“Some of these people have been here their whole lives.”
“Doesn’t seem like a life worth living.”
“Hope is a wondrous and horrible thing.” She gives me a tight smile. “I’m Jael, by the way.”
Jael. Why does that name sound familiar? “Oh, there was a man looking for you earlier. He thought I was you.”
She rolls onto her back, hands on her chest. “There’s always someone looking for me. I let it slip a while back that I was a healer and now any time someone gets so much as a headache, they come to me.”
“Seems like you’d get a lot of headaches in a place like this.”
“Exactly.” She turns to look at me and stops cold, her eyes widening so much you’d think she saw a ghost. “Roll over. Arm over your face. Quick.”
The panic on her face leaves no room for argument. I throw my arm over my face and roll onto my belly.
The crackle of footsteps over gravel pricks my ears. The steps are getting closer as someone—presumably, a guard—moves down the line of sleeping women.
Please gods, don’t let this be what I think it is.
The air is still, deathly silent, fifty plus females trying to disappear into the rough-hewn fabric at their backs. I don’t dare breathe or move. My muscles are beginning to ache from holding myself so rigidly, and the thrum of blood in my head grows louder with each passing second.
He stops briefly, just short of where I lie. My belly churns. I think I’m going to be sick.
“There’s my girl,” a gruff, deep voice whispers. I peek out from beneath my arm. One of the guards, notable mostly for the puckered scar dissecting his cheek, leans over a woman with close-cropped black hair and smooth onyx-like skin. Her lips are full, with just a touch of pink, her eyelashes so long they fan the crest of her cheeks.
What a curse beauty must be in a place like this.
She doesn’t try to hide her face or close her eyes. She stoically glares up at him, forcing him to look at her. He doesn’t seem the least bit fazed, though. If anything, his smile grows larger. He begins unbuttoning his pants.
I turn my head away, unable to watch any longer. If I ever figure out how to use that mind control magic again, he’s the first one I’m going to kill.
A small squeak of protest is all I hear before the sounds of grunting and slapping skin fill the quiet, like a foul smell you can’t escape.
Jael’s lower lip trembles and silent tears rain down her face.
I don’t cry. I simply shut my eyes and imagine what it would sound like if his neck snapped over and over and over.
“What’s wrong?” Aemon asks for the twentieth time this morning. He doesn’t know what happened last night. I considered telling him, but knowing Aemon’s temper, I don’t think that would end well for anyone. So, I kept my head down and my mouth shut. I know he thinks this is about our argument yesterday, and while I am still unsure of what to believe, I have too much else weighing on my mind to devote any more mental energy to figuring out the enigma that is Aemon Cregg.
“I just had a rough night,” I tell him, keeping things as vague as possible. I’m sitting on the floor, sorting the sythra and rock. My arms gave out a while ago, so now I’m trying to do whatever I can to appear busy, hoping I won’t get whipped or worse.
We’re pretty far down the shaft, so I hear, rather than see, the ruckus at the entrance. I barely give it a second thought until a group of guards grab Aemon and me and drag us back through the cave.
“What are you doing?” Aemon asks, though I doubt the guards even understand what he’s saying. “Why are you taking her? I’m the one you want.”
I sigh. I appreciate that he wants to look out for me, but I wish he’d just stop trying to be the hero for once and be quiet. This isn’t helping.
As soon as we’re out in the open, the guard holding me lets me go. Not so for Aemon. He grapples with three males while a long-haired fae, with a hooked nose and the peak of one ear missing, watches, a bemused expression on his face. Hooked nose turns to me then. He cants his head and smiles at me like I’m a cute puppy. “I can see why he’s so protective. You are lovely, dear.”
“Let her go,” Aemon says again.
Hook Nosetuts at him. “I understand this might be difficult for you to comprehend, boy, but you are in no position to negotiate. Now, be a good little slave and do as you’re told, or I may have to use more…” He pauses for effect. “Extreme measures.”
“Fuck you,” Aemon shouts.
“Ahhh, so poetic. Truly, I’m moved.” Hook Nose presses a hand to his heart in mock appreciation. “Take him to see Maridon,” he says, wiggling his fingers at the guards. “If he continues to fight, knock him out and drag him there.”
The guards respond with the requisite “yes, sirs,” and Aemon and I only get to share a glance before he’s hauled away. I don’t like the expression on his face. That’s the way a person looks at you when they’re afraid they won’t ever see you again. My mother gave me that look before I left for Ranook and see how well that turned out.
