason.

Or maybe…

Elaine’s terrified mind concocted a thousand ways she could suffer a terrible fate in the halls of the king. Beheading, soul-removal, or simply taking her daddy’s land all crossed her mind, and a dozen ways to achieve each of those horrible fates, each more outlandish than the last.

She’d never been in a situation where a wrong move could be treason. If she messed up and forgot to feed the Guar, or put the wrong hay in the wrong pen, or gods forbid, stabbed someone accidentally with a farm tool, she wouldn’t be put to death.

Here thought, if she accidentally stabbed someone with a pitchfork…

No, you’re not going to stab anyone with a pitchfork, you silly girl. There aren’t any pitchforks in this room…

You’re far more likely to accidentally insult someone’s lineage and be put to death.

Her anxiety heightened when the solid oak double doors were opened, revealing an aging Ilethan man with a prominent double chin, while the rest of his body was rather skinny. His skin was loose and saggy from age, peering over her with a predatory focus that made the hair on the back of her neck stand straight up.

“Oh, hello there.” The nobleman said. He had to be a nobleman, given the rich Bolesian silks with intricate patterns embroidered on the outside. It was the fanciest thing Elaine had ever seen, and it was being worn by a man.

“I didn’t realize we were having company tonight. Is this seat taken?” The fellow asked, sliding the chair out beside her.

What should I tell him? If I say yes and it turns out to be someone else’s seat, will I be in trouble? Best to just be honest.

“I…don’t know?” Elaine said, wincing.

“Calm, child. It’s my usual seat. The lords here all have their regular placement. As a matter of fact, the seat you’re in right now is Lord Arctor’s place.”

Ice went down Elaine’s spine and she tried to stop touching everything at once, leaping out of the gilded chair and away from the table.

“You’re tonight’s guest, correct?” He said, smiling amiably. His eyes, however, seemed to rake across her body in a way that made Elaine’s stomach churn.

“I…I think so? I was told to go in here and take a seat.”

“Then your seat is that one.” The jowly man pointed to the second most ornate chair in the entire room, a gaudy monstrosity covered with luxurious velvet pads.

“What!?” Elaine gasped, astonished.

“If you are a ‘guest’, You will be treated as second only to the king.” He said as more lords began to filter into the room, casting Elaine curious glances before taking their seats.

“I see there’ll be entertainment,” Elaine overhead someone murmur as she approached her seat, directly across the table from the largest one. She didn’t quite make out who said it, though.

She sat down gingerly in the guest seat, hoping almost violently that the man hadn’t been trying to trick her.

No one seemed to bat an eye as she sat her unworthy peasant butt down on the velvet cushions. The hushed conversation seemed to revolve around Elaine, and none of it made her feel particularly at ease.

“Didn’t even bother to dress her up…”

“I personally appreciate the authenticity…”

Elaine glanced down at her drab homespun clothes, and once again wondered what in the god’s name’s she was doing here among the elite of Iletha, who were eyeing her like Korq eyed a carcass.

The murmuring died down when the large door in the rear of the banquet hall opened, revealing Johnathon Ilestar, still smooth skinned and black-haired, despite being well into his sixties. The door itself was set high above them on a staircase, and it made an awesome sight, watching the king descend on them like a god might stride down from the heavens to grace mortals with their presence.

Elaine was so dumbstruck she didn’t realize everyone else had stood until a couple seconds later, jumping out of her seat and keeping her back as straight as possible, hoping nobody commented on the bad manners.

“Gentlemen, good evening,” The king said as he stalked down to the seat at the head of the table. It was only when he had settled himself down, his seat pushed in by a well-appointed servant, that everyone else sat down again.

“Good evening my king.” The jowly man spoke for everyone present, nodding.

“Gentlemen, you’ve already met tonight’s entertainment.” The king said, motioning to Elaine, kicking her anxiety up a couple notches, being directly regarded by such a powerful man. “Elaine, this is my council. From my left, we have Lord Lavigne, My ambassador, Laurent, my prime minister, Arctor, the treasurer, the three governors, Mileine, Lepais, and Chattein.”

“Finally the Barons Floure, Marcel, and Thorough,” King Ilestar said, pointing toward the last three men, furthest away from Himself and closest to her.

“Gentlemen, this is Elaine Trudeau,” the king said, meeting her gaze. Elaine shivered as something like cold amusement washed down the back of her neck.

“She seems a little younger than the usual ‘guest,’” Baron Floure said, giving her a gap-toothed leer. The man had whispy gray hair that did nothing to conceal his somewhat misshapen head. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“Miss Trudeau is actually a talented storyteller I came across just the other day, and she’s going to tell us a story.” the king said, folding his hands together. “It’s a highly engaging yarn that I found absolutely fascinating.”

Elaine glanced down at her hands.

When did I get here? She remembered being sent to the dining hall a few minutes ago, but didn’t remember arriving in Iletha at all. She hadn’t even bothered to wonder about it until now.

“I went ahead and blocked her mind so you can’t sneak a peek and ruin the twist ending,” the king spoke with a hint of mischief in his gaze.

“Well, that’s certainly novel.” Laurent said, his jowels shaking as each breath seemed to be strained.

“I might have to try that myself. I hear tell of fisherman with Storytelling Skills so high they could make you die laughing if you weren’t careful.” One of the governors spoke, a skinny man with a scraggly chin and shoulders that seemed to pop out from his body.

The king motioned to a servant standing off to the side, who bowed and opened another side door, revealing easily half a dozen carts filled to the brim with food, rolled in by a procession of liveried women who set the dishes in front of each lord.

Food unlike anything Elain had ever dreamed about covered the table from end to end.

Iletha was not a food-rich country, meat was scarce and fruits even more so. Most villagers lived their lives off a steady diet of grain cereals and bread.

An entire pig, likely imported from Gadvera, was placed in the center of the table, it’s body cooked to a gruesome red color, skin wrinkled and charred. Yellowish stews of indeterminate origin filled with thick slabs of meat and vegetables were placed in front of each of the lords.

Elaine’s mind nearly fled her body when the stew was placed in front of her. She could see the layer of clear fat on top of the steaming dish, creating a surface as deep as her pinky. Just underneath swirled the rich brown broth, meat and vegetables.

“Than-“

Before she could finish speaking, a pie was placed behind her stew, topped with an artfully crafted peak of some kind of white foam.

“Tha-“

A servant stepped in beside her and placed a uleisan glass dish filled with some other white foam, but this one looked much denser.

Having learned her lesson. Elaine kept her mouth shut as more and more foods were added in front of each and every one of them. Enough to feed her entire family for a week in front of each and every one of them.

It was a bounty unlike anything she’d ever seen before, and it reminded her that she hadn’t eaten in…

I don’t even know how long it’s been!

Elaine’s stomach woke up like an angry Gontor, forcing her to grab a utensil worth a year’s pay and put a spoonful of the stew into her mouth.

It was perfection. She had never in her life experienced this much flavor. She got one of the chunks of meat and reveled at how unbelievably tender it was in her mouth.

Elaine let out an animalistic groan of pleasure, shoveled three more gobs of stew, then froze.

Everyone was staring at her.

Elaine’s food-addled senses came back in force as she spotted the king, who was currently waiting for a servant to finish fastening his bib. His myriad spoons and forks were still resting on the dark wooden table.

He hasn’t started yet! Elaine realized, eyes widening. Not two minutes in and she’d already doomed herself!

“Try the ice cream,” Johnathan Ilestar said into the hanging silence. “I find it’s easier to tell a story while eating ice cream than anything else.”

The king of Iletha glanced around the table, picking up a spoon and smiling at the attending nobles. “Eat!”

At his word, they dug into their food with a refined manner that suggested none of them had ever starved before.

What in the abyss is ice cream? Elaine thought, scanning the table, her heart pounding. By the process of elimination she identified it as the white heavier foam on her left. She took the bowl and poked it with a spoon, finding it thicker than she expected. Almost like ice from the mountain – Oh…Ice-cream.

Elaine took one bite and reconsidered her rejection of Demon-Tommy’s offer to work in the capitol.

No, I can’t let delicious food sway me, Elaine shook her head, remembering she was in a den of men that made her feel wildly uncomfortable, and she was the last thing from safe.

