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I hug my knees close to my chest. The bed is wonderfully comfortable. I force myself to blot out both memories of the wicked past and visions of the repulsive future Zephiro has mapped out for me.
Without realizing I’m doing it, I start to hum a tune the humans sometimes sing when they are away from prying ears and eyes. It is a ballad of hope and freedom.
It speaks of sparkling clean rivers and fresh mountain air. Of whole villages where humans are free to do as they please without molestation.
It sings of the dream I have clung to for my entire life, and as the melody goes around and around in my head, I slowly drift off to sleep.
It is the best sleep I have ever had in this warm, comfortable bed. I realize as I awake that if it wasn’t for Zephiro and the chain, I could be waking up to a dream come true.
But Zephiro and the chain are my reality. I must escape.
The chain gives me just enough slack to use the pot that is beneath the bed. From there, I can almost reach the stool that sits by the desk. If I can reach that, maybe I can break the chain with it.
The thought excites me. I lay out across the floor, straining at my shackle. My fingertips can just brush the leg of the stool.
Fuck. I need something to grab it with.
I look around me desperately. Maybe if I throw the blanket over it, I can drag it toward me.
My travails prove successful. I am elated as I drag my prize back toward the bed.
The trick now is to lay the chain across something solid, and then hit it as hard as I can with the stool. It takes me a while to wriggle into position with one foot sticking out over the edge of the bedstead and the chain just right so I can hit it hard and not hit my own ankle.
My determination is interrupted by a rumbling laugh coming from the doorway.
I jump out of my skin, my heart pummeling against my chest like it wants to break free. I had been so fixated on my task that I hadn’t heard the great beast enter.
I scream my frustration and throw the stool at his head. “You fucking ugly bastard, let me go!”
With ease, he catches the projectile and places it gently back down on the floor. “That’s never going to work,” he tells me.
His gentle voice somehow has a calming effect on my beating heart, and I burst into tears. I don’t understand what’s happening. He is putting his arm around me as if to comfort me. But he’s a monster. How can a monster be so tender?
I feel his breath on me as he sniffs my scent. The act repulses me, and I pull away from the warmth of his embrace.
“Don’t touch me,” I hiss, although that gentle embrace is calling to a deep need in me to feel loved. The world feels barren without that.
“I brought you breakfast,” he tells me. For the first time, I notice the steaming bowl of porridge in his hand. It is covered in a thick layer of mouth-watering honey.
“Fuck you,” I say, determined not to eat a thing.
“You know, you have a foul mouth for such a delicate little thing,” he tells me with a laugh rumbling in his chest.
I don’t even answer. I have such a deep yearning to go home. But I don’t even know where home is. Something inside me feels suddenly defeated. Without resistance, I allow him to spoon-feed me the wonderfully sweet, sticky porridge.
The taste explodes like nectar in my mouth. Despite my resolve, I enjoy every mouthful and have to resist snatching the bowl out of his hands and licking it clean.
As if he reads my mind, he offers me more.
No. I shake my head sadly, my eyes locked on the empty bowl.
“Okay,” he says. “I will not attempt to feed you against your will again. If you want food, you can ask me for it.”
I look at him in horror. Fine, I’ll starve myself. My resolution folds tightly around my heart.
“Sierra?” he says.
The way he says my name is very different from the way the elves say it. When the elves speak, it is sibilant. ‘Sssiera,’ hard and coarse, as if it is spoken by a snake. But with Zephiro, it sounds like a completely different name. His tongue ignores the S and lingers on the R, ‘Sierrrra.’ It wraps around me like a balm.
