Page 57 of Elvenbred

“I fell,” Triana replied. “Come to enjoy the show?”

Aelford frowned. “Bedcheck. Do it most nights. You are usually asleep, so you’ve never seen.” She tipped her head to one side, gesturing to the sleeping hall. “They don’t understand that you’re doing your best, but they aren’t wrong.”

“No?” Triana answered, not bothering to hide her bitterness. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

Aelford shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. The people who figured out this system know that a gel that can glow a yellow gem can make about twenty-four or twenty-five bricks, and each brick keeps a person alive for a day. You glow a yellow gem and pee sitting down, and you land here. Just like if you glow a yellow gem and you pee standing up, you end up running a firelance.”

Triana blinked. She hadn’t known that the males got a different role. She opened her mouth to ask for that, then closed it. Haldeen wouldn’t let her within bow-shot of the wall’s heavy equipment. For good reason. Giver her one of those metal contraptions ….

Aelford snapped her fingers in front of Triana’s face, drawing her back. The supervisor scowled.

“Twenty-five is about the upper limit, but a lot of these gels can push harder, as hard as you are pushing, and can do one, maybe two more. The extras get banked for credit. Each gel has her own credit roster … you have one too … and it’s your extras that will eventually pay Haldeen back.”

Given her inability to make her quotas, Triana let the absurdity of Aelford’s statement pass.

Aelford leaned against the doorway to the bath and crossed her arms. “Raelin, the gel that made you ‘fall,’ has been banking her rations for nearly two years. She’s desperate to have a baby, and she needs those rations to live off of while she can’t work. Your failure to pull your weight puts you between her and that babe she wants so bad. She will gut you like a fish before her savings gets pushed into your box.”

Triana set the bloody rag down and turned to face Aelford. “What about you? Do I need to worry about you?”

Aelford didn’t bat an eye. “Yes.” She shrugged. “It’s not personal, Triana. Even if you manage to make enough to not get a shiv from one of your coworkers, Haldeen is going to take six from me each day you don’t make quota. Six. That bites deep and hard. I don’t have a deep enough well to cover that, and I wouldn’t even if I did. Our quota is partially based on how many producers we employ, so if slipping on a bar of soap and breaking your neck keeps Haldeen from robbing me, then so be it.”

Triana put her finger to her split lip and tested it. Puffy and painful, but not bleeding. “You’re being very matter-of-fact about it,” she said.

Aelford shrugged. “If talking sweet to you gets to twenty-five, then I’ll sugar my tongue and whisper encouragement the full day. If yelling and screaming gets you there, I’ll do that. But, if nothing will get you there, then I need you … and the gels need you … gone.” She stood. “For you, given what you owe Haldeen, that probably means being taken out feet first, toes up, covered in a sheet.” Aelford took a deep breath. “It’s not personal, Triana, it really isn’t. It’s just how it is.”

She looked back into the sleeping hall. “If you were prettier, or had something else you could do, then perhaps you could parlay that into a ticket out of here” She sighed. “I will have a word with the gels, give you two days to work a miracle. After that, once your tally starts to count … each brick short of twenty-five puts you one step closer to that slippery bar of soap. Understand?”

Triana nodded.

“Now,” Aelford said. “You’re out of bed after lights out, and that is normally a two brick fine. Maergry is a corrupt old hag, and you don’t want to get caught by her on an infraction. She has a way of stacking the fines up.”

Triana went to step past Aelford, who put an arm up across the door to the bath, blocking her way. “Two days, Triana. You need a miracle.”

She wanted to explode. She wanted to shout in rage. She wanted answers, dammit! You want a miracle? Then tell me, show me, give me the way to see this invisible ambient magic you keep telling me about so I can use it! But she was too sore—every breath hurt—too exhausted—it was all she could do to stand—and too mentally fogged to do anything but croak out something incoherent. So she just nodded, ducked her head submissively, until Aelford let her pass.

As she lay down on her bed, the only thing that kept circling in her mind until sleep claimed her was—that Haldeen had all the power. And somehow, she had to remind him she could still be valuable to him. Before she got a knife in her ribs.

She rolled onto her side, away from where she had been punched. She was sleep fogged and tired, but the fight had given her a jolt of energy that kept her awake, at least for a little time. She could see no way out of her current predicament. Aelford had laid it out fair and square, and as she thought about it, she knew that if their situations had been reversed, Triana would be as hard … had been as hard. She recalled what she had done to Varien when he had failed to repay money owed for the breeding-slaves. She’d turned him out in scandal and ruin. It hadn’t been personal, but she had to make the point that she was as tough as any of the male elven lords when it came to her rights.

She shifted, trying to get comfortable on the thin mattress. She saw no way to win, playing by these rules. Aelford explained how that game would end. In two days, her shortfall would take literal bread out of someone else’s mouth.

She wondered if Haldeen knew about her predicament, or had set her up to fail. I made the yellow gem light up, so for him that is that … a Yellow is a Yellow. Rather more likely he saw this as a way to get me out of his thinning hair, slap me down for going through his things, and make a little coin on me, all at once. Probably has no idea. Probably doesn’t care.

She yawned deeply, fatigue washing over her as the last dregs of the energy that had wound her up earlier now faded away. Perhaps that’s it. Find a way to send a message that he can’t miss.

Triana rose from her seat in the eating hall. She normally sat by herself. Her poor performance, odd appearance, and accent had kept others well away. This morning proved worse. Word of the fight had spread, and many of the other workers treated her as though contagious, staying even further back, so that she sat in a table-sized pool of isolation. She should see other producers looking at her over shoulders or across tables, quick glances, followed by furtive whispers. She smiled to show she didn’t mind being the center of attention.

She went and got a second cup of the brown bitter drink, the better to suppress her hunger. The ration she had demolished this morning had been accompanied by the cook’s knowing look. She had already known they had a betting pool. How long would she last?

The only way she could win was to change the game, change the rules so she wasn’t a herd-beast to the slaughter. She had a thought on how to do that, but wasn’t sure she could cause a big enough ruckus to get Haldeen’s attention.

She lingered a moment at the large clay jar that held the drink. A supervisor she didn’t know was talking to the cook mixing more of the drink.

“I heard it was bad,” she said.

“How bad?” said the cook.

“They had to throw away a thousand rations, send them back into the algae vats. All had that black mold. Word has it some scrubs by the west wall ate theirs anyway. Went mad and died.”