Aidra

The Mockreet - Chapter 11

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“Lyra, do hurry with that,” Sheena snapped at me as I carried a wooden box of silverware toward the front of the kitchen. I was already sweating inside the uniform I’d been issued. Most days of the week I wore the simple gray service uniform but today we’d been issued longer black uniforms complete with white aprons that cris-crossed in the back. The skirt dropped to just below the knee, and it felt extremely odd to wear the same color as Sheena for once. Though, the biggest difference between our uniforms was in the collar.

The Mockreet - Chapter 10

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“What happened next?” Lord Radon asked. I looked up from my barely-touched sandwich and tea cup. He was watching me intently, chin rested on his fists while Sheena gave me a completely different expression. Her lip was curled in an expression of disgust, her fists were clenched, knuckles white. I watched her as she glared and my confusion grew.

“Er…” I said, looking away from Sheena and feeling my pulse quicken. “I don’t…I don’t know. I woke up in a field, miles away. Naked, mind you. I walked to the nearest town and-”

The Mockreet - Chapter 9

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1 Year 8 Months Ago

“I do not like this, Balthasar,” I stole a glance at the aging soldier beside me. My father’s right hand man in many aspects. He grunted as we peered out over the bow of the ship, at the Stormveil painted against the horizon. We were close enough now that I could feel the vibration in the deck beneath my feet; a terrifying reminder of the looming death just over the mountain.

“If you fear death, then perhaps you should have stayed home, little Lord,” Commander Balthasar Hammond said it almost mockingly. I grunted.

The Mockreet - Chapter 8

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“Lyra you’re scrubbin’ it, not resurfacing it! Goddess be good, move on!” Sophia said from overhead. We were in the servant kitchen, just outside the large dining room; our preceptor felt that it had been neglected in the past few days thanks to the summit preparation, so I, and several other girls, had spent the first part of the morning scrubbing the tops, bottoms, and sides of every single table. After that, we’d moved the tables, mopped and waxed the floors, wiped down the walls, and even dusted the rafters using a set of long ladders that I didn’t even know we had.

The Mockreet - Chapter 7

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After the outburst in the presentation hall, work resumed as normal and despite my occasional eavesdropping, I never did find out what the Baron Sycronus wanted, or what could have been so urgent. The most frustrating thing about my new life was the lack of information; no one wanted to talk to me unless it was regarding work around the manse or the grounds. I was well aware that servants had their own information networks, but as the newly minted outcast, I did not have the privilege of that information and spent much of my time in isolation, other than Jen occasionally checking in on me.

The Mockreet - Chapter 6

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“Cleanliness, is a mandate of the Goddess, and a requirement of this fine establishment!” Said the woman at the front of the room. She was well dressed in a white button-down blouse and a light brown skirt, with a black belt to tie it together. She was young with brown hair bound behind her head in a loose bun. I recognized her, but for the life of me I couldn’t place her. We been awakened an hour early; I’d reluctantly dragged myself from my bunk and with Jen’s help, stumbled through my morning routine.

The Mockreet - Chapter 5

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2 Years Ago

I could see the Stormveil from my vantage point, safe behind the steel-glass port of my father’s airship. To see it for the first time was beyond breathtaking; a perpetual storm four hundred and fifty meters high, running the length of the continent, stretched out along the horizon. A rush of wind enraptured millions of specks of dirt, debris, and even rock, swirling and blowing, tearing through the sky to create an immense wall of pitch blackness, broken only by the period lightning flash from beyond the event horizon.

The Mockreet - Chapter 4

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“Jen!” My voice echoed breathlessly down the hall as I watched her petite form bob further and further away from me. She half turned and watched me as I collapsed to the floor; the balls of my feet ached and throbbed in tandem, but were then overtaken by an almost soothing pain as the pressure was alleviated from them. I gasped and wheezed, my back to the wall just in front of a series of blue-tinted windows that bathed cool light over my crumpled form.

The Mockreet - Chapter 3

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There was nothing in the whole of Faidyre that could have prepared me for the following morning. In my life I had undertaken difficult tasks, from military training, to the art of swordsmanship, but it was, perhaps, that I had never labored as the common man, or woman.

The Mockreet - Chapter 2

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If it had been cold in the High Lady’s office chambers, it was a level just above damnation here. The room was fairly dark with a concrete floor and stone walls laden with two glow-lamps on each. Their light barely pierced the veil of darkness in front of me, and for the most part they revealed only wet stone that preceded the sound of dripping caused by Sheena’s efforts to ‘cleanse’ me. She stood there just at the edge of the darkness in the company of another servant girl named Kayla.

The Mockreet - Chapter 1

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It was cold in the High Lady Jenwise’s office, perhaps colder than it should have been. I stood there a good distance away from her desk while she chatted with some dignitary that I didn’t recognize. To the left and right, two guards, each in a pressed blue uniform, each with a rifle slung over their shoulders. Their faces were expressionless but I knew that they were watching me, even as I stood there in my tattered prison uniform and barely passable footwraps.

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