WIP Post #7

The saga continues...:-) Brackets are for my use only, they just remind me where I need to fill in information during revision. 

“We’re here.”

            Azya forced her eyes open and rubbed the muscle pain in her neck. She took a long breath and looked out the window of the carriage. A large, ornate stone building loomed above them in the dark. [INCLUDE MORE DESCRIPTION OF BUILDING HERE] A young boy, barefoot and wearing no cloak, scurried to the carriage and opened the door for Jarta. He climbed out and signaled for Azya to follow. Once she was down, Jarta tightened the ropes around her wrists and ankles and clutched her upper arm roughly.

            “Where do I take her?” he asked the boy.

            “This way, sir.” The boy led them a short distance away to a low door. It was rough-looking, a stark contrast from the intricately carved walls of the building that Azya was having trouble keeping her eyes off of. The boy yanked on the door, and immediately inside a dark corridor a young man in a long white tunic awaited them. [MORE DESCRIPTION OF CORRIDOR HERE]

            “The new slave that was ordered,” Jarta said.

            “Right. Thank you.” Azya startled. The man’s voice was as high as a woman’s. He reached out to take Azya from Jarta, but he clenched her arm tighter.

            “I have not yet been paid,” he said, his voice low and threatening. The young man looked at him.

            “Of course. The Madam will be here shortly and make sure you are compensated. In the mean time, one of the mistresses is expecting her new slave. If you please, hand her over.”

            With great reluctance, Jarta let go and shoved Azya towards the man. He took hold of the ropes that bound her wrists and led her down the corridor. [MORE DESCRIPTION HERE]

            “If you please, sir…” Azya stammered, when they had been walking for a few seconds. “Where am I?”

            The man didn’t answer, but stopped at a closed door. He knocked three times.

            “Who is it?” came a sleepy voice from inside. Then a man’s laughter, and a feminine giggle. Prennan pursed his lips and his cheeks flushed.

            “Prennan, Mistress. Your slave has arrived.”

            “Take her to her quarters. I’ll deal with her in the morning.”

            Prennan sighed, as if annoyed with the direction. “Yes, Mistress.” He turned to Azya. “Come with me.”

            Prennan walked briskly down the dark corridor, lit only by smoking torches affixed to holders on the stone walls. Azya hurried after him, her feet starting to feel pinched in the stiff leather of her new boots. A few turns down different passages—Azya struggled to remember them but found it difficult since everything looked the same—and he stopped at another door. This had no lock or even handle. He pushed it open, revealing a tiny cranny of a room that had only a narrow cot, a cracked wash basin, a chamber pot, a few gray linens, and a low wooden stool. “This is your room for as long as Mistress Odellia decides to keep you. She’ll summon you when you’re needed. I suggest you get what sleep you can.” He untied her binds, and he started to leave, but turned back suddenly. “One more thing. It may look easy to escape. But you wouldn’t get far before they sliced your throat at the gate. I don’t suggest you try it. That’s how we lost the last slave. Mistress would be quite put out, and when she’s put out, she takes it out on me until we get a new one. So I’m quite glad you’re here. Don’t ruin my good fortune, would you?” He gave her a cold, wry smile, and let the door shut behind him.

            Azya again took in her surroundings. The room was small, but truth be told, it was the first room she had ever had to herself. She couldn’t help but feel warmed at that thought. Though no bigger than a closet, the room had a high ceiling, and at the top far above her head was a tiny window with a thick pane of glass. It was where her only light came from, and right now it was just dim moonlight. Another look around, and she noticed a brass bell on the wall. She wondered what it was for.

            The sleep in the carriage had not been restful, and Azya’s joints ached. Her stomach growled too; she had eaten nothing since breakfast the previous morning. She wondered when her next meal would be. She sat gingerly on the cot, wondering if its spindly frame would support her weight, and although it creaked ominously underneath her it seemed to hold. With great relief she yanked off her boots and set them on the floor. She wiggled her toes in her stockings and hugged her cloak close to her; it was bitterly cold in the room. She started to unfold the pile of linens at the end of her cot: one was a blanket, so the fibers so thin and worn she could see through it. Another was a pillow, not much thicker than the folded blanket. She squeezed it; it was probably stuffed with pigeon feathers, except maybe just that of one pigeon. She tossed it to one end. The third piece of cloth was small and otherwise non-descript; it was probably meant to be used as a towel. At least all the linens were clean.

