Blood Of Gods

CHAPTER 16

During the day she had no name, just a corpse walking among the other corpses that populated the city, toiling with them in the fields to the west, supping with them and sharing a cup of dirty water while the sun was still high in the sky. Come late afternoon she became a ghost, slithering through the alleyways of Veldaren’s poorest district, unseen even by those who laid their eyes on her, nothing but a filthy rail of a woman with soot in her disheveled hair, grime on her face, and a reeking burlap sack hanging from her shoulders.

But come dusk, life flooded her veins. Come dusk, she was no longer Laurel Lawrence. When she sought out others who lurked in the shadows, binding the weary, the angry, and the frightened into a slowly growing army, she bore a new name, one the tired people gave her out of a mixture of fear and pride. They called her “Specter.”

Laurel dashed from one building of drab gray stone to another while destitute mothers and daughters hawked spoiled wares from their carts along the side of the road. She slowed, walking with a pronounced limp, when she spied a Sister of the Cloth, one of many women found guilty of crimes and whose freedom was stripped from them. The wrapped woman glanced her way and squinted, seemingly unconcerned with such a haggard old thing on this cold day. These new daytime guardians of the city always seemed to regard her the same way now-as if she were unworthy of so much as a glance.

The large woman beside her, another nameless female in a veritable sea of them, looked her way and nodded. With the Sister out of sight, she and Laurel picked up their pace, heading west along the Merchants’ Road.

“I see her,” the large woman, Harmony Steelmason, said. It was still odd to hear her voice after she’d gone so long without speaking a single word.

“Where?”

“Over there.” She tilted her head slightly. “The one sitting beside the fish market.”

“How can you tell?”

“The note said to follow the scent of fish.”

“That could mean anything.”

“Yes, but look at the way she is sitting and tapping her feet. This one is anxious, not dejected.”

Laurel squinted against the glare of the setting sun, and sure enough she saw the way the girl on the other side of the road shook her legs as if they’d fallen asleep, and her instincts insisted it wasn’t from the cold.

“We do this now?” Harmony asked.

“We do.”

Together they crossed the road and approached the fish seller’s window. Harmony stepped up to the hag behind the counter while Laurel sat down beside the fidgeting girl.

“Tristessa?” she asked, keeping her voice low and slurred.

“Yes?” asked the girl.

Laurel slid closer, keeping her back to the hag at the window.

“Where are they?”

Tristessa hesitated and bit her lip. Harmony continued quibbling with the hag at the window about how much a hunk of catfish was truly worth.

“We have an hour of sunlight left at most,” Laurel said in an irritated whisper. “You either show us now, or we leave. We can’t be caught outside after dark. You know this.”

Again Tristessa bit her lip, and for a moment it seemed she would recant on her promise, but then she rose slowly to her feet and walked down the alley between the fish market and the cobbler to the left. Laurel counted to ten, then followed, doing her best to appear indifferent.

The nervous girl stopped at a door to the rear of the cobbler’s. She looked around, the expression on her face one of abject terror, before finally rapping three times on the door. The small portal in the door slid aside, and after a few mumbled words, the door opened with a creak. Tristessa slipped inside, and Laurel followed.

The rear area of the stone building was cramped with people. More than half were men, both young and old, starving and gaunt, their faces covered with scars and their arms with sores. The others were women who looked just as frightened as Tristessa had. The men were bandits, forced into hiding by the new lords of Veldaren; the women were former Sisters who had shed their wrappings. Both lived in constant fear of death.

Laurel gazed at each of them, and she was pleased.

An interior door opened, and another woman entered the cramped space. This one carried herself with a dignified air, her nose upturned in disgust at the rancid scents coming off the room’s occupants. Her eyes found Laurel, and she shoved her way through the throng, a frown on her face.

“Do I know you?” the woman asked.

“I am a servant of the crown,” she said, keeping her voice low and cold, the voice of the Specter. “And I am sure you have heard the stories. Why else would you have left me a note in the fountain?”

In truth, Laurel Lawrence knew the woman quite well. Her name was Ursula, and she was the wife of the cobbler who operated this establishment. They both had shared laughs while waiting for shoes to be repaired, back before Ursula’s husband had been conscripted into Karak’s Army, before Laurel took on her own new guise. It amazed her that the woman did not recognize her, but then again, why would anyone expect to find a noblewoman such as she cloaked and garbed like a vagabond of the night?

“That was my daughter’s doing,” Ursula said. “If I had my way, your stink wouldn’t be adding to the rest that’s already infected my house.”

Tristessa stepped forward, clearing her throat. “Mother, don’t be rude.”

“I’ll act any way I wish!” Ursula said, turning on her daughter. “It was not my decision to house these miscreants. I’m putting my neck on the chopping block, all for a daughter with more compassion than sense. You are lucky I didn’t cast the lot of you out on the street weeks ago!”

Angry murmurs followed, and the pack grew restless. Laurel glanced about and could sense the anger the men and women had toward their caretaker. A fight would follow if the tension were not dealt with, and though the cobbler’s walls were stone and this room had no windows, she dared not risk even the slightest commotion being overheard outside.

“We will be leaving soon,” Laurel said to all of them. “You will find shelter with us, and food and wine and a safe place to rest your heads. But you must be patient.”

“I’ve been patient enough,” Ursula said, hands on hips. “I want them gone now.”

Laurel pointed an accusatory finger at her. “Don’t presume to tell me how this must go,” she said. “If we leave now, we will be spotted and risk capture. And if any are captured, they will be tortured, and guess whose name will be on their lips, Ursula?”

“But-”

“But nothing. Leave this room. When the sun is almost set, and the Sisters begin their return to their housing, that is when we make our move. No sooner, no later. I appreciate all you’ve done, but the lives of these people are in the hands of the Specter now, not yours.”

The woman stared up at her, her head cocked to the side. A question was on her lips, her eyes wide with anger, but she swallowed it down and exited the room. When she was gone, Tristessa approached her, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Thank you so much, miss,” she said. “I know my mother seems bad, but she’s just worried about us, that’s all.”

Laurel placed her hand on Tristessa’s head, felt her silky brown hair.

“I know,” she lied. “Go to her. Comfort her, and do not worry for the people here. They’re under my protection now.”

“Thank you,” the girl blubbered.

“However, Tristessa, did you have the. . other items we need?”

“I do,” the girl said. She spun around, disappearing through the door her mother had taken, and returned with a pile of moldy fabric heaped in her arms. She dropped the heap in front of Laurel.

“Will that do?”

“It will. Go now, girl, and comfort your mother.”

“Yes, milady,” Tristessa said with a bow, and she scurried back out of the room.

The bundle the girl had brought was a stack of old cloaks, and Laurel passed them out to the men among them. She counted her new wards: twenty-two of them, thirteen men and nine former Sisters. “Put these on,” said Laurel. “It won’t be long now.” The twenty-two frightened people waiting in the cramped back room of the cobbler’s waited some more. Laurel remained by the door until a knock came, two light raps followed by fingertips dancing over wood. She motioned for everyone to step back, grasped the door handle, pressed down, and pulled. When Harmony sauntered in, Laurel slid the door shut, latching it soundlessly. The large woman lifted the stinking chunk of fish she held to her mouth and tore off a hunk. Her thick jaw worked up and down like a cow chewing its cud.

“That”-Laurel pointed at the foul morsel-“is disgusting.”

“I’m hungry,” Harmony said in return. “A sprinkle of pepper and a pinch of salt can make anything edible.”

“If you say so.”

From then on the Specter kept vigil by the small portal in the door, watching the sky shift from blue to yellow to pale pink. She heard the rumble of wheels and the grate of shuffling feet.

“It’s time,” she told the room’s occupants.

“What do we do?” asked a frightened voice.

“You follow us,” said Harmony. “Walk with your head down, like you are so overwhelmed by life that you have no muscles in your neck any longer.”

One of the men stepped forward, frowning. “That’s it? That is what we needed you for?”

Laurel prodded the man in the shoulder.

“What part of ‘We’re leading you to a safe place’ don’t you understand? If you would rather face the Judges’ claws on your own, you are free to. The door is not locked. Go and find your own shelter.”

She stepped aside, gesturing for him to take the door handle. The man’s face flushed red, and he took a step back, murmuring an apology.

“What do we do if the Judges do find us?” one of the others asked.

“You run,” Laurel said. A grim smile spread across her face. “And don’t you dare pray. Doing that only tells them where you are. Now you men, keep those cloaks tight around you. Let no one see your face.”

The twenty-four souls left the cobbler’s and turned east, easily mixing with the throng of sullen, departing women. Laurel and Harmony remained in the lead, limping and shuffling their feet. Sunlight shone behind them, casting long shadows that reached like eager fingers. They kept close to the buildings. There were Sisters up ahead, the wrapped women returning to wherever it was they called home for the evening. Laurel glanced behind her, saw the frightened faces of those under her charge, and hoped everyone else was too enraptured by their own misery to notice.

In truth, Laurel was not overly worried. She had made this journey more than fifty times already, and rarely were they threatened with discovery. The new lords of Veldaren were too confident in their hold on the city and in the threat of the Judges’ claws to quell any resistance. They were wrong. The only reason Laurel felt uneasy this night was due to how many they transported. Her previous highest had been thirteen, yet now twenty-two followed.

Once the traveling band reached the great fountain of Karak in the center of the city, they turned onto the North Road. The street was crowded, more so than usual, which slowed their progress. Sisters of the Cloth walked toward them, heading for Merchants’ Road, dull eyes staring lifelessly from gaps in their wrappings. The sky overhead turned an ominous shade of crimson, the clouds transforming into billowing fire. This is taking too long, thought Laurel.

A distant roar shook the air around her.

“No, it’s too early!” someone shouted from behind her. She recognized the voice as one from her troupe.

“Oh gods,” muttered Harmony.

The crowd was thrown into a frenzy, countless panicked women dashing this way and that, trying to get to the safety of their homes before the Judges emerged from their cages in the belly of the Castle of the Lion. Even a few Sisters of the Cloth seemed hurried. The throng became a stampede, threatening to trample or separate the twenty-four.

“Take hands and into the alleys!” shouted Laurel, and she reached behind her without looking. A meaty hand grabbed hers, and she yanked Harmony into a nearby gap between buildings. She didn’t glance behind her to see if her charges had followed orders; if some of them panicked and forgot to grasp the hand of the one in front of or behind them, it could not be helped. They would be on their own, and should they survive the night, they could try again another day.

She pulled them through narrow passages, around bends, and over heaps of festering garbage and human waste. The second roar filled the air, sounding farther away than the first, and Laurel slowed their progress. She could hear those behind her crying and huffing for breath, could almost feel the terrified energy that pulsed all around her. Someone whispered Karak’s name, and she stopped short. Harmony almost collided with her backside.

Laurel spun around, anger making her neck grow hot.

“I said no praying,” she growled.

Numerous eyes gazed at her. One by one, each of them nodded.

They kept going, the sky growing ever darker above them. Although taking the alleys offered more refuge than keeping to the main throughway, it was also a much longer route. The alleys also had their own dangers; one never knew if some frightened soul might spy them from above and call out to the Judges.

Yet no one caught sight of them, and a few far-off screams told of the Judges dispensing their brutal justice elsewhere. The structures surrounding them began to inch closer together, their walls old wood rather than stone. The scent of feces and rot, prevalent in all of Veldaren, was potent.

They had reached the Black Bend.

The Bend was situated in the northeast corner of the city, a woebegone slum where the poorest citizens resided. The old, the infirm, the orphaned, and the outcast were who lived in this place. Originally, it had been built by the first generation of humans to house the builders who had assisted Karak in shaping his crown city. This section of the city had been forgotten, its land useless for building on due to the natural caves lingering beneath the earth making further construction too risky. Every building was perilously close to caving in on itself, and the mold seeping into the old wood caused horrific illnesses, oftentimes leading to death. Still, the populace here was proud. The downtrodden stuck together, a kinship in torment that embraced the Specter, and she them in return. Only they remembered the tunnels that ran beneath the Bend. It seemed as if everyone had forgotten about the poorer sections of this city save the poor themselves.

Luckily, the king’s bodyguard Karl Dogon had been an orphan from the Bend. It was on his advice that the shoddy rebellion had moved there.

They emerged from the darkness and onto a cracked road lined with sewage. Those following behind Laurel gagged, but she and Harmony did not. They both had learned to cope with the incessant reek of the place.