“Now, Elaine, tell us your story,” the king said, glancing at her as he slowly worked on his stew, blowing carefully on each spoonful before consuming it.

Elaine blinked and swallowed a spoonful of iced cream, wincing as it chilled her insides all the way down.

“My story? Right.” He must mean the story of how I came to be here.

“Well, I was changing out the animal bedding at my da’s farm…”

The nobles listened intently at first, but quickly lost interest as Elaine recounted her adventure, returning to their food. None of them spoke over her, however, likely out of respect for the king’s order.

“And then…And then I wound up here,” Elaine said, blinking. “I don’t even remember making it past the city gate.”

“Fascinating. Monsters that look like humans in the northwest, slowly taking over Iletha.” Johnathon said, steepling his fingers. “She believes it, too.”

“No more than a nobleson having a bit of sport, I’m sure. I know when I was a young fool, I made a mess of many a peasant’s mind.” One of the barons, Lepais, Elaine thought, said, wiping his thin lips with a napkin, defiling the valuable silk in the process.

They don’t believe me, Elaine thought, her heart sinking in her chest.

“Young and stupid? At least you grew out of one of those things,” The baron across the table snorted, setting off a gale of laughter around the table.

“Meat is tough on this thing,” Lavigne the ambassador muttered, wrenching on the roast pig’s leg to no avail. Finally the stumpy old man gave up and used his knife to cut the shank off, releasing the pig’s rich fatty juices to spill onto the heavy wood.

Elaine felt a strange pressure in her eyeballs before it faded.

“There’s nothing north of us but rocks and dirt. Not even good dirt at that. You couldn’t pick a worse spot to pretend monsters had ‘taken over’.” One of the Barons, Thorough, said, making quotation marks with his fingers. “They can barely feed themselves.”

“I mean,” the man said, pointing at Elaine. “Look at her. She’s so underfed she doesn’t even have tits.”

“I think she’d plump up nicely.” Laurent said, her hair standing up at his gaze. He carved a slice of the unusually juicy ham off the back of the pig and set it on his plate, followed by several other member’s of the king’s court.

Shame whirled inside Elaine as the nobles talked about her as if she had no ability to speak for herself. A horrifying moment later, she realized that she didn’t. At the same time, the pressure behind her eyes increased again, and Elaine saw red out of the corner of her eye.

“Yes, it’s the best memory manipulation I’ve seen in a good long time,” the king said, casually regarding her as he ate.

“Nobody manipulated my memory.” Elaine protested.

“How would you know!?” The king of Iletha demanded, lunging to his feet, his face flushed with anger, silver fork clattering to the ground.

Stunned silence followed the display of anger.

“That’s the entire point of mind-magic.” The king said, leaving his seat. “Any one of the men seated here could make you think you’re a whore named Sloan turning another trick. You’d believe it, too. Any man here could make you think you had a fetish for old men and a taste for pain.”

“Any one of the men here could make you think you’re a girl named Elaine who got chased by monsters north of Brennoth.” He said, moving down the table slowly.

And you would never know. Because knowing that you’ve been manipulated dispels the magic like that.”

The king snapped his fingers as he stalked around the oval table, his eyes locked on Elaine. Every instinct in her body was telling her to run, but she was frozen in place under the king’s icy glare.

The Marquis Chattein chuckled, sawing off another bloody section of pork as the king reached her chair.

Johnathon Ilestar was much bigger in person. He loomed over her chair as he put his hands on her shoulder. Her hair rose on end, and her hear felt like it was going to punch it’s way out of her mouth, shattering teeth on the way.

“Please, don’t kill me,” Elaine blubbered.

“Shh…” Johnathon hushed her, his voice not calming her at all. “The most basic, most important aspect of mind magic is to cover your meddling. It’s difficult, painstaking work.”

He stroked a thumb over her rough-spun shirt collar.

The king’s thumb came back with a tiny black grain of sand, so black it created a point of void against the man’s skin.

Did that get on me when old man Bhernsvik shoved the monster with the satchel of black sand?

“Because one tiny detail could cause it all to come crashing down,” he said, holding the grain of pure black low, so both of them could study it.

