Looking around, I noticed that quite a few of the beast army soldiers were busy serving food to the starving masses and carrying bags of grain to various locations throughout the slums. If that wasn’t adding insult to injury, I didn't know what was.

Although I had spent my life in blissful ignorance up until that moment, the scene before me somehow felt like a personal failing. I had never wanted for anything, not even for a moment. Fine food, fine clothing, and anything else money could buy had always been within reach for me. But I could have easily lived without all that luxury if it meant all these people were fed.

Yes, that was the worst part; knowing that I had gone to bed with a full belly every night while so many others hadn’t. Was this the true face of my cousin, the King? So little care for his subjects that his kin wanted for nothing, yet the common people literally had nothing. In the face of such neglect, I wanted to cry for the first time since childhood.

However, rather than have a pity party about my pampered upbringing, I figured my energies could be better spent making up for it. I searched for the faces of the other Palace knights in the crowd and made my way over to them.

“Sir Evan,” one of the younger knights, Sir Wilson, greeted me in a grave voice, “I thought I had readied myself for everything we might encounter, but I don’t think anything could have prepared me for such a sight. I fear I shall never look upon this city the same after this.”

"Nor shall I, Sir Wilson," I replied solemnly, "nor shall I. Our ignorance is understandable, yet entirely inexcusable. However, it's not too late to do something now. I was thinking, perhaps the beastmen will allow us to assist them."

Sir Wilson looked surprised by my suggestion, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. It probably hadn’t. He was a good man, but he wasn’t much of a thinker.

“I concur,” Sir Gordon, a squad leader, piped in, “assuming they are willing to accept our assistance.”

The expression on his face indicated that he highly doubted they would. But he didn't say no. 

“Why wouldn’t they?” I asked, “It’s our mess, after all. It isn’t right that they should be the ones to clean it up.”

I said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, but my fellow knights still looked doubtful. It was true that I’d been warned in advance that some of the beastmen wouldn’t be too fond of our presence, but I couldn’t imagine them turning away free help from the people who should have been doing the work in the first place.

The beastmen who were cooking and serving the food looked like they had all the hands they needed, so we made our way toward a wagon, half full with bags of grain, to look for someone who could point us in the right direction.

As we approached, a beastman with shoulder-length hair, filled with a myriad of braids and tangled strands, hopped into the wagon and started tossing bags toward a group of soldiers. He had his back to us, but it looked like he was directing them where to take each load.

Assuming he was the one in charge, I cautiously called out to him, “Um, excuse me.”

The beastman turned around and my eyes met with the deepest, bluest set of eyes I’d ever seen. For a brief moment– a single, fleeting, and very foolish moment, that is –everything else faded into the background as I became undeniably entranced by the shiny, pretty thing in front of me. 

Now, I’d seen many sets of blue eyes before. In fact, I saw a pair looking back at me in the mirror everyday. The eyes of most Royals were blue; a pale, listless blue and decidedly unremarkable. One could even call them boring.

But nothing could have prepared me for that startling shade of blue. If my eyes were the color of the sky, his were like the ocean on a sunny day. Actually, I'd never actually seen the ocean in person, let alone on a sunny day, but I assumed the colors in the paintings were accurate. A thin, black ring surrounded each iris, making the deep inner color shine even brighter in contrast. 

These were eyes I could look into for days without getting bored. They were exquisite. Beautiful, even.

As a result, I was so focused on admiring those eyes that I completely missed whatever their owner was saying to me. The next thing I knew he was looking at me expectantly and I had absolutely no idea what he had said.

“Hey! Knight boy!” he snapped, looking deeply annoyed at my lack of response, “We’re a little busy here, if you hadn’t noticed. Tell me what you want or get out of the way.”

“Oh, um, sorry,” I stammered, my face heating up. Hopefully, he hadn't figured out the reason behind my distraction. Flustered, I tried to explain, “I, um... that is, I mean we, uh… we wanted to help. With the food, that is.”

“You want to help?” he asked with an incredulous sneer, those beautiful blue eyes now filled with disdain, “Since when have any of you noble assholes ever given a shit about helping these people?”

“Oh, um, we’re not nobles,” I quickly clarified, fully aware that the distinction probably meant nothing to him, “And, uh, this is the first time we’ve ever been allowed to leave the inner city, so it’s not like we could have helped before… But we want to, so can we?”

“Just tell ‘em to fuck off already,” another beastman commented as he was walking by, glaring at us with obvious hostility, “We don’t need any help from those assholes.”

Despite his blatant antagonism, I was oddly grateful to the passing beastman. His insolent stare reminded me that I was a Palace knight, not a blushing maiden. When had I ever struggled to speak?

I straightened my back and returned the beastman’s glare, “Wouldn’t that be a waste? Why do all the work on your own if you’ve got hands willing to help?”

“We don’t want your help, human,” the angry one snarled, clearly itching for a fight.

“For fuck’s sake, Jerran. Just shut up and get back to the cooking,” the blue-eyed beastman muttered with a scowl. He stared at us for a moment, sizing us up, then grudgingly admitted, “We could use the extra hands. Don’t matter if they’re human, if they can carry the grain.”

“So we can help?” I asked with far too much enthusiasm for my dignity to bear.

Damn. What the hell was wrong with me? The guy clearly had no fondness for humans and was just being pragmatic. Yet here I was, wagging my imaginary tail at him like an overexcited puppy.

Actually, now that I thought about it, his tail was pretty too. It looked soft. A rich mahogany color with red and blond highlights, just like his hair. His hair was nice. I was so sick of silver hair.

Ah, shit. I was doing it again. He was talking, but I was too busy staring stupidly at him to process a single word. Thankfully, the other knights seemed to be listening, so when they started moving, I followed along, hoping I would get it right.

“Intimidating, aren’t they?” Sir Wilson whispered to me as we each picked up a sack of grain.

“Yeah, they sure are,” I murmured, happy to let him think that was the reason I was so flustered.

I peeked over my shoulder at the blue-eyed beastman, who had already moved on to other things, and thought that intimidating wasn’t at all how I would describe him.