“The last person I allowed to help me died.” Lory swallowed the dryness in her mouth.
With a shake of her head, Lu’Shen ripped open the already torn fabric above the wound, then opened the tin.
Lory didn’t dare make a sound, even when her flesh stung as if someone had poured acid onto it where the rocks had scraped the skin off during her fall. She hadn’t spotted a weapon on the madame, but she knew well enough the owner of the tavern never meandered her territory unarmed, even if it was one of the hairpins she’d draw and point at a drunkard who became too friendly with her girls without paying.
“He’s one of the king’s advisors. Not an important one,” Lu’Shen added when Lory raised a curious brow at her, dipping her fingers into the tin and extracting some of the yellowish salve. She paused before spreading it on Lory’s wound—and it burned like someone had set it on fire.
Lory bit back a scream.
“It cleans and heals all in one step.” Lu’Shen gestured at the tin. “Hurts like Eroth himself is after you, doesn’t it? But it will be almost fine by tomorrow.”
Lory could only take her at her word because, for now, running wasn’t an option; neither was slitting the madame’s throat when she was obviously putting an effort into helping her. That didn’t mean Lory trusted her in the slightest.
“What does the man advise King Ulder about?” Observing Lu'Shen wrapping her knee in the bandage, Lory breathed through the worst of the pain.
“The weather, if I’m not mistaken. The lapis lazuli ring identifies him as one of Ulder’s inner circle.”
Now Lory was relieved she hadn’t stolen the ring, too.
“They drop by my establishment sometimes.” As she leaned closer, Lu’Shen gave Lory a conspiratorial look. “Pay well, those nobles, even when they lack manners.” With nimble fingers, she closed the salve tin and slipped it into the pocket of her dress before she got to her feet. “Good as new.” She gestured at Lory’s knee. “Want to rest in one of the rooms until morning?”
Lory shook her head so fast her thoughts wobbled slightly as she shot to her feet, too. “And pay off your help by serving the next bastard from the king’s inner circle? I think not.” Hobbling toward the door, Lory cursed having set foot into this place that night to begin with.
Lu’Shen didn’t stop her, merely watching Lory reach for the brass doorknob. “Don’t judge me or my girls. We all have our reasons for being here. And you will learn in time that sometimes, in order to survive, we need to work for the ones we despise.”
Without another look back, Lory slipped out the door, into the dark and empty street, biting her tongue so she wouldn’t attract attention. A glance north at the ever-burning flames at the tips of the pyramids of King Ulder’s royal residence, and Lory headed in the opposite direction, where the street rats struggled to survive and her sleeping place in a half-collapsed shack was waiting.
The attack came out of nowhere, a fist connecting with the side of her face and her knees hitting the hard ground asshe lost balance. Something dull and narrow hit her stomach, the pain so sharp she forgot about her throbbing knee. To turn around so she could get a glimpse of her attacker, Lory thrashed, elbowing and stabbing with her knife blindly, but a pair of iron hands held her down. A flash of beige and black was the last thing she saw as the dull item hit her temple, and Lory slumped right there, on the street.
Two
Stiflingheat threatened to burn Lory’s lungs as she woke with a sharp breath, opening her eyes to the blinding sun. The stench—Guardians,the stench.
“Not exactly how you’d imagine a royal residence, is it?” a female voice greeted her from the corner just as Lory’s stomach churned and she heaved the remainders of last night’s ale onto the earth supporting her weight. “Yeah, that was my first response to the smell, too. You’ll get used to it, though. After a week in here, you’ll barely notice it, and after two weeks, you’ll forget you have a nose to be offended at all. That is, unless they break it.Thenyou do remember, but you won’t smell anything because… You get the idea,” the voice rambled on, its owner obviously unimpressed by Lory’s heaving.
“You from Dunai? Or did they bring you in from one of the villages? I’ve heard half of us are being dragged into the capital by Ulder’s men. Why they’d bother hunting down someone who never even intended to set foot in the capital, I’ll never know.”
The nausea in Lory’s stomach turned into a panic-laced queasiness. “We’re at the palace?” The words barely left her throat, her ribcage aching and her knee still sore from the injury, but worst of all, the left side of her face was so swollen she could hardly open her eye.
“Where else would we be?” The voice came closer but stopped a few feet away, the scrape of boots on dirt ending in the sound of calluses sliding over metal. “It’s swarming with Ulder’s guards out there—look, there are more coming.”
When Lory finally managed to twist her head, forcing her eyes open to study the iron bars caging her in, she found a girl, perhaps a few years older than her, twenty-five at the most. Her dirt-crusted cheek leaned against one of the bars, hands gripping the barrier where the cage was separated into two cells. Rags of what could have been silk but had been covered in layers of grime, turning it into an undefinable textile, hung from her narrow frame, her brown skin burned from being exposed to the sun for too long, and her black tresses fell to her shoulders in dull strings.
“You got a name?” the girl wanted to know, while all Lory needed was a moment to sort her thoughts and figure out how she’d gotten there. “The guards called you Ycken’s little brat, but I doubt that’s an endearment you’d choose foryourself. You actually don’t look like Ycken would bother with you at all.”
“Who’s Ycken?” At last, Lory’s voice manifested on her tongue as she scrambled into a sitting position. “Why are we here?”
The girl shrugged, leaning against the bars as she slid to the ground, crossing her legs while her eyes followed Lory’s every move. “Ycken is the head of Ulder’s guard,” she said, tilting her head as if trying to read from Lory’s face the answers to all the questions she didn’t dare ask. “And we’re in the brig, right at the walls surrounding the premises.” She glanced up at the cloudless sky. “We’ll get the shade of the pyramid in about an hour, so don’t worry about the heat. You’ll survive the day. We all do. And eventually, they’ll give us water again.”
The mere mention of water tore a fresh hole in Lory’s stomach. She hadn’t eaten the night before, not enough coins in her pocket to buy even a loaf of bread, and after she stole Top Knot’s bag?—
Memories flashed through her mind, and a groan built in her throat.
“As forwhywe are here? I don’t know why you are, butIam here because I’m too entertaining to put me on the gallows.” For a moment, she grimaced as if she regretted saying what she had. “Actually, the gallows might be a better fate than what they do to those of us who prove interesting enough.”
“Interesting enough?”
“You don’t want to know, trust me.”
