by Maia Tanith
The captain’s next words wipe away all trace of my smile. “You, slave girl. Ten lashes for daring to attack a soldier in his Majesty’s guard.” He grabs my injured hand roughly, making me yelp with pain. “Come with me.”
I drop the knife and glance at Litha. She is shaken, but she is still strong. She will be all right.
“Please sir, she was just trying to help me—” she starts.
The guard waves his hand and cuts her off. “Be that as it may, a slave who attacks a guard must be punished.” He looks down at the broken glass and scattered plants on the floor. “You best get to cleaning that up.” And he pulls me out of the room.
Yefrik has stalked off, to who knows where. I’m led towards the kitchens, then through another smaller corridor into a large hallway that looks as though it’s made of stone. Through the open doors on each side I can see stores of what looks like body armor. Hanging from the walls are chains and whips and an array of instruments that makes me shudder, although I don’t know what they are.
The floor is stained with what looks like blood.
The guard drops my wrist. “Take off your shirt.”
I do it with shaking hands.
“Face the wall,” he instructs.
Chapter Four
I’ve barely turned around when the first lash hits me and I cry out despite myself.
The second lash hurts more. By the third, I can feel the hot blood running down my back where he has cut through the skin. By the tenth, I’m barely standing, and every movement hurts like fire.
“Clean yourself up and go back to work,” the guard says blandly. Then he hangs the whip back up on the wall and walks out.
Blood has pooled around my feet. I sink to the floor and lie on my stomach, my left cheek pressed into the cool stone floor. I manage to hold onto my tears until his steps are faint, then I let them out.
I don’t know how long I lie there for. I’m falling in and out of consciousness when I feel something gently stroking my arm.
There are voices around me. One is Litha, the other is a male. When I open my eyes, they both look blurry, so I close my eyes again. I don’t have the energy to speak back.
Then something cold is pressed into my back and I scream in pain.
A hand clamps down over my mouth. “Shhh.” It’s Litha. Her grip is surprisingly strong. “Shhh, stay quiet, or we’ll all be punished. Let me put this on your back. It will hurt for a bit, then you will feel better.”
She removes her hand and pushes a leaf gently into my mouth. “Chew.”
I do so gratefully.
The relief is almost instant. My mouth tingles unpleasantly but that is nothing compared to the lessening of the pain in my back. It slowly fades to a dull thud that echoes a dull pain with every heartbeat.
“Let’s get you back to our rooms,” Litha whispers.
Her hands grip my right arm and another set of hands grips my left. I wince as I turn around, and jump. It’s a guard.
It takes a second before I realize it’s not Yefrik.
“Easy now,” he says, in a voice smooth and kind like Litha’s. It must be her lover that’s with her now, helping me. Together they half help, half drag me to my feet.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
Litha’s eyes are still red. “I have to thank you,” she says quietly, as she and her lover walk me slowly back to our rooms. “I’m in your debt, and I won’t forget it.”
“As am I,” he says in a low voice.
They share a glance and I see Litha’s face drop, and a nerve twitching in her claw man’s jaw. They don’t say another word until they help me into bed. I lay on my stomach again. I can’t lie on my back, even with the help of the strange painkiller leaf I’ve eaten.
The guard embraces Litha for a second before he goes.
She closes the door after him and bolts it shut. “Faye, you’re the bravest woman I know,” she says, still in the low quiet voice.
I don’t reply. I am too full of anger and hate and hurt. It’s not her fault, I know, yet I can’t help but be angry that I was whipped because I’m the slave.
I’m angry at Yefrik, I’m angry at the guard who whipped me, I’m angry at the Emperor for allowing such cruelty in his palace, and I’m angry at the prince for allowing it, too.
Litha mixes some medicine into a drink and brings it over to me. “Drink this. It will help you sleep, and help you heal.” She holds it up to my mouth and I sip at it. “I cannot give you too much of that leaf or you will start to crave it beyond anything else. Addiction is not a nice life.”
The tea is at an awkward angle and I’m dribbling it onto the pillow. Litha dabs it up without a word, using the sleeve of her silk tunic.
She sits back cross legged and watches me until, worn out with anger and with pain, I fall asleep.
Khan
I stalk over to my mother’s apartments in a foul mood. My uncle has been extra vicious today. He insisted on my presence in the council chambers, and then belittled me every chance he got.
He is taking care to destroy my reputation in every way he can before I come of age. He wants no threat to his power.
Does he think he will live forever? That there will never be any need to hand over the rule of the planet and all its subsidiaries in an orderly fashion? To ensure that all the peoples he rule are protected? Despite all the technological advances that have come with our civilization, the lifespan of the healthiest Kargan has not increased by much. We are a long-lived race, but still the canker is robbing my mother of her health and vitality and nothing we can do will heal what nature is destroying.
I push open the door to my mother’s apartments and close it behind me softly, trying to keep a rein on my temper. My mother does not deserve to have me take it out on her. At least I have no guard trailing behind me today, watching every move I make and reporting it back to my uncle. Every day it gets more and more difficult to pretend that his words and actions do not disgust me to the very depth of my soul.
Something, someday, will rob my uncle of his life just like the canker is killing my mother, and I am the only heir he has. Making me look like a fool and a coward only weakens the Empire. It does not strengthen it.
Nor does it help him hold on to power. More likely his enemies are waiting patiently for him to show the slightest weakness before they pounce. If they think that I, too, am weak, they will be more likely to strike at him.
The worst thing of all is that he makes me start to feel inside all the things that he accuses me of being. He makes me feel weak. He makes me feel stupid. He makes me feel as though I cannot do anything right.
And that is what I hate about him most of all.
I peek in on my mother. She is sleeping, her thin arms by her side. I watch her breathe for a few minutes. When she is asleep, she looks almost happy. The lines of pain on her face are softened and she looks at peace.
Litha and the human girl, the spy for my uncle, are closeted away in the servants’ quarters. I can hear their laughter. Litha’s voice is pure and soft and sweet. The human spy’s laughter is deeper and richer.
Their laughter instantly throws fuel on to the flame of my fury. Can Litha not see that the human is nothing but a spy? Can she not see through her? Is even my mother’s nurse taken in by her pretty face? And what right does the spy have to be laughing as if she doesn’t have a care in the world when my mother is dying, alone in her bed?
My uncle gave the human to me.
She belongs to me now.
I will make him and her both regret it.
I throw the door to their quarters open with a bang. Litha and the human spy are sitting on the pallet, talking and laughing. The human spy is drinking tea while Litha has none. “What are you doing, sitting here drinking tea as if you have nothing better to do?” I growl at her. “Get out and make yourself useful.”
My eyes move to Litha. “I would have thought you knew better than to neglect my mother, the Queen, to idle around with a human. A noth
ing. A slave.”
Litha’s eyes fill with tears at my accusation, but I do not back down. I am tired of being at the bottom of every heap in this cesspit of a palace. My own servants should obey me.
And my slave ought to be bowing down before me and trying to anticipate my every whim instead of sitting on a pallet at my feet and staring up at me with undisguised hatred. Does she not know I could have her whipped or worse? Is the girl so sure of my uncle’s favor that she dares defy me to my face?
“Move,” I hiss at her, in no mood to play games. “Get up. Get out of here. Go do something to earn your keep or I’ll have you tossed into the Games.”
She takes a large gulp of her tea and then bares her teeth at me in a grimace. “Anything in particular you would like me to do?” she asks, her voice as sweet and deadly as the poisonberries that grow on the forest vines. “Shall I lick your shoes clean with my tongue? Scrub out your toilet with my toothbrush?”
She is beautiful, this spy, and I hate her for it. “I could have you whipped for your insolence.”
