Page 14 of Mother of Death and Dawn

Rest. I hated rest.

The three of them left, leaving only me. For a moment I stood there, breath still heaving. Then I crossed the room and pressed myself to the door.

Beyond it, I heard the whispers.

“…allow this to go on.” Luia’s voice.

“It has only been a few months.” Caduan’s.

“You made a considerable investment in her,” Vythian said. “Time is not in our favor.”

“You need to ask her,” Luia hissed. “We need her. After last night, it’s clearer than ever. We can’t win a war like this.”

A beat of silence. I could imagine a withering stare. “We will not win it with her, either. Not yet. She isn’t ready.”

Yet.

The word formed a hot ball of anger in my stomach. Anger and—hurt?

I did not know why it surprised me. It shouldn’t. It was all anyone had ever wanted to do to me. What use was I, after all, but to be a weapon?

Two footsteps, as if he started to walk away. I pressed closer to the door, ears straining.

“Whenwillshe be ready, then?” Luia’s words came sharper, louder. “When the Aran queen cements her human alliances and sends half a million men to our doorstep? Or perhaps after she perfects her experiments and—”

“Enough.” Caduan spoke quietly, but the word sliced through the air, demanding silence. “Do you understand what she has gone through? Do you understand what they did to her? Five hundred years of torture. They took everything from her. Her name, her body. Everything. All so she could become their weapon. Their desires were more important than her soul.” His voice drew closer, low, simmering. “Andwhat,” he breathed, “are you now asking me to do? Do you want me to make that decision again? Become just as monstrous as the humans?”

Several long seconds.

“Of course not, my King,” Luia said, finally.

A low murmur of agreement from Vythian.

Caduan’s voice faded down the hall as he said, “Don’t propose such a thing again.”

* * *

Hours passed.I lay on the floor and looked up at the stars through the glass ceiling. Had I liked looking at the sky, once? Now it just made me feel small and lonely. When I was with Tisaanah and Maxantarius, my world was swaddled tightly around me. I was nestled securely in the thoughts and mind of another. Even when I was confined, I was not alone.

Not like now.

Once the quiet crept in, I was desperate to distract myself. I closed my eyes and tried to seize upon that moment of connection I had felt earlier that day. Strange, how the brush of intimacy made my loneliness sharper than ever. I reached for them, but felt nothing but my own mind.

I was there, lying in the middle of the floor with my eyes closed, when Caduan returned.

“You should try the bed,” he said. “It’s very comfortable.”

I did not look at him. “I did try. I don’t like it.”

“Why?”

“It is…” Too much. Too many different textures touching me. Too soft. Too smothering.

I gave up on trying to find words, instead pressing my palms flat to the floor. “This is better.”

“Alright.” He leaned over me and looked down. Now he wore a simple white shirt and breeches, plain even by the standards of peasantry. For some reason, I liked this, as if there was something about his current appearance that was disarming.

I swiftly drowned that thought beneath my anger. He was simply using me. I was a tool to him. He brought me back to life for his own selfish purposes.

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