Page 64 of Bred
“I—”
The goblin chuckled and shook his head. “You have to be chosen,” he said. “The Lords of the Jeweled Throne choose their surrogates carefully. To even be considered is a great honor. Surely even someone like you would know that.”
“I do,” I whispered.
Furious tears pricked my lashes, and I blinked them away. Iwasangry now. Mostly with myself. How could I have even hoped that I would be chosen?
A kitchen wench as a royal surrogate.
How ridiculous.
No wonder the only other woman I’d told about my ambitions had laughed at me.
“Do you even know where the surrogates are chosen from? And how much the wealthy families pay to have their daughters put forward for the king’s scrutiny?”
I shook my head and stared at the dusty floor. An emerald green beetle crawled across a scrap of parchment and disappeared into a crack between two floorboards.
A desperate wish that the building was full of wood-boring beetles and that it would crash down on my head at that very moment flitted through my mind and the goblin chuckled.
“It’s a brothel, you know.”
“A what?”
The goblin’s silver shadowed eyes glinted in the weak light. “The place where the king chooses his surrogates.”
“Oh.”
“You thought they would be taken to the citadel?”
“I— I don’t know.”
“Of course. Why would you?” The goblin sighed. “The announcements never reveal the sordid details.” He held up three long fingers. “The king will choose three young women.”
“Three,” I blurted out. “But—”
“The king isn’t looking for love, little one,” the goblin said. A silverblue glint was revealed in his quick smile. “The vessel is not important. Only the child.”
“That’s why I wanted the herbs,” I said slowly.
Why hadn’t he told me to leave?
“Ah, but what does it matter how ripe your womb is if you can’t catch the king’s eye?” the goblin asked.
His ink-stained fingernails tapped on the rough wooden counter.
Suddenly, it dawned on me.
The right question.
“But— could you get me into the brothel?”
The goblin’s eyes glinted. “Perhaps.”
“Whatever price—”
“You have nothing I want, girl,” he snorted. But my heart lurched in my chest as he looked me up and down once more and leaned his elbows on the counter. “However…”
“However?”
