Page 18 of Gilded Curses

The woman meant this to be reassuring and helpful, but the looks on the other’s faces mirrored the defeat Sahira felt. These women expected them to still be here tomorrow.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The banquet hall was an enormous room with ten chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The glass chandeliers reflected the light, making it seem like it was raining on them.

The table sat fifty immortals with space for more. All the immortals at the table wore colorful, elaborate clothing that stood vividly out against the white room.

A hundred or so Golden Ones stood along the walls, all dressed in white. They waited with pitchers, glasses, napkins, platters, and other assorted things.

Wherever they didn’t stand, a guard filled the space. They numbered more than double that of the dagadon dressed in white, and more of them filled the doorways.

White brick made up the walls, and glass doors ran down the entire right side of the room. Those doors opened onto a garden full of wildflowers of every imaginable color.

Warm, twilight air drifted through the doors, carrying those flowers’ sweet, floral scent. Mixed in with the flowers were trees that reminded him of the weeping willows on earth, except these blazed red and orange and looked on fire in the setting sun.

The servants escorted them to the empty chairs near the head of the table. Sahira sat to his left while Elsa settled in across from her and Zeth across from him.

They brought three small chairs forward and placed them on the table for the brownies. Pip sat beside him, while Loth and Fath settled in near Zeth.

To his right was a table full of golden immortals he didn’t know. To his left, Desmond sat at the head of the table; beside him was his wife.

“Good evening!” Desmond declared. “You must all feel so much better after a day of pampering.”

“They certainly smell better,” the man next to Sheree quipped.

He had dark brown skin and wore his black hair in braids to his shoulders. His navy blue eyes were cold and calculating as he studied them. Orin smiled as he lifted his goblet of wine and tipped it toward the man he’d gladly see gutted.

Desmond’s smile faltered as he shook his head. “Ignore Renaldo. He’s just grumpy because he lost.”

Renaldo gulped some of his wine.

Lost what? Orin didn’t voice the question. He’d learned these immortals had no intention of telling them anything until they were ready.

When they first sat, the chatter at the table died off, but now it returned as the freaks resumed eating and talking. After going hungry for so long, Orin should be happy to see so much food overflowing his plate; he wasn’t.

There was so much food here, yet little to spare in the Cursed Realm. But, for all he knew, they might not be in the Cursed Realm anymore.

That tunnel might have been a portal leading them somewhere else. Even if he couldn’t open a portal, that didn’t mean these things hadn’t created one from the Cursed Realm into Epoch. Or they could still be in the Cursed Realm, and these golden dicks called it Epoch.

At least they hadn’t entered or left Purgatory as Sahira had hypothesized. It had been an interesting premise but not one he believed; and while it could still be a very small possibility, he was sure it wasn’t.

He didn’t speak as he watched all of them, with the knife they’d given him to eat with fisted in his hand. Clearly, the ones at the table ran this place and had all the power. Those standing against the wall were here to serve or to make sure Orin and the others didn’t try to kill the assholes who ruled here.

He trusted these assholes as much as a dragon not to hunt and eat. He suspected that beneath their golden exteriors, something far more sinister lurked within these bastards.

Desmond laughed loudly and almost shouted as he repeatedly lifted his goblet to cheers with the rest of the table. Wine sloshed out of his cup, but whenever a drop hit the golden surface of the table, someone rushed over to clean it.

Desmond didn’t wipe his face as he pursed his lips and twisted his head back and forth while someone else did it for him. Orin had grown up in the lap of luxury, but if he’d asked someone else to wipe his face, his father would have done it for him, and that would not have been a pleasant experience.

The man had loved all his children. He’d taught them how to lead and to expect others to do as they commanded, but he’d also instilled respect in them.

Orin expected obedience from everyone except for his family. However, he didn’t treat those who worked for his family as little more than animals.

Their helots weren’t there to cater to his every whim or wipe his mouth. He wasn’t a child, but Desmond, and all the others at the table, acted like very spoiled ones.

He hadn’t thought much of Desmond before this dinner and thought less of him as the night progressed. As the floor-to-ceiling clock in the corner of the room and the one hanging over the doorway they hadn’t entered through ticked away the hours, more wine flowed, and Desmond’s face grew increasingly redder from the alcohol.

After so long without consistently knowing the time, Orin’s gaze kept returning to those clocks. He still had no idea how much time he’d spent in the Cursed Realm and Barren Lands, but the tick of the second hand fascinated him.