From there they hurried down the street, the pitter-patter of feet echoing dully off sodden, crumbling walls. Shutters were slammed as they passed, candles blown out. It was almost completely dark now. None would grant them entry should Veldaren’s rulers fall upon them.

Around the next bend they ran, and Laurel’s heart leapt. A single door to a particularly ramshackle structure was propped open, and three men paced in front of it, each holding tight to his sword. The men swiveled at the sound of approaching footsteps, and upon sight of the women, they silently urged speed, waving their arms toward the opened door.

Laurel released Harmony’s hand and took her place by the side of the door, ushering her charges inside. She stared over their crouched heads at the man across from her, with his warm hazel eyes and mop of curly black hair. He started to say something, but she put a finger to her lips, silencing him. Another roar broke through the young night, followed by yet another tormented scream. The man took that as his cue, dashing to the back of the line and literally shoving the frightened travelers into the door.

When all were inside, the door shut and barred, Harmony led the throng down a hall whose walls were leaning perilously inward. Into the basement they went, where torches were already lined up for their use. Harmony opened a hatchway in the floor and urged the others to descend into the blackness below. A few hesitated, but all it took was a more violent roar from outside to get them moving.

Only after all the rest were out sight did Laurel follow them into the pit, descending the twenty crude wooden stairs and sneezing at the musty odor of the tunnel. She stood at the bottom of the well and watched the three men shut the hatch, then helped them stack heavy stones in front of the stairwell. Only when they finished did she breathe a sigh of relief.

“Laurel, you worried me,” said the man with hazel eyes.

“I worried me too, Pulo,” she said with a tired smile.

“You look horrid,” said Roddalin, one of the other men.

“She always does when she comes back,” said Jonn, the third.

“Enough.” She feigned offense, then looked up at Pulo. “Did you make the count on the way in?”

He nodded. “Nineteen. Twelve men and seven women.”

“Nineteen,” Laurel repeated. “We lost three.”

“Most likely the last of the screams we heard.”

She frowned. “I hope not.”

“They made feasts for the lions,” said Jonn, “but their sacrifice probably saved your hide.”

“That doesn’t make it any better.”

Pulo draped an arm around her shoulder, gave her a squeeze. “I know.”

“I should clean up,” she said, allowing a small, sad smile. “I’ll speak with the new recruits come morning. Let Harmony handle it until then.”

“Very well. I understand.”

Laurel left them, walking down a separate stone passageway. The place was murky and filled with swirling shadows, with a torch burning every thirty feet to light the way. No more were allowed, for the caverns had very little ventilation, and already thirteen people had died from smoke inhalation. At least it was warm down here, which was a welcome respite from the biting chill aboveground. Down here, her knees didn’t constantly knock from shivering.

The cavern walls were marked with painted arrows pointing the way to each populated section. The caverns were vast and confusing otherwise, descending deeper into the earth in spots through narrow tunnels. The first time she had visited here, after her rescue from the clutches of the mumbling priest Joben Tustlewhite and the castle dungeons, she had thought it too complex to ever remember. But now the arrows were for the refugees, not her.

The passageway she took was lined with jagged rock, and at a small triangular gash in the earthen wall she ducked down, entering the small fissure that passed for her quarters. Inside were her bedroll, a stinking chamber pot, and little else. What meager clothing she had-most passed on to her by those she had brought here-was resting on natural shelves protruding from the cave walls. Atop a higher shelf was a clay bowl filled with water, a washcloth, and a silver mirror King Eldrich had given her. All the more to remember who you truly are, the deposed king had told her at the time, though she had a feeling that he’d given it to her simply so she could make sure she looked her best when in front of him.

Not that she minded. Let Eldrich have his wants. In truth, she liked to look beautiful, and always had. But the face that now stared back at her was horrific. Her cheeks were padded with clay and painted with deep rouge to make it look like burst veins crisscrossed her face, then topped with ash and sprinkles of mud. Bits of twig stuck out from the crow’s nest atop her head. She smiled, and it looked as if she had only four teeth remaining in her mouth. Sighing, she stepped back from the mirror, stripped out of her hag’s garb, and cast it aside with disgust.