“You could,” she agrees. “I’m sure you could have me whipped for anything you pleased. For looking at you the wrong way, for instance. For the crime of drinking tea in my own quarters with a friend. Or simply because you are in a foul mood and wish to take it out on someone who is weaker than you and who cannot fight back.”
I feel rather than hear Litha’s sharply in-drawn breath. “Faye,” she whispers urgently under her breath. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” the human asks. “Don’t tell this…” she breaks off and looks me up and down with disgust written all over her face. “This...bad-tempered sack of shit just exactly what a bad-tempered sack of shit he is?”
Just like that, my anger dissolves into nothing. She knows I could whip her. She knows her life is in my hands, and still she stands up to me.
Her bravery shames me and I turn away,
Behind me, I can hear her get to her feet. She is moving carefully, hesitantly, without her usual grace. “Thank you for the tea, Litha. I had better go find something useful to do as my master commands, or I shall need your assistance all over again. Stay safe.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Litha place a hand on her arm. “Please, Faye. You must be still, or you will not heal.”
My clumsy little human has injured herself? Despite her insolence, I do not like the thought of her being hurt. “What did you do to yourself that you needed Litha’s help?”
She is standing hunched over and moving as stiffly as an ancient old woman. Now that I look more closely, I can see lines of pain etched around her mouth and a pale cast to her cheeks. The fire in her eyes is the only lively thing about her. “I didn’t do anything to myself,” she mutters.
That is a non-answer if ever I heard one. “Litha?” I ask, pinning her to the pallet with my glare.
Litha looks up at me, her eyes shining with guilt and unshed tears. “A guard whipped her. Ten lashes.” Her voice is so low I can hardly hear it.
Ten lashes and yet the human is still standing? Guards themselves have been known to faint under such pain. “What did you do to deserve such a whipping?” My voice comes out sounding harsher than I intend. Not in anger at her, but with my uncle. He favors such manual punishments as whippings. He likes the personal touch.
“Does it matter?” she bites back at me. “After all, I am a human. A slave. A nothing. What do you care if I am whipped?”
“Yefrik cornered me,” Litha breaks in hurriedly. “I tried to fight back, but he is stronger than I am.”
The sound of his name sends shivers of hate down my spine. My claws extend without me willing them to, and I snarl. Am I such a joke in the court that he sees all my servants as fair game? First the human and now Litha, a healer, and my own mother’s nurse? “Did he hurt you?” I will gut him for this, for his trespass against me.
“Faye heard me struggle. She drew a knife and forced him away.”
I throw the human a disbelieving glance. She is too small and weak to stand a chance against any full-grown male Kargan, let alone a trained guard like Yefrik.
“She cut him. He would have killed her, and me, too, if one of the captains hadn’t come in and sent him away. The captain gave him two lashes for being away from his post and gave Faye ten for attacking a guard. Even though she only did it to save me.”
Though she dares not voice her outrage at the unfairness, it bleeds through her words and into my ears.
This. This is the sort of behavior that my uncle allows under his roof.
And I allow it, too, by default. I should have punished Yefrik the first time, instead of making do with idle threats. Litha’s fright, and the human’s injury, is my fault. I hold out a hand to the human in a gesture of reconciliation. “Let me see.”
She looks down at my hand as if it were a slimy worm. “No.”
I bite my tongue before I can snap at her. Then I square my shoulders and take a deep breath. “I apologize for speaking to you so harshly earlier. You were in the right. I was in a bad temper and ought not have taken it out on you.”
“Whatever.” She shrugs her shoulders, and then winces at the pain.
I wince in sympathy. I have been whipped. Three lashes, and each one a burning river of fire streaking down my back. I can only imagine what her back feels like after ten. I sit down on the pallet next to Litha and pat the place next to me. “Come, sit down again. Truly, I am sorry for what I said. If I had known you were so badly injured, I would never have made you stand.”
