Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
“Where is the male who hurt you?” As Kane heard the hard tone of his own voice, he tacked on, “I mean, is he anywhere in Caldwell?”
Do you have an exact address? he thought.
“Well, there was this one prisoner… who was so kind to me.”
A spear of jealousy made Kane imagine going after two different males, and given his aggression, he wasn’t surprised she ducked the question about her intended.
“And…?” he prompted.
“It was about ten years ago.” She folded and refolded her brown robing in her lap. “He was dying and I helped ease his suffering as best I could. He was old, but had once been so vital. We got quite close, and perhaps because I was missing my family, or lonely, or whatever, I told him what had happened to me. I told him everything. He’s the only other one who saw what I look like… aside from now you.”
As she fell silent, he absorbed the honor she had paid him, to remove her hood, to share of herself in the most vulnerable way.
Nadya looked at him sharply. “I need to be honest with you, even though it will affect what you think of me.”
“Nothing could affect—”
“Allow me to rephrase that. It should affect what you think of me.”
He glanced around, measuring the clean and tidy space, with its comfortable furniture and its kitchen and its little bathroom. Even though they were out of the prison camp, he felt as though they had returned to its confines once again, to the point where he could smell the stink of the place, the dirt and the filth and the old sweat remerging in his sinuses.
But that was the power of the camp, wasn’t it. Even free, neither of them had been truly liberated because of what they had seen… and what they had done.
“Keep going,” he murmured. “Please.”
“I used my intended’s name.” She shrugged. “It was just in relation to my story. Or at least I told myself that. But if I’m honest? I think I knew who the old male was… and what he might do if he ever got a hold of my intended.”
“You said the older male was dying, though. Surely he couldn’t have ahvenged you?”
“He went unto the Fade soon thereafter and I thought that was all.” She took a deep breath. “But about five or six nights later, I returned to my berth, the place where I slept. There was a… I found a knot of cloth on my pillow.”
Kane waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he said, “What was in it?”
“A signet ring. My intended’s.” She seemed to hang her head. “The old male? I had heard he was… how do you say it, an enforcer? And it’s hard for me to admit this, but yes, I knew he had contacts outside of the prison. I mean, the guards themselves deferred to him, and brought him things. He told me once that I was like a daughter to him.”
“You’re not responsible for that male’s choices.”
“I believe I am, actually.” Her hand hovered over her chest. “My heart was unclean when I told the story. I embellished nothing, but… I did give my intended’s name. I had learned to hate him, you see. Over the years. He had decided to destroy my face so that he would not be judged for not following through on the arrangement and so my father would be punished for the blackmail. I mean, if we had been aristocrats? My father would have ended up in the prison for what he did, but because of our station as civilians, my intended took matters into his own hands, with no consequences except the ones I bore.”
“You don’t know what actually happened with the ring.”
“You think my former intended, who I hadn’t seen for ten years, who no doubt had heard I was dead, infiltrated the prison camp, found my berth among all those tunnels, and left his ring there? His single most precious possession, the gold ring that was his grandfather’s?”
Kane rubbed his face. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. You just do not want to see me for what I am.”
“Don’t tell me how I feel, okay? That’s my job.”
She looked down at her hands. “You need to take me back there.”
“What?”
“To the camp.” With a shaking hand, she touched the scars that ran down her face. “I live there.”
Kane blinked. And then couldn’t find the words. “You can’t be serious,” he blurted.
“That is my home, my purpose.” When Kane just stared at her, she made a move to get up—and promptly waved him off when he leaned in to help her. “What did you think was going to happen once you ‘rescued’ me. I have nowhere to go.”
“Your parents—”
“Are dead. They were killed in the raids about three years ago. My father had taken work at one of the grand houses of the aristocracy as a handyman. My mother joined him as a maid. The lessers… attacked the estate and my parents were locked out of a safe room by the family. They were… slaughtered.”