Naked, she approached the mirror once again, thankful for the young woman’s body she saw, even though she was thinner than ever. After dipping the washcloth into the sweet-smelling water, she began to wash the filthy disguise from her face. The pink of her skin shone through with each stroke, gradually revealing the pretty visage of a naïve young girl who had grown up in Omnmount dreaming of love and marriage and oodles of children. She squeezed the grime from the cloth onto the floor, dipped it back into the bowl, and scrubbed her teeth, removing bit by bit the tar that created her toothless illusion. Unfortunately, the tar was staining, and she couldn’t remove it fully, but it was good enough for now. To get the vile taste out of her mouth, she bit and sucked on a lemon wedge.

By the time she was finished combing the snarls, soot, and debris from her hair, using her fingers, she looked nearly herself again; twenty-three and pretty, with womanly curves and a dimpled smile. She debated heading lower into the caverns, to bathe in the place where a natural spring bubbled up into small rocky pools, but shook her head and snatched a simple blouse and breeches from her pile of borrowed clothes. She was tired and needed sleep. The pools would be there when she woke.

The clothes were damp but comfortable, quite unlike the scratchy rags the Specter wore. Laurel squeezed her arms around herself and sat down on her bedroll. It was thin and the cave floor uneven, but she had long grown accustomed to such discomfort. She reclined, laid her head on a rolled-up blanket, and pulled her woolen quilt up over her body. Warmth infused her, and she tried to ignore the aggressive reek of her chamber pot-she’d left in a hurry that morning, forgetting to empty it-and get some sleep. Maybe this time she wouldn’t dream of the many she’d lost along the way.

Those nightmares never came, for ten minutes into her slumber she was awoken by a rough shake. Her eyes snapped open, and in the dim candlelight she saw Harmony hovering over her. The large woman who usually accompanied her had cleaned herself as well, and she looked noble with her rigid jaw, piercing blue eyes, and short silver hair. There was a time, back when Quester gave his two personal servants to Laurel and before Harmony cast aside her Sister’s wrappings, when Laurel had dubbed her “Giant.” She no longer used that name, for it was a title for a woman enslaved, which Harmony Steelmason was no longer. Laurel then thought of Lyana Mori, Harmony’s fellow former Sister and granddaughter of the dearly departed Soleh, former Minister of Justice. Lyana was supposed to have been off on her own mission, and Laurel hoped she had returned safely.

“What is it?” Laurel asked, shoving herself backward to sit up against the rough cave wall.

“Your presence is requested,” said the large woman. Her voice was deep yet feminine.

“Eldrich?”

Harmony nodded.

“Did he give you a reason?”

“No. He greeted the newcomers and then asked to see you at once.”

“That cannot be good.”

Harmony shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

They exited the cave dwelling, Laurel finding it a bit comical to watch Harmony squeeze her bulky frame through the narrow opening. They crossed through tunnel after tunnel, passing the purple painted arrows marking the walls, until they came to the largest of the caverns, which served as King Eldrich’s secretive seat of power. The grotto was the hub of the entire underground dwelling, with thirty-three spines breaking off in every direction. The ceiling was forty feet high, and there were even tunnel entrances lining a rock ledge up above. When Laurel had first seen this place, a part of her wondered whether it was built by the gods long ago with just this purpose in mind. She cringed at the thought. If that was the case, it wouldn’t be long until the Judges found them.

The king was there, sitting in his humble chair in front of a rickety table, surrounded by several of his Palace Guards, Pulo, Roddalin, and Jonn. Karl Dogon, the king’s bodyguard, lingered at the rear, his square face awash with shadows from the table’s six candles. All eyes turned to Laurel and Harmony when they entered. Laurel didn’t like the looks on their faces, especially the king’s. Although Eldrich had grown even sicklier looking during his extended stay in the caverns, he always seemed to brighten when Laurel entered. He is quite fond of you, Pulo had told her, a hint of jealousy in his voice. But now, the thwarted king gazed at her with vacant eyes and downturned lips.

She approached his seat while Harmony hung back.

“Your Grace,” she said, curtseying. “You wished to see me?”

“Laurel, sit down,” the king told her wearily.

Laurel complied, not liking how the other three men wouldn’t look in her direction. Jonn in particular was troublesome in the way he gnawed on his fingernails. She settled into the chair and looked over at Eldrich’s pale, deep-set eyes.

