Chapter 29 The Almost

Chapter 29 The Almost
The dining hall is already loud, occupied and very noisy by the time Amaris finds her way there. She'd been dismissed from the palace and left at the front of the doors, left to find her way here herself.
In the dining room, long tables stretch across the room, polished wood gleaming beneath hanging chandeliers, the air thick with overlapping scents of food, perfume, and too many wolves packed into one space.
Laughter rings out in bright, careless bursts, chairs scrape against the floor, and voices rise and fall as though this is nothing more than a social gathering instead of a silent war disguised as a competition.
A competition that has practically come to an end...
Cliques have already formed.
Girls sit shoulder to shoulder with those they recognize, bodies angled inward and toward one another, laughter shared freely between them. Some glance up as Amaris enters, their eyes flicking over her clothes again, her posture, the faint stiffness in her movements that she cannot quite hide.
A few of them whisper behind their hands, others simply look away, as though she does not exist and some of them just gape at her as she walks past.
She exhales slowly, steadying herself.
There is no point hovering and absolutely no point waiting for an invitation that will never come.
She takes a plate from the stack and moves toward the servers, falling into line with patience for when she'll receive her own breakfast.
The women serving the food do not look at her twice, ladling stew and bread onto her plate with practiced motions. The scent makes her stomach twist painfully, reminding her how little she has eaten since yesterday.
Plate in hand, she turns and scans the room within seconds.
Every table is full and every seat occupied, well, a few are not but they are quite spread out to imitate a table with no space, especially as they see her browsing for where to sit.
Everything... except for one.
It sits near the far wall, close to where the bins are stacked neatly against stone, the faint smell of discarded food lingering there despite the effort to keep the hall clean.
It is not meant for guests and is meant to be overlooked but it's hard to with the stench..
Amaris swallows, adjusts her grip on the plate, and walks toward it anyway, having no choice. She's eaten in worse places, what's wrong with eating beside a trash bin?
She reaches the table and lowers herself into the chair with careful movements, her shoulder twinging faintly as she settles. She places the plate down, takes a breath, and lifts her spoon.
She does not even make it to the first bite.
“Well, isn’t that fitting, just how ironic that they would find one another, awww.”
Rhea’s voice cuts through the hall, clear and sharp enough to draw attention from everyone. Conversation nearby falters, laughter dimming into curious silence as pretty much everyone focuses on her.
She just likes to be the center of attraction.
Amaris freezes, spoon hovering just above the plate.
Rhea approaches with two other girls at her side, their expressions mirroring her amusement as they walk with unhurried confidence.
Heads turn as they pass, interest sparking like dry leaves catching fire in fall.
“You know people, trash always knows where it belongs,” Rhea continues lightly, stopping directly in front of Amaris’s table. Her gaze drifts pointedly to the bins nearby before returning to her face.
A few girls snicker, finding the dark mocking humor quite hilarious.
Amaris lowers the spoon slowly and lifts her eyes, meeting Rhea’s gaze without a word.
"What do you want from me now? Rhea?
Rhea smiles wider, masking her rage at Amaris for calling her with her actual name, not Small Madam or Ma'am or Madam Rhea or anything at all.
“You really thought you could sit here and eat with the rest of us,” she says, her tone almost a picture perfect gentle. “After everything.”
She reaches out before Amaris can react.
When her fingers connect with her destination, the plate tips.
Stew spills across the table and cascades down, some of it splashing onto Amaris’s lap and soaking into the pale fabric of her dress. Bread slides to the floor. The smell rises sharply with the already stinking garbage dump, hot and humiliating.
For a heartbeat, the world goes quiet.
Then something inside Amaris snaps.
Oh shit!
"I'm going to knock the brains out of you!" Her wolf screams and for some reason, the words come out into reality, using Amaris's lips as her speaker.
Heat surges through her veins, fast and violent, washing away the dull ache in her shoulder as though it was never there to begin with.
Her vision sharpens, colors deepening until the room seems too bright, too close. She hears heartbeats, quick and uneven, smells fear threading through the air beneath the laughter.
Her eyes burn as her fists clench into rock hard surfaces.
She rises so abruptly that her chair scrapes loudly against the floor and then clatters, falling sideways.
One of the girls steps back instinctively, her smile faltering as she catches sight of Amaris’s face.
There is something wrong there, something feral and barely restrained.
Amaris lifts her hand menacingly.
For one terrible moment, she wants to hit her. Amaris wants to feel flesh and bone give way and tear beneath her knuckles, she wants to make the mocking laughter stop forever.
Her wolf snarls in approval.
Then the dining doors doors slam open.
The sound cracks through the hall like thunder.
“Everyone to the courtyard,” a guard’s voice booms, sharp and commanding. “Now.”
Silence crashes down just as quickly and it's like nothing was happening some few minutes ago..
Rhea stiffens, her expression flickering into morbid fear as she steps back with the girls too, even using one for her shield as she struggles to smoothen her expressions back into place.
The other girls step away as though distance alone can undo what almost happened.
Amaris lowers her hand slowly, regaining her control because of the distraction.
Her breathing is shallow, controlled with effort, her pulse roaring in her ears as she forces the heat back down, back into its cage. The pain seeps cautiously into her shoulder again, dull and insistent, as though testing whether it is allowed to return.
Chairs scrape as people begin to move, nobody is sleeping and no one is laughing. Very ironic how they laugh at the important ones and leave the ones that are insecure enough to need one.
Everyone knows.
They know that if the interruption had come a second later, things would have ended very differently.
Amaris steps away from the table first, leaving the spilled food behind. The hall parts subtly as she walks, bodies shifting to give her space.
Eyes follow her, wary now, calculating and those who are simply keeping their distance because they can't afford to be Amaris's scapegoat.
She keeps her head high, her jaw tight, her hands clenched at her sides as she exits with the others, every step a struggle to keep her temper in check.
Behind her, the dining hall hums back to life in low, uneasy murmurs but the fear lingers in their hearts...