Deprivation is the key to a pure mind, the Sisters tell us. Rations are always scarce at the two meals a day we’re allotted. I’m at the lowest rung of the hierarchy, so I’m only allowed to put food on myplate when everyone else is done filling theirs.
And I’m lucky to get that much, I know, after being told so almost daily for most of my life. I’ll be one and twenty at Harvest Fest, the age at which indentured servants are formally freed from their bonds.
Except for people like me.
I’ll never be free. Grayminds never are.
When I hesitate at the gate, the guard next to me takes my arm and pulls me through. “No use being late to a place, even if you don’t want to go,” he says gruffly. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I think he gives my arm a reassuring squeeze.
I lift my chin and pretend the action gives me strength, but then one of the gate guards points at me and laughs.
“Another one? This one’s covered in dirt! Why are you bringing her to the palace? Do we give charity baths to paupers now?” So quickly I can’t duck, he snatches a twist of parchment out of my braid. “She even has paper stuck in her hair.”
He tosses it to the ground, and I can’t miss the symbolism when he crushes myCouragebeneath one boot.
I quietly breathe in for four counts and then out for four more. I may have lostCourage, but I still haveEndurance. Artemisen willing, that will be enough for whatever I’m about to face.
The guard next to me, the gentle one, whips around and punches the gate guard in the solar plexus, an anatomical point I learned about inGarethan’s Compilation of Bodily Humors and Healingstwo years after I taught myself to read.
The Sisters often proclaim that knowledge is godly. The sentiment is even carved into the stone lintel above the library’s front door.
I prefer to think that knowledge is power, and I hoard every hard-earned scrap of both.
The gate guard collapses to the ground, clutching his abdomen and hacking out a cough. I press my lips together against the smile trying to escape, lift my ragged, filthy skirts, and step over his feet.
When I turn toward my escort with some idea of thanking him, his warning glare dissuades me. “Don’t say anything to me, girl. I don’twant to get to know you right before you die.” So much for gentle.
My faint glimmer of satisfaction turns into terror and sinks like cold iron into the pit of my stomach.
Before I die?
What could I have done to deserve death?
As we march across the colorful palace gardens that I don’t have the heart to appreciate, I cast my mind back over the last few weeks. I didn’t offend any patrons, I’m sure of that, because I’m never allowed in the library during the hours it’s open to the public.
I haven’t seen the Sister Superior in months and, anyway, she metes out her own punishments. I’ve left her study more than once with my hands raw and bleeding from the weight of her edged stick. She’s good at only beating novice Sisters in places that won’t show, but doesn’t take any such care with her servants.
I refuse to think about the scars my clothes cover. Not now, when I need every ounce of courage I can muster.
My breathing quickens until I’m on the verge of hyperventilating, which Garethan calls the “unfortunate affliction of the weaker sex,” because Garethan is a misogynist fool. I realize I’m so scared that my brain is spouting trivial nonsense at me, but it’s now so hard to breathe that I wonder if I’ll drop dead right here and save the king the trouble of executing me.
The officer, still in the lead, reaches the palace wall and turns to face the rest of us, impatience stamped in the hard lines of her face.
“Hurry up, already,” she barks, and—just like that—something breaks inside me.
I yank my arm out of the guard’s grip and stop walking. Then I deliberately stare up and up and up at the shining white stone, sparkling glass windows, and crystal spires on the palace turrets and shrug, pretending a nonchalance I’m worlds away from feeling.
“Not a terrible place to die.”
The officer raises an eyebrow and quirks her lips but quickly schools her face into an emotionless mask. “We’ll see,” is all she says before making a sharp right turn into the palace.
I swallow the boulder lodged in my throat and follow her into whatmay be my very short future. To my surprise, we walk into a kitchen that doesn’t look much different from the one in the library, if you don’t count the fact that it’s four times the size and contains five times the workers, all of them busy at various tasks.
More fascinating than all that, though, is the food. This kitchen holds more food than I’ve ever seen in one place, stacked and displayed all around me in a fresh, colorful, fragrant bounty. The scents layer through the air like a symphony, with undertones of rich beef and pork, and lighter notes of herbed vegetables and spiced fruit, all topped with the sugary, buttery top notes of sweets for the king’s table.
My stomach suddenly growls so loudly that everyone around me hears it, surprising an almost grin out of my escort. I only had time for half a piece of stale bread this morning before the novices ordered me to get to work, and that was a long time ago. It’s nearly sunset now, an hour before I’m due for my second meal of the day.
“Not holding out hope I’ll be back in time for that,” I mutter, shoving my hands in my pockets to avoid reaching for any of the tempting baked goods within grabbing distance. I’ve been beaten for taking extra food in the library; I can’t imagine the punishment for stealing from the king.
