I watched as she grabbed her fawn-colored cloak. Did she plan on running? No. She settled into the window seat, and her body curled in on itself as if she carried an impossible weight on her slender shoulders.
Annoyance sparked in my chest. She should be sleeping. If she was tired, she’d slow us down. “What are you doing?” My voice was harsher than I had intended.
The shield startled, then swung her gaze my way, and I saw a flash of something. Relief? Whatever it was, it was gone in an instant, and her perfect features settled into familiar hostility. She lifted a brow as her lips twisted into a sneer. “Making sure the bill has been paid?” Her voice was harsh.
I raked my fingers through my hair. Why couldn’t she, just once, answer a fucking question? “Answer my question.”
“Answer mine.”
“What bill? Why are you out here?”
Her mouth thinned, and she glared at me as if she wished looks could kill. “I’m out here because the man in my room reeks of turned ale and piss.”
“Why is there a man in your room?” I’d kill him. I’d rip his head off his fucking neck. I’d disembowel him. I’d—I was losing my fucking mind.
“He paid to rape me.”
I gaped at her, unable to process her words.
“Then there are the others.”
“The others?”
“Six. Seven if you count the innkeeper. They’re in the hall.”
I pinched my nose. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” Acid dripped from her voice. “Guards don’t pay for their rooms or meals, so innkeepers recoup the cost by selling shields to their regular customers.”
“That can’t be right.” The words rang hollow even to me. I’d suspected, hadn’t I? The way certain establishments were so eager to house guards for free. The calculating way innkeepers sometimes glanced at shields. But I hadn’t asked questions I didn’t want answered.
“Do you think I’d make that up?” She scowled at me as if it were her job. “I’m not the first girl.”
She was telling the truth. The shields, the rapes, thehorror. And I’d been too willfully blind to stop it. What else had I failed to see?
“Did anyone touch you?” Strangers pawing at her? Violating her? My stomach clenched, my chest tightened, and I fisted my hands. The fate of the world hinged on her answer. I’d burn the inn. The village. All of Legacia.
“No.”
The band around my chest loosened. “What were you doing upstairs?”
A blush darkened her cheeks. “I went upstairs to tell you what I think of you, but I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
Ten endless seconds passed before she spoke. “Nothing I say or do makes a difference. I’m a shield, not a person. A shield that can be traded for room and board.”
She believed I’d sold her for a bowl of stew and a soft bed. The darkness inside me howled.
She turned her head and stared through the window. “Surely you knew something might happen.”
I wanted to argue, but she was right. I’d seen how the men at the bar looked at her—even the innkeeper. And I’d chosen blindness. I’d fucking ordered her to accept an unprotected room.
The silence stretched between us, heavy with years of willful ignorance. How many conversations like this had I avoided? How many times had I seen a shield’s eyes haunted by pain and chosen to look elsewhere?
When the weight became unbearable, I asked, “What did you do to them?”
Her expression was reflected in the window’s glass. She wasn’t beaten—I doubted she’d ever be beaten; she was too stubborn for that—but she looked beleaguered, as if every man she met tried to claim some piece of her for himself. “A fewbroken bones.” Her voice was steady, but I caught a slight tremor in her hands as she pulled her cloak tighter around her slender body. “They’re all out cold.”
