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“Give me a demonstration. I want you to use this on each of my men.”
Of all my abilities, this is the one my father found least useful. He didn’t test it out like he did the other two. I had to experiment with it on my own. I haven’t yet found any consequences for using it. Aside from feeling like a complete strumpet when I’m done. But I’m not above using it to get what I want. Though I usually prefer to have some song left to erase the memory from my victims afterward.
But by the end of today, it seems I will have lost my sense of safety, my secrecy, and my dignity.
Chapter 18
VORDANHASMECHANGEmyself for each of his men. In turn I play the parts of a whore (for Niffon likes a woman who knows what she’s doing), an innocent country girl (Cromis likes corrupting innocence without consequence), and a married woman (because Theris likes the danger and secrecy of an illicit affair).
I’m kept in the cage. Thankfully, the men aren’t allowed to touch me, but I want to punch myself for the foul, coy, and suggestive comments I’m forced to utter. The entire time I’m performing my act, Vordan stands there with his infernal paper and charcoal, making notes as I go.
I vow to shred that parchment so none can read the things I’m reduced to say and do.
“You may stop,” Vordan says after what must have been fifteen minutes of talking to Theris. “Don’t bother reading me. I have seen enough.”
Theris looks questioningly at Vordan. I must be giving him a similar look. If there’s anything that would have made mewantto continue using my—as Vordan so elegantly put it—seductive powers, it was telling me not to read him.
I can read Vordan’s desires as though they’re written on a board above his head.
“Oh,” I say, “I can see you wouldn’t find me appealing no matter how I acted.”
Previous to this moment, Vordan has regarded me with nothing more than a pleasant interest, but now he looks at me as though I’m some vile creature he’s found sticking to the outside of his ship. He draws his sword and advances toward me.
“What are you doing?” Theris asks. “Captain?”
Vordan, called to his senses, sheathes his weapon and returns to his parchment.
I’m still stunned. Not because Vordan only likes the company of men, but because I’ve never had to use my abilities on his sort. I didn’t realize there are men out there who are immune to that particular talent of mine. And knowing Vordan is one of them makes the cage around me seem more solid somehow.
“That’s enough for today,” Vordan says. “Grab the boy and supplies.”
Niffon and Cromis start to move while Theris looks disapprovingly at his captain.
“I said to grab the boy, Theris!” Vordan repeats.
Theris hurries to comply while Vordan sizes me up one last time. “We’ll be back tomorrow. I suggest you prepare yourself for another rough day ahead of you.”
At my scathing look, he adds, “Don’t worry. We have weeks of fun ahead of us, you and I.”
Once again I feel my last meal climbing up my throat, but I manage to keep it down as I watch all the men retreat, carrying Riden’s limