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“This boy needs to be put in his place, Karag!” And another.
I let it wash over me. It means nothing to me. Why would it?
“How dare you, Karul,” my father says. The rest of the elder elves settle in their seats. They, like I, know what is ahead.
“Forgive me, Father,” I say with a bow.
“Drunkenness, Disloyalty, Debauchery, never did I dream that a son of mine would be so debased and depraved. And what in the name of the Mother is going on with that hair?” He shouts. His face turns red, and I bow my head.
An elder elf coughs. It’s always a telling sign.
“If you will forgive me, there are matters to be addressed,” one of the elder elves says. He must have an appointment to have his balls licked in the lower end of town.
“Yes, yes, I understand.” Karag agrees. “Karul. Our family has reached a crossroads, and our enemies grow stronger by the day. This calls for action. This calls for each of us to stand and be counted. That includes you.”
I summoned my boyish eyes, blinking to hide my real emotions under my thick eyelashes. “Father, it pains me to hear such words. My soul aches at the thought of our long and proud family under threat. I throw myself before you and ask, ‘what would you have a wretch like me do’?”
I fall to my knees for added effect.
“Your words please me, boy, for I have found a solution,” Karag announces, more to the elders than me.
Go on, Father. I’m intrigued.
“You are to marry Fara Klutaro,” he announces further. I hear the intake of breath of the elders.
My Father begins, and I listen. “Such a marriage to the mighty and extremely influential Klutaro family will forge a bond that, Karul, will ultimately save us. Our future lies with you. However, it pains me to say it. You are our only hope.”
I feel the glare of my Father upon me and take a second to enjoy his concern at my possible answer. I hide my grin to the floor until I can push inward and solemnly raise my head.
“Well, boy! What is your answer?” My Father shows his impatience.
I look around the elder elves, their eyes fixed on my face, and I know that all this is now in the palm of my hand. These fools have spent their lives clinging to the coattails of others to maintain their positions of so-called high status.
I cough. I like coughing. It always unnerves a room before you are about to speak. I rise to my feet and feel the power that I have in this room right now, and that excites me more than any whore with her feet and hands tied to a bed.
“Without question, Father, I would give my life for the family,” I speak calmly and firmly. I am in this moment, without question.
I can almost feel the collapse of the elder elves with relief at my words. My Father’s eyes are more concerned with them than with me. There will be no touch, no thanks.
But I no longer care about that because it’s all going according to plan.
2
JASMINE
Iknew the day would come. There were times when I tried to convince myself that it wouldn’t, that this room where they have kept me locked up would be my last place.
“How naive,” I mutter bitterly. “Can’t make them money locked in an ivory tower.”
My pretty prison, with a large comfortable bed, the thick sheets that I hide under at night. The beautiful hand-crafted dressing table rests on a purple velvet carpet, which caresses my bare feet when I walk upon it.
I’m on that bed right now, looking up at the dark oak ceiling. Its patterns twirl and swirl, and I follow them, but I have never reached its end. My pretty prison is coming to an end.
It has one window, and only a little light gets in. I sit up on the bed and let my feet fall onto the soft, warm carpet. They sink in as I walk across the room to my lonely window, brushing one finger across my dressing table as I pass.
The view is the same as yesterday, with really no view at all from the 4th Floor in this auction house of evil. The back of windowless brick buildings and an alleyway below, which no one seems ever to walk through.
Yet, out there is freedom. Through a thin pane of glass, it teases me. I put my hand to the cool glass and try to feel it, but it is beyond me now.
