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I remember learning the name of the dark elf who was going to purchase me – Elijayur. It was delivered on an already bleak and terrible day as good news rather than a death sentence. I went up to my room, silent in comparison to the rest of the club, and wept for hours as I recalled his utter brutality.
“I’m going to escape somehow,” I quietly promised myself with a strained voice after hours of crying.
I remember how panicked I felt that they’d find me, as I snuck into Auriel’s room and discovered the guard schedule.
While I frantically flipped through parchment, looking for any information that might benefit me, the doorknob turned.
Thinking quickly and spontaneously, I ducked beneath the desk on my hands and knees. But not before I first learned Januzari’s name.
And I remember, in a rare turn of actual good news, when I discovered Januzari, attacked in Club Riel by one of the girls he harassed. While nobody else cared if such a low-ranking ex-convict of a dark elf died, I saw an opportunity.
The room rattles as the carriage rocks over a bump in the road. A loud series of whinnies rattle me from my daydream.
Outside, the equus are protesting, their coats covered in freezing rain.
“Tell me, Januzari.”
He shifts awake, briefly snoring from exhaustion. His name is like poison on my tongue.
“If you could grant me my freedom, would you?”
He chuckles somewhat, through fits of rasps and coughing. How he can’t see that he’s in a worse state than when he met me is beyond my comprehension.
“My dear lady,” he says, clearly not remembering my name. “You are already free! What more do you want?”
You are already free!
I smile at the thought.
As a child, I was paraded in front of dark elves. I was told that when I matured, my main mission in life would be to satisfy them, as a wife or otherwise. I was taught how to please them while keeping my precious virginity intact.
It was ‘nothing to be upset by.’ In fact, I was told I should be ‘honored’ by what I, as a human woman, was doing for Protheka.
After all, the chances of a dark elf reproducing with me were much higher than with another female dark elf. Why should I balk at the chance to create more magic for Protheka – to imbue my bloodline with superior genetics?
I throw up in my mouth a little, and I laugh.
“I suppose you’re right,” I say.
He smiles, failing to see that I’m not laughing in agreement but at the absurdity that anything in my life could be considered freedom. My laugh is sarcastic and cynical.
And he’s just proven, once more, that his life is not worth sparing.
Maybe it’s time I give him a more lethal dose.
Behind my back, I grip a vial tightly. I risked everything to procure this, sneaking it through the club and forging alliances with enemies so that people would look the other way.
The carriage rattles.
At first, I dismiss it as more road bumps.
The rattling continues, only intensifying. I realize that something must be terribly wrong.
Looking out the rear window, I see that the trees have grown much denser.
The equus whinny louder, overpowering the rain.
But with a savage roar, and what sounds like the slash of a blade into soft flesh, their whinnies are silenced.