Her face is still as black as thunderclouds, but she returns to the pallet and gingerly lowers herself down on it once more.
She only does so, I am quite sure, because she cannot continue to stand upright.
“Lie on your stomach,” I say, making room for her to stretch out full-length. I don’t need to move very far. She is smaller than any Kargan. Delicate and petite.
Once she is settled as comfortably as is possible, I send Litha off to find a pair of scissors to cut her shift off. If she leaves it on, the blood will dry and crust, and it will hurt like a nerve detonator to pull it off again.
Litha fetches the scissors and then, over the human’s protests, cuts off her shift.
I gasp at the sight of her back. Long welts crisscross her delicate skin, and the intersections have turned into a bloody pulp. Several of the cuts are still weeping.
Surely she cannot be a spy. If she had been a valuable asset, she could have complained to my uncle, refused to take the punishment. Or, more likely, she would not have faced the guard in the first place. If she had simply walked away and left Litha to her attacker, no one would ever have known.
“She did it to save me,” Litha reminds me. “I owe her more than I can ever repay.”
It seems I owe her an apology for more than my harsh words. “You did not think to ask for clemency?” I probe.
“From whom?” she mutters, her voice muffled by the pallet. “The Emperor?” She barks a rough laugh. “From what I hear, he would be more likely to double the number of strokes and wield the whip for my punishment himself.”
Her words are harsh but accurate. I cannot in good conscience take issue with them. “You did not think to look for me?”
She is silent for a moment save for the harsh rasping of her breath. “And would you have the power to save a mere slave from a whipping ordered by a captain in the Emperor’s guard?” Her voice is flat. It is less a question than a statement of her assessment of my place in the palace hierarchy.
Harsh but accurate again. “You could at least have tried,” I say, acknowledging the truth of her assessment. “It depends on the guard. I may have been able to save you from your punishment.” Likely, I could only have saved her by undergoing it myself. Not that I would ever tell her this.
“Better the devil you know,” she says cryptically. “Besides, the guard who whipped me first made sure that Litha was safe. That was all that mattered at the time.”
�
��And now?”
“If I had known how bad a whipping hurts, I might have started shouting for you,” she admits. “Just on the off chance you could have saved me from it.”
I lay my hand on a patch of unmarked skin on her shoulder, careful to touch any of her wounds. Now that I am less sure that she is a spy, I notice once again how beautiful she is. How soft her skin is and how smooth her long, dark hair. There is more courage in her than in anyone else in this corrupt palace. More courage, More fire. More everything. “See that you do next time. Or better still, try not to do anything that results in a whipping again.”
She snorts. “I can’t promise that. In a place like this, it would be a hard thing to do. I would have to walk around with my eyes and ears closed, thinking only of how best I can survive.”
Is that what I am doing? Walking around with my eyes and ears closed to save myself the heartache of standing by and doing nothing? Because I feel powerless to change?
“It’s not a good place,” I say softly.
My mother’s quarters run white noise machines constantly. My mother claims that the noise helps her to sleep, but I have my doubts. She knows as well as I do that they interfere with the listening devices which are installed in every private apartment in the palace. In the state rooms as well, where my uncle meets and greets deputations. Probably even in the kitchen and the corridors, too. My uncle knows only too well how treacherous others can be. He himself is an expert in betrayal, as my father discovered to his cost.
And there is nothing that a traitor fears more than treachery from others. He demands loyalty and gives none himself.
“My uncle is not a good man. And I am caught in his web, like everyone else in this place. Like everyone on this planet.”
Litha’s gasp reminds me of her presence. “Your Highness. Such words are…” Her voice trails off into nothingness.
“Dangerous?” I suggest with the ghost of a smile. “Yes, such words are dangerous indeed. I should know better than to say them out loud, and you both must learn to become deaf if ever you hear words like this being spoken. It is considered treason even to hear them. But I wanted you to know that if I could change the way things are, then I would.”
