Page 40 of Given to the Fae
My eyes lock with his. For a moment, I see something deep in them that I don't understand, and then he looks beyond me and his lips curve into a cocksure smirk.
I close my eyes, my stomach dropping like a stone into watery depths.
‘Surely, that's got to be some sort of record,’ he says loudly with a guffaw, standing up and taking me with him.
Gods, I want fate to make him suffer, but he’s one of the ones it doesn’t punish. And what would it punish him for anyway? He told the truth. He didn’t hurt me, not bodily.
My legs uncurl from him, and my feet touch the ground. He lets me go and gives me a small pat on the head before waving me away lightly. I’m put in the pen alone and I curl up by the wall into the smallest ball that I can, staring at nothing.
I don’t hear the slavers clapping Locke on the back while telling him that they'd never seen a release performed so quickly and deftly outside the block, and I definitely don’t hear them exclaiming that they’d no idea such squeals of pleasure could come from a human female.
I don’t know how long it is before Bell and Ila return, but when they do, they’re clean and look much healthier, though underweight. Their hair is washed and scented, and their rough woolen slave dresses have been replaced with colorful silk and gossamer.
I don’t look at them. I don’t hear them chortling to each other, or their catty and smug remarks, don’t see the sneers Bell gives me.
With every word Idon’thear, I wish more and more to sink into the floor, to sleep and never wake. I thought that Ogdan, Sio, and The Barrack had taken all there was to take from me, but Locke has just stolen something else, perhaps the last thing.
Bell and Ila chat amongst themselves almost happily, barely looking at me, which I’m glad of, and soon they’re taken from the pen and loaded into the cart. All of Bere’s men bar Locke, Morgan, Jak, and Warrior leave, taking Bell and Ila with them. I hope that I’ve seen the last of the female slaves, and also that they’re sold, as they wish, to a wealthy household, and then I resolve to think of them no more.
Warrior throws some meat into my pen at some point in the night with an amused snort. It lands in the straw by my feet. I ignore it. Instead, I close my eyes and huddle deeper into my corner, numb and deader inside than I’ve felt in a very long time.
‘Get up, slave. Time to go.’
I jerk awake as my foot is kicked gently and I gaze up to see Warrior. He throws a wineskin down at me and gestures for me to drink, and then he leaves, taking a saddle with him. I grimace as I uncork the skin and smell the hated tea, but I drink it.
While no one’s watching me, I get to my feet awkwardly, my body stiff and aching between my legs a little. I relieve myself in the rough wooden bucket in the other corner. When I’m finished, I find that Warrior has returned. He looks impatient.
I’m pulled from the pen, and then from the stable. Outside, rain lashes down in sheets and I hunch my cloakless form to try to stay even a tiny bit dry. It’s fruitless though, because Warrior keeps me standing in it while we wait for the others. He looks at me oddly, and I realize with a sinking feeling that he’s seeing if causing me misery without pain will get him punished.
I’m not sure, but I hope so.
I try not to laugh out loud when he slips in the mud and falls flat on his back, but I have to turn away because I don’t quite manage it. My mirth is short-lived, however, when he picks me up and hoists me onto a horse’s back, only to climb on behind me.
I’ve never ridden before so I’m already afraid of being so high up, and then I feel him settle into the saddle behind me with a grunt, and everything’s even worse. His breath is hot on my ear, and I can’t get away from it when his arms snake around me and pull my back flush against his front.
‘I’ll get you for that, you stupid, useless, little Kismet. Locke won’t be there to save you next time, though I don’t know him well. Perhaps he’d be happy to use your pain to make others suffer.’ He leans in closer. ‘Ugly, useless, unworthy. That’s what you are. You know that, don’t you? All the other slaves endure so much more than you do. You deserve all the pain and misery you get.’
I try not to let Warrior’s words get to me. After all, Ogdan would say the same sort of things often, once he knew that fate never punished words, no matter how mean-spirited, but despite my resolve, I feel lower and lower as we pass through the town toward the square, to the Gate I was going to try to escape through yesterday.
Locke, riding at the front, hasn’t even looked at me once. Morgan neither.
It’s as if I’ve been abandoned, though I know it’s silly. To be discarded, you must first have to be kept and protected. Morgan did a fine job of pretending for half a day, but, in the end, his promises were hollow like all masters’ vows are.
Our party gets to the Ring, and I hear Jak ask the keeper when the Breach will open. Turns out it isn’t for a few more minutes, so it’s decided that we’ll wait in the rain, them with their oiled cloaks to keep the weather off them, and me with my soaked, cold, wool dress.
Finally, I hear the hum and then the roar of the Bridge and I'm surprised by the panic that rises in me. Wet and cold as I am, I had a vague notion that, even though I’ll likely be ill from the Breach travel and have to listen to those awful sounds in that dark corridor again, I would simply be able to will myself to endure it just to be out of the rain. But when the portal actually opens, my stomach drops to my toes and I swallow hard as bile climbs my throat.
Locke urges his black stallion into the Breach, and the rest follow. I hunch over, clutching at the horse’s mane as we travel under the arch.
The whispers whirl around me first, and then there’s shouting echoing through the void. I can’t hear the words, but when we emerge into the next place, I can’t see it through streams of tears.
My stomach twists and rolls, but I don’t faint or retch, thankfully, mostly because I know that Warrior will take pleasure in any distress I endure, even if he hasn’t been the cause.
I hear one of them ask Warrior how I fare, and the cunt tells them I’m well. He urges his horse into a canter, taking the lead.
Once my tears have dried, I see no forests in this new world, and no towns either, just a road with meadows of long grass on either side as far as the eye can see. The sun isn’t shining, and in fact there are grey, rolling clouds covering the sky, but at least it isn’t raining.
No one speaks all day except for Warrior, who spends the hours telling me how ugly and useless I am, even more so than the rest of my kind. He also quietly tells me about a slave girl his family owned once when he was much younger, going into great detail about all the many hateful things he did to her simply because he could. His recounts turn my stomach, and I fervently hope that the poor girl is out of her misery. When I say as much, he laughs loudly.