It was no more than a moment, but Elaine felt as though something changed in the king’s demeanor. The overwhelming sense of danger she felt was no longer directed towards her.

“Well,” The king said. “That was the story.” He continued around the table, heading back towards his seat. “What did you think?”

“We should reprimand the boy responsible for causing this damage. It wouldn’t do to allow a bad habit to grow malignant.”

“Think a little harder, fool,” the jowly prime minister said, scowling. “If the king found the manipulation to be excellent, then we should simply kill whoever was responsible for it. There’s such a thing as being too skilled. We can’t risk leaving someone at large with the power to manipulate the crown.”

He nodded toward the king. “You are the rudder of the nation. We cannot tolerate something that could threaten that.”

The king seemed to consider it for a moment as he sat down. “I agree. The problem needs to be dealt with definitively.”

“Right then,” Lord Arctor said, cutting a bite sized cube of pork and bringing it up to his mouth. He twisted his wrist as he did, flinging the bloody meat onto the table and putting his index finger in his mouth.

Crunch. The noble bit off his own finger with little more effort than a man chewing on bread.

“We’ll have to find out who sent this Elaine girl our way,” Arctor continued, blood spurting from the stump as he spoke, oozing out the corners of his mouth.

The pressure behind Elaine’s eyes redoubled as she watched the pool of blood on the table expand outward, mixing with another that was already there.

What am I seeing.

“Easily done,” the jowly prime minister said, picking up a carving knife. He glanced over at Elaine as he slapped his forearm down, dead center in the middle of his plate, knocking over a glass of wine.

No one seemed to notice.

“I’m more concerned with our guest here. What happens after this?” Prime Minister Laurent asked with obvious hunger as he began sawing his way into the chunk of meat at the center of his plate.

Crimson blood welled up around the blade and began spurting out onto the table as he peeled back the muscle, clinically detaching a length of bloody muscle before spearing it with his fork and shoving it in his mouth, groaning with pleasure.

“Haha!” The governor with the bulbous shoulders laughed at the prime minister. Mileine, I think his name was. “That’s a nasty little habit you’ve got there,” He said, shaking his head before taking a drink of wine. “It’s going to get you in trouble one of these days.”

The governor downed the rest of his wine in a long gulp, but rather than putting the fine crystal glass down, he seized onto the edge of the glass with his teeth, snapping off a chunk of it before crunching down on it with a pleased expression, like a man chewing a crunchy waffle.

He swallowed with a smile, then opened his mouth to speak.

Nothing but blood came out, dripping from between his lips and onto the pristine white bib. Mileine frowned, patting his chest and coughing. When he coughed, droplets of blood and shards of glass flew across the table, landing on the bleeding roast pig.

“Something wrong, Mileine?” Johnathon asked, lacing his fingers together with a smile.

“Nothing,” Mileine gave a hoarse whisper, shaking his head. “Something in my throat. Apologies.”

“Do be careful,” the king said, his smile widening

“Yeah, don’t inhale your food,” One of the nobles said, lining his fork up with his own eyeball.

“I swear, you’d be the easiest man to poison, Milaine.” Another said, delicately cutting through each finger with their steak knife.

Despite the distraction as the king’s advisors mutilated themselves, Elaine couldn’t take her eyes off the roast pig in the center of the table, bleeding onto the rich Gadveran wood.

Bleeding roast pig?

The pressure behind Elaine’s eyes redoubled, and she winced as a migraine shot through her skull. Elaine held her hand to her head, trying to calm the spike pounding into her head.

When she opened her eyes again, the pig had been replaced by…

Her heart clenched in her chest.

Tommy lay in the center of the table, bound and gagged, huge sections of his body simply carved away. The boy’s eyes were open and staring, unmoving in death. The blood that drained from his body was slow and without energy, in a huge pool underneath him. a pool that was spreading towards Elaine.

The boy’s heart had stopped beating only a few minutes ago.

Elaine yelped and shoved away from the table as Tommy’s blood began to dribble over the side, onto her legs.

“Something wrong with the food?” the King of Iletha asked, directing his cold gaze toward her while his court slowly mutilated themselves to death.