            With a sigh of resignation, Azya stretched out on the cot (it had no mattress, just a board of thin wood), and tried to get comfortable under the thin blanket and on the flat pillow. Her family had been the poorest of the poor, but at least they had been able to make adequate bedding. At the thought of her family, her throat choked with the threat of tears and she forced the emotion away. It would do no good to cry. This was her life now. She must accept it as it was and make the best of it. And why, came the thought quickly, should she waste any more emotional energy on the family that sold her into slavery? She resolved never to forgive them for it. Yes—that anger would be part of her drive to live.

            One person she could not so easily forget was Teldon. Kind, gentle Teldon. They had been friends since they were young children, when his family moved to their village from what, he had explained, was a military sacking of the small town they formerly called home. The destruction had left his family destitute, so, like everyone in their village, they struggled to make it through each year with measly crops, horrendous taxes, and the constant threat of abuse from the Emperor’s forces. One bad year his whole family except for him and his young sister died from the blight. That was when they became close—Azya would sneak them food from her family’s larder and pantry and seeds from their harvests so that they wouldn’t starve. No one ever did well in their village, but the last few years Teldon and his sister had survived, and seemed to get through with as little trouble as anyone in their station could hope. In return, Teldon had done what he could to quell the toxic rumors about her family in the village and had helped her when she had been punished for her various misdeeds.

            She allowed her mind to settle on Teldon: his face ruddy from constantly being outdoors in the wind and sun, his ponytail sun-bleached in the summer and mousy brown in the winter, his freckles, his quick, warm smile. Tears escaped her eyes and she let out a sob, bringing her hands to her face. Soon, she knew, she’d have to forget him too. Remembering would be too hard, too dangerous. If she lost heart, she’d lose everything. It was all she had left.

            Despite her fatigue, the chill of the room made it almost impossible to sleep, so she forced Teldon from her mind and allowed a nagging thought, the beast that haunted the corners of her mind, the one she pretended wasn’t there but it lurked anyway—the knowledge of what she had done to that soldier.

            At first, she had comforted herself with the thought that perhaps he had the heart sickness. She remembered a few people in the village who had died that way. They’d be working in the fields, or doing the laundry at the stream, and suddenly they would fall over, dead. Tragic, yes. But not unusual. But her memories would not allow her to entertain this thought for long. She remembered the light. And as she thought more on those dreadful moments, she remembered the heat. Not the comforting heat of a fire, or the heat that came from blood pulsing through veins in normal exertion, but this was a feverish heat, heat that came both from within and without. Heat that she could feel even to the very ends of her fingernails. It had gone as quickly as it had come, just like the light, but she had never felt that before, not once. And she hadn’t felt it since, at least not to that intensity. So heart sickness was an inadequate explanation for the man’s death. But despite the trauma she was enduring, despite the unknowns and her near crippling fear, a new strength seemed to have been born in her—a new quickness in her movements, a sharpening of her mind and her senses. It was subtle, but noticeable. She wondered what was happening to her.

            And then there was the thought that she, Azya, farm girl, half-starved her whole life, couldn’t even write her own name, had never been outside her village in her whole life, had killed a man. She had finally admitted that to herself, and she held the thought gingerly in her mind, like a delicate crystal object of great value and power. And she knew she would only ever admit it to herself; should the truth be found out, she’d certainly be executed. But the truth was there. She felt little guilt. The man, after all, had been planning to rape her. Had he been a father? A husband? Had she deprived a family of their livelihood by killing him? Perhaps. But she did not feel guilt. Sadness maybe, if that were true. But more she felt victorious that she had not allowed him to steal away from her something precious: her humanity. So he was dead at her hand. If it hadn’t been at hers, maybe another’s in a battle or skirmish. Maybe he would’ve died a long and painful death from the blight. But he would’ve died eventually. His time had come, and it happened to be her moment as well. Her crystal moment.

            Azya was drifting to sleep almost against her will, but she allowed it to overcome her, letting the thought linger at the edge of her slumber that perhaps she would be all right after all. This new life wasn’t one she would have chosen for herself, and she knew there would be great trial ahead. But in a way, she saw a beginning, a chance to break away. She was a slave, yes, and little she would do from here on out would be her own choice. But her Mistress didn’t know, strange Prennan didn’t know—that she had killed a man. She possessed a secret power. Ultimately, they had no authority or control over her. If it became necessary, she thought, she could kill them too.