Page 180 of Mother of Death and Dawn

My wrists and ankles were all bound with iron and chained to the corner, where the wall met the floor. The floor was marble, like, no doubt, everything else in this house. A small bed sat to my left, just far enough that surely my chains were too short to lie on it. The room was tiny. A single desk. A single dusty mirror. No windows.

A thin woman with wiry grey hair and a stress-pinched face regarded me with open revulsion.

“I expected you to be bigger,” she said. “After all the trouble you’ve caused.”

I blinked at her blearily as my vision cleared. She wore fine clothes—slaves’ clothes, yes, but they were well-made, which meant she was a house slave. People of this class liked to be surrounded by visually appealing things.

She held a mop, which she slapped to the ground beside me to clean up my mess, hard enough to send flecks of it over my face.

“They’re thrilled to haveyou, let me tell you that.”

“Where is this?” My voice was hoarse.

“Surely you aren’t stupid, after all you’ve done.”

“The Zorokov house.”

The woman rolled her eyes in a way that I chose to interpret as agreement.

“Themainhouse?” I asked. This was a house slave’s quarters that had been outfitted to keep me in. Not a dungeon, which would be in a separate building on the estate grounds.

“They want to keep you close. Hence why I’m here scooping up a prisoner’s vomit. Not usually my gods-damned job.”

A forceful scrub of the mob sent a small wave of watered-down vomit soaking through the hem of my tunic.

I scooted away from it. “And who are—”

“My daughter’s dead because of you, you know,” the woman cut out, without looking at me. “They took her hands first. I hear they sent ‘em to you.”

My mouth closed, a pang of hurt in my chest. I thought of those hands every day.

“I’m sorry.”

The woman shrugged. “Doesn’t do much for me now.”

I tried to reach for her with my magic, only to realize why my head was so fuzzy—it was only because I was so disoriented that I hadn’t recognized the sensation earlier. I had been dosed with Chryxalis. By the feel of it, massive amounts.

“You’ll be gone soon,” the woman said, slapping the mop down on the tile again. “I think that’ll be better for all of us. Just let everything go back to how it was. Back when you only got your hands cut off for stealing, not because some uppity Nyzrenese bitch decided to start a gods-damned civil war.”

I could tell her that she was too late. Even if I died today, the fire had grown too big to be stomped out. Too many people were too angry to ever go back to the way things were.

“What was your daughter’s name?” I said, instead, and her movements paused for a split second.

“Salen,” she said.

“That’s a beautiful name.”

Her eyes shot to me, as if I had said something horribly offensive. She looked quietly furious. Then she turned back to her work, running the mop over the floor one more time and dropping it with a loudSPLASHinto her bucket.

“She was a stupid, hotheaded girl. She thought what you were doing was just wonderful. Just loved it. Right up until the end.”

Rusty wheels screamed as she yanked her bucket of water to the door.

“Wait,” I said. “What’s your name?”

She threw open the door. “Laron,” she said, and slammed it behind her.

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