“Please, your Grace, what is this about?”

Eldrich sighed. He looked even more faded and despondent than he had that long-ago day when Laurel had told him about the Connington’s demands for their assistance in bettering the realm in Karak’s absence.

“Karl returned from meeting with his liaison within the castle,” Eldrich said. “He learned some. . disturbing news.”

Dogon stepped out from the shadows, and Laurel was aghast at his face, which was covered with cuts and bruises. “Just tell her,” he said harshly. “Don’t torture the poor girl.”

Eldrich didn’t reprimand the bodyguard for his harsh tone. Instead, his pale eyes met Laurel’s. “Laurel, my dear,” he said. “I’m sorry. Your father is dead.”

Laurel heard the words, hung her head, and sighed. Cornwall Lawrence had been suffering from the Wasting for years, left to rot in his bed while the disease ate him from the inside out.

“It’s a blessing,” she said softly. “He is no longer in pain.” Even though she spoke the truth, sadness spread within her nonetheless as she thought of how she would never have the chance to tell the great Master of Omnmount how much she loved him, how much he meant to her, how much his guidance had helped shape the woman she had become.

“That isn’t all,” Karl Dogon said flatly.

Laurel lifted her eyes.

King Eldrich seemed hesitant. His lips, partially stuck together by dried saliva, finally parted, and he said, “There was a message sent by Elias Gandrem, your father’s protégé in your absence. The Blackbards. . they stormed into Omnmount in your father’s last days. They demanded your mother hand over the region to them. When she refused, they killed her. . they killed all. . all of. . ”

The bodyguard took a hunkering step forward, slamming his fist down on the table and staring intensely at Laurel.

“They butchered your whole family, girl.” He looked fierce with fury. “All your sisters, your aunts and elderly uncles, gone. A whole line wiped out. All but you.”

Laurel shot back in her seat, her eyes bulging, too shocked for words. “It can’t be true,” she said. Her voice didn’t sound like her own.

“We have no reason to doubt the message,” said the king after passing Dogon a glare. “Elias is a good boy of gallant blood. He wouldn’t lie about such things, even if tortured.”

“How do you know for certain?” she asked. “Someone could have forged the letter!”

Finally, Pulo turned to her. “But why, Laurel? What purpose would it serve?” He reached across the table, his fingers seeking hers, but she pulled away from him.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed.

“Laurel. . ”

She couldn’t describe what she was feeling. All the struggle, the misery, the fear-everything paled now. She shoved away from the table as hard as she could, knocking her chair over in the process. Voices called out to her, but she couldn’t hear them. The deafening clamor in her head dominated all else.

Into an adjacent tunnel she fled, the shouting growing quiet behind her. She ran blindly, not paying attention to the directional arrows, simply moving wherever her feet chose to carry her. Her mother and father dead, her older sisters. . it was too much to bear. Their names rolled through her mind: Lorna, Isla, Rose, Jasmine, Hyacinth. They’d all had families, and those families were gone now as well, the men forced by their god to fight a war, the children butchered along with their mothers by some damned power-mad merchant. None of her cousins, nieces, or nephews would grow old and have children of their own; none would play again in the shimmering lake behind her parents’ home, and her sisters would never again lie in their husbands’ arms and whisper sweet nothings. And she was the last. Orphaned. Alone. . alone. . alone. Laurel lashed out and punched the wall as she fled, bloodying her knuckles.

She descended through sloping tunnel after sloping tunnel, passing the numerous alcoves where almost eight hundred men and women, nearly half of whom she had helped to save, rested their heads. She ran even when bedraggled people emerged from their nooks, looks of concern painting their faces as they backed away from the whirling demon in their midst. She ran ever downward until she left them all behind, until there was little to no light, and the air around her grew thick with moisture, dripping water the only noise other than her footsteps echoing off wide chamber walls.

She paused, placing her hand on a slick boulder and panting. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her thoughts waged war between acceptance and disbelief. She cried for her family, for their friends, for the entire township of Omnmount, all those frightened children who were now left rudderless. Alone. All alone. “What’s it all been for?” she cried out, hoping a god, any god, would answer her.

None did.

