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I expected the tears to come, but all I could do was lay my head back and stare at the ceiling.
???
Neither my mother nor Castemont came to see me for the rest of the afternoon.
I paced my rooms debating whether I should call for them. Each of my heel-clad steps echoed across the marble floors and walls, a metronome to accompany my misery.
I wanted to run. I wanted to grab what I could and run home. I knew how to survive in Inkwell. I could do it again. But how was I supposed to leave? I had no idea where I even was in the castle. The little I’d seen of it was not enough to give me any clue how to get out. My windows looked over a courtyard always cast in shadow, so there was no telling which way the slums of the southeast of Eserene lay. And if I made it past the guards outside my door, then what?
I stopped in the middle of the floor, the echoes resounding until they fell into piercing, suffocating silence. It was the kind of silence that screamed in my ears, held my brain in its claws.
Breathe.
I am okay.
But before I knew it, my feet were carrying me to my wardrobe. Heels kicked off and to the side. A bag. The simplest dresses I owned. The ones best for running. Extra socks. A cloak. A few pieces of jewelry to sell.
Bag over my shoulder, I sprinted for the door, unsure of where I was going but intent on getting the hell away from this prison. I pushed the doors open and–
“You can’t outrun fate, child.” Marita stood in the doorway, a bottle of wine in one hand, two glasses clutched in the other.
I stared at her, my chest heaving as she stepped in and closed the door behind her. She looked me up and down, the red fury on my face, the crumpled gown I wore, my bare feet poking out from beneath the hem.
She silently walked through the drawing room and set the wine bottle and glasses on one of the small end tables, turned back to me, and opened her arms.
I don’t remember running to her. I don’t remember folding my arms around her as she pulled me in. But suddenly she was holding me up as I began to collapse, my entire world coming down with me.
“I can’t do it,” I sobbed into her shoulder. “I can’t do it Marita.” Her hand ran in smooth circles across my back. “No one told me. Castemont didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell me.”
“I’m so sorry, Petra,” she whispered. And I knew she was. I knew she was bound to the court with her life. I knew that the consequences she’d face if she had warned me would be cruel. But Castemont wasfamily. Castemont would not have faced execution had he disclosed secrets. She pulled away, looking into my eyes with her own that were weeping too. She sniffled, running her thumb across my wet cheek. “Now, girl, you know what would happen if anyone found out I was bringing this to you, yes?” I nodded. One corner of her mouth lifted in a wicked smile. “But since we’re keeping secrets…” She turned to the table and popped the cork from the wine, filling the two glasses and handing me one with a slight smile. “I think you could use this.”
The smile that bloomed across my face was genuine, despite the cheeks I knew were red, despite the runny nose and watery eyes. We sat in the same chairs where my mother and I sat just hours ago. Where we had what could have been our last conversation.
“When I was seventeen,” she started abruptly, “both of my parents were taken by the red delirium. Within three months they were here and then they were gone.” I flinched at her words. And I realized I knew nothing about Marita, nothing of her past. “I had no family in the city, no one I felt I could rely upon. So I marched myself from Ockhull to Inkwell and up the steps of the Painted Empress.” I inhaled sharply. Marita took a long sip of her wine, running her tongue across her teeth before looking up at me again. “I trust you know about the Painted Empress, girl?”
“Yes,” I breathed, my jaw clenched and eyes wide.
“Then you know the kind of establishment that Mr. Evrod runs does not cater to the wants or needs or well-being of his employees. Only his patrons. His depraved patrons, his sadistic patrons, the ones that are vile and sick and twisted, who worship only the Blood Saints, or no Saints at all.” I tried to respond, but the words caught in my throat. I managed a slight nod as I remembered the noises that would come from the windows of the Painted Empress, the men who stalked and stumbled in and out.
“The money I made from my customers…it wasn’t much, and Evrod took most of it. We were permitted to live outside the brothel and keep shifts rather than be on call at all hours, a small mercy, I suppose. But I could never save up enough. So I spent four years under that roof.” I wanted to vomit. Marita’s eyes were distant, but I knew what she was seeing.
“There was a nobleman,” she continued, her tone even. “Young. Maybe five or six years older than I. He would visit me often.” Her face began to melt into disgust. She lifted her glass and finished her wine. “He… He enjoyed pain. Inflicting it. He liked to see me hurt. He liked to watch me…watch me bleed. He never visited without his blade.” Once again, vomit rose in my throat. I wanted to ask why and who and how and what the actual fuck happened to her. “But, like most stupid noblemen, he would bring his guard along. And when the hallways were too crowded or otherwise…occupied, he had to stand guard in the room. He was massive, a giant of a man. But always silent. And always watching. I had quickly learned to pay him no mind.
“And it was one of those days when all of the rooms overflowed and the hallways were crowded with mistresses and their customers, that the guard was forced to wait inside while his Lord…” She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t have to. “He had been feeling particularly sadistic, and I was bloody from chin to toe. I remember the feeling of the wounds stinging every inch of me. But my mind was numb. Gone.” Marita swallowed hard. “And for the first time, I looked over his shoulder and saw the guard staring at me, the sorrow on his face etched into every feature. I will never forget that look, those dark eyes, not until the day I die. Saints, I can see it now, so clearly. And he just watched me as I bled, as his master held me down. Watched me with pure despair and heartbreak and hopelessness.”
Marita leaned forward and refilled her wine glass, her face turning thoughtful. “I cleaned myself up as best I could after they left. I couldn’t look at my body too long. Then Evrod woke me up in the dead of night and told me I had a customer. The cuts had clotted but were still sticky and raw, and every brush of my dressing gown on my skin was torture. I didn’t think I could make it through another customer. Then the door opened and…the guard stood there.
“He rushed into the room, hardly looking at me, and he told me we didn’t have much time. He pulled rolls of bandages from a small bag along with a large tin of salve. ‘Please,’ he urged me, and his voice was so sincere, Petra. So, so incredibly sincere. ‘Let me help.’ He gestured at my robe and I dropped it. He dutifully cleaned and dressed every single cut his master had left on me, apologizing all the while. Then he dug some clothes out of his bag and told me to dress. Just a simple brown tunic and black pants with boots that were a bit too big. I was silent the entire time. I didn’t know what to say. I don’t think I could have spoken even if I tried.
“He whisked me out of the brothel, easily hiding me from Evrod who was buzzing around making sure his late-night customers were ‘satisfied.’” She shuddered lightly. “And he brought me to his sister, who worked in the Low Royal Castle as a tutor for the young women preparing for Initiation. A little training, and here I am. She passed a few years back, unfortunately. But she is the reason I’m here.”
“What about the Lord? Who was he?”
A slight shake of her head. “There are more than a hundred Lords in this castle, girl. And you haven’t been here long enough to name half.”
“Does he know you’re here?” My mind was whirling in circles.
“I’m not sure if he knows, girl. He may not recognize me when my most recognizable features are covered up.“ She pulled back the white cuff of her frock, the one that covered every inch of skin beside her face and hands.
