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“I also know that he has yet to bring us anything poisoned, so eat up, shoua. You could hide behind a broom handle, you’re so thin.”
I went to eat, but not with the same speed I would’ve. So soon after the steward received word of a new addition, Kaelan Moontreader came asking for me. Despite Myrna’s reply, I was not leaving. My name would go down in a book that would make me available to every soldier and nobleman in Lyrica. Would he come back with smiles and treats then?
I shook the silly thoughts from my head. I was no stranger to men and boys coming around to ogle the war wife. Mama held her head high through many a town market while hooting and lewd offers followed her. When our curves filled out and breastbands grew tight, the same filthy offers came at me and Meliora. Meli more than me. They liked to tell us in disgusting detail what they’d do to us when we became war wives—as if there was no other path we’d take.
Moontreader may have used food and flattery, but he was no different from the rest. He came in here every day to pick his favorite. Once the faeriken were here, we had to be available to them, but no one said we wouldn’t be available to everyone else. That was not for me to worry about. There were older, prettier, more experienced war wives to thrill a handsome faeman like him.
I claimed a tray and took it to the far corner to eat. I wasn’t alone for long. Myrna and a few of the other women from Gutter Galley came to join me.
I wished they hadn’t.
My luxurious, royal meal turned to acid in my stomach.
“You must act as though you’re enjoying yourself, but not too much,” Shadi warned. She was twenty years of age with dark, shadowed eyes and a smoky tenor that sounded like music. Shadi was far and away the most beautiful of the girls I used to run around the Galley with. Within a month of becoming a war wife, she had three noblemen offering her broker obsceneamounts to take her into their home. A month after that, she was back in the Galley.
Mykel Starsinger believed buying women took away her right to say no. One night, he forced himself on her and she beat him with a candelabra. They had yet to take away our right to defend ourselves, so she wasn’t punished. Unless of course you considered it a punishment that most of her callers disappeared after they heard what happened, and she was so in need of coin that she was in that room with me.
“If you get too boisterous, they’ll take it as an invitation to pump harder. The last thing you need your first time is to have some sweaty, grunting lump flopping and flailing on top of you while trying to shove his reed dick deeper.”
I flushed hot. Even the mental depiction of that made the food taste bad on my tongue. Why get mad that Shadi assumed I still had my maidenhood? This would be my first time, and that is what I had to look forward to.
Tamar, another girl from the Galley, nodded in agreement. “Also, if you want it to end quicker. Cup their balls and lick—”
“Thank you,” I cried, cheeks on fire. “That’s enough for now, I think.”
Shadi smirked. “This isn’t the conversation you want to avoid.” She jerked her chin at the women seated at the table. “See that woman in green?”
I followed her gaze to a slender, blonde woman with pale skin and a long, jagged scar on her cheek.
“Of all of us, she’s the only war wife that’s gone to war. There’s a reason none of the others who’ve seen the faeriken on the battlefield even thought of collecting that one hundred and fifty kiruna. If you ask her,” Shadi said softly, “she’ll tell you why.”
I gave the woman in green a long look. “Will what she has to say make what’s coming easier or harder to bear?”
Shadi didn’t answer.
“Then I’ll let her enjoy her meal in peace.”
I wish I could say they let me enjoy mine. For the rest of the night, I was treated to their collective wisdom of dealing with every unsavory, unwashed, overly aggressive situation. I thanked Meya when a servant came in and said it was time to retire.
She led us down a winding, torchlit hallway. The hustle and noise from the busy kitchen had gone silent. It was then I realized why we were made to stay in that room so long after sunset. We were only allowed to pass through the halls after everyone else had gone to bed.
Irritation beat at my calm. It shouldn’t surprise me. All my life I’d witnessed how war wives were treated. I used to dream all the facts and knowledge in my head would amount to something useful. I’d open a shop or give something to Lyrica that could only come from my mind, not my magic. The kiruna would flow, and I’d give my mother and siblings a new life.
Instead, I was another castoff slinking through the back hallways.
“In there.” The servant girl gestured at two doors on opposite sides of the hall. “You’re not to leave your rooms until I fetch you in the morning.”
With that she left, not even offering so much as a good night.
I followed Shadi and Myrna into the room on the left. Fifteen cots were scattered about the stone prison. I wanted to call it something else, but no other word came to mind. There was nothing inside barring the cots and four walls.
“They didn’t place a cot in here for you,” Myrna said. “I know where they’re kept. I’ll get another and you can take mine. You’re dead on your feet, shoua. Get some rest. The world’s better in a dream.”
It wasn’t until she said it that a wave of exhaustion bowled me over. My knees buckled, dropping me to the stone. I styled my hair to hide the hard lump from Kirwan’s attack. Didn’t prevent it from thrumming a deep, pricking pain that reminded me with every breath that my life was about to change forever.
Shadi pointed out Myrna’s cot and I collapsed, dropping on the thin blanket with my slippers still on.
Life’s better in a dream.
