Page 20 of A Dance With Fire
Shula couldn’t make much sense of it even if she wanted to, because at that moment the doors opened. She whipped around so fast her head spun.
Women filed in. Women in drab, brown dresses that touched pale ankles. Their heads were fully shaved, and rods of metal gauged through their noses. In their boney hands, they carried steaming bowls, heaps of folded cloths, and bottled oils. They didn’t speak as they walked plaintively into the catacombs and got to work.
There was a methodical way about them as they moved, and they looked almost subdued. When they were close enough, Shula caught the sight of the sides of their heads. Where their ears should have been.
They had none.
As if they’d been cut off, nothing but curving stumps lay there. It twisted Shula’s insides, but they didn’t seem to notice she was staring. Their eyes were downcast as they set to work, setting the steaming bowls down. There were four women total, and Shula wondered if they were Fae as they poured oils into the water and unfolded a cloth to dip it in.
One of the women came close to Shula, cautiously like one would a wild animal.
Shula waited until she was close enough and then she lashed out. Using the chains, she whipped them out at the woman. She should have felt guilty when the woman had done nothing to her, but Shula didn’t care. All she wanted was escape.
The moment her chains connected against the woman’s arm, flesh hissed and smoke rose in tiny plumes.
So they were Fae. Shula’s eyes narrowed and upon closer inspection, she noticed that the bars and piercings on their faces were made entirely of iron. It distracted her from escape to realize that these Fae women were slaves, tortured with iron through their skin and their ears cut off.
She felt even worse about the way she’d reacted, but Shula could see her own future so clearly. She could see her own head shaved just like theirs, see the iron protruding from her nose, forced to wear brown cotton and no shoes, a dead look in her eyes.
She wouldn’t become that.
She refused to.
She tried bolting for the door, but the Fae women were faster and stronger than they looked. They quickly subdued her, grabbing her by the arms. The one she’d harmed loomed in front of her, pulling out a knife. Shula screamed and fought, but the knife came towards her and slashed her garments down the middle. Cold air touched her skin as they began peeling away the leftovers of her Fire Dancer costume, taking away the final bits that tied her to Piriguini’s Circus.
She fought them every step of the way. Even as they took the oil and water-soaked cloth and began rubbing her body down until she was slick and shining. Even when they tied a garment over her body toga style, sheer material that showed her every curve and left absolutely nothing to the imagination. It wasn’t brown and drab, but she felt dirty despite having just been cleaned.
Jewelry was draped around her neck, a single red ruby stone that looked like it contained flames within it. They brushed out her hair and braided it over her scalp and down her back, managing despite her kicking and screaming and clawing.
She fought to bring out whatever strength she had left within her. Even trapped as she was, she would not stop. She would fight until she took her last, smoking breath. She would fight until her death. Like her parents had fought when they were taken from her, so would she.
When they finished primping her, she was held down while two of the Fae grabbed the end of her chain and tugged, placing it on the ground right over the symbol of two flames. They procured a hammer and iron nail from their pile of things and began striking the nail through a loop in the chain, tethering her to the ground with a few strikes.
She looked up at the Fae she’d burned, holding the hammer in her hands with dead eyes. Well, Shula felt the fire in her own, she felt it rippling like never before, felt it rise and threaten, choked down by iron but lying in wait just the same.
I’ll kill you,Shula’s eyes said. Fae or not, slave or not, she would kill her. Shula had betrayed her own kind many times over by denying her heritage, but never like this. She would never tie a Fae down with iron, would never primp them up like this to await their detestable fate.
She’d sooner take a dagger to her own chest.
I’ll kill you, her eyes repeated. And there, she caught the flash of something. Something perhaps still alive in the other woman’s vacant eyes. No sooner had she seen it did it disappear.
Shula watched as the women picked up their things and filed out the door, one by one, closing it behind them. Only when they were gone, did she slump to the floor, hunching her back, promising herself she wouldn’t cry.
She was stronger than her tears. She hadn’t cried since she was twelve, when she’d watched her parents ushered into the camps or when the emperor’s soldiers chased her. When she hid in a human’s attic, only to be found and taken care of. When the soldiers had barged in and killed her for treason.
That was the last night she’d ever cried, and she had vowed then that she’d never be weak again. Yet here she was. Helpless to get out of this.
No. She shook her head vehemently and tugged on the chain. She had to get out of this. She had to. She tugged again, getting on her feet and finding as much purchase as she could with oiled skin, she tugged. And tugged. And tugged.
And when the iron nail began to slowly slide up, Shula held her breath and her joy inside.
That flash in the Fae’s eyes, had it been a message? That she wasn’t so far gone, that she wouldn’t condemn Shula to die?
She pulled again, and again, and with a final tug and all of her might, the nail came undone. She wanted to turn and run, but she heard the sound of voices, of footsteps, and she knew her time was up.
As quickly as she could, she slipped the nail back into the hole, angling it just right so it didn’t appear loose and she sat against the floor just as the doors flew open.
She didn’t turn around to meet her captor’s eyes, and she didn’t hear the clanking footfalls of steel, so she knew it wasn’t the soldiers, but someone else.