Taking a deep breath, she moved toward a point of light in the near distance. She passed through a low hanging, natural archway, and suddenly there were three shimmering blue pools before her, lit by the flames from the torches embedded in the far wall. A laugh left her throat, the most miserable sound she could ever remember. She had run with abandon, hoping to get lost, hoping to lose her footing and plummet into the depths of some great pit and feel no pain ever again, and yet she’d come here, to the underground bathhouse, a place of cleanliness and rejuvenation. Laurel sank into a corner, hidden by a pair of outcroppings, drew her knees to her chest, and sobbed.

She didn’t know how long she cried, but by the time she was finished, she felt numb inside. Her tears had scoured her soul and burned away her emotions, leaving behind a useless shell of meat, blood, and bone. Without her family to protect, what reason did she have to go on? She considered jumping into one of the pools and holding herself underwater until she breathed no more.

That thought was ripped from her with the sound of shuffling footsteps. Laurel remained still, not wanting to be found, and peered through the darkness at the lone, slender figure that approached. It was Lyana Mori, stepping gingerly, wincing each time one of her feet touched the ground.

The girl was eighteen, and her hair had grown out now that she no longer wore the wrappings of the Sisters. The dark curls bounced above her shoulders, light as a feather, and her bright blue eyes shone with the same color as the water in the shimmering pools. The girl shrugged out of her frock and stood naked before the water. Cuts and scrapes covered Lyana’s arms and legs, and there was a nasty purple splotch above her small left breast. The girl’s feet were also bloodied, and when she sat on the edge of the center pool and dipped her toes in, she winced.

Laurel watched as the girl slipped fully into the water. Though the caverns were muggy, the pools were almost freezing, and Lyana wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. Yet she persevered, forcing her hands to dip into the water, cupping it with her palms and rubbing it over her skin. She looked so young then, so innocent. Laurel was mesmerized at the purity of the vision. . until Lyana turned away.

Laurel had never seen Lyana Mori’s back before. It was covered with a mess of scars, like worms racing across her flesh from one shoulder blade to the other, from her hips to the base of her neck. The skin appeared red and raw, looking even more so in the torchlight. Horror filled Laurel’s gut. Not only had this girl been stripped of her freedom and forced to serve the most powerful men in the land, but she had been mercilessly beaten and whipped as well. That horror was soon replaced by hatred, and she remembered the smug look on Quester Billings’s face when he passed Lyana and Harmony off to her. “Take care of my pets,” he’d said. Only Lyana Mori wasn’t someone’s pet. She was a living, breathing girl, with dreams of her own and a soul just as worthy as that of any man who might claim her.

But Lyana had believed otherwise. It was only with Laurel’s help that she’d cast aside the wrappings, the first of many to abandon the Sisters of the Cloth. With Laurel’s help, she’d begun to smile again, to live for herself, to believe her life meant something more than insult and servitude.

Laurel’s help. .

She swallowed down the last of her grief and stood, walking slowly across the rutted, rocky ground. She shrugged out of her clothes as she moved, until she stood just as naked as Lyana. The girl in the pool turned around at the sound of her approach, covering her small breasts with her arms. Lyana saw who she was, and a relieved smile came over her.

“Laurel?” she said. “You frightened me.”

Laurel sat down on the stone, slid her legs into the cold water.

“I didn’t mean to.”

Lyana’s head cocked to the side. “Laurel, what’s wrong?” she asked, voice like a babe.

Laurel couldn’t think where to start, how to reveal the annihilation of her family line. The words died in her throat, and she felt her tears swell anew. She’d thought her soul emptied, but her grief was not yet done. When she opened her mouth, only a soft sob came forth, and then Lyana was there, arms about her, holding her as she broke.

“I’m so sorry,” Laurel said, holding her tight.

“You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Not that,” she said, her fingers tracing the scars marring the girl’s back. If only she could take them, make them her own. But girls like Lyana, they were legion. And despite their sorrow, their humiliation, they endured. They survived. Laurel drew back, wiped the tears from her eyes, and stared at the girl with her head inclined.

No more tears. Never again. If they endure, so will I. My family may be dead, but I have another, and right now, they are all in chains.

“Laurel?” Lyana asked, clearly worried. “Are you all right?”

“I am now,” Laurel said, and despite her sorrow, she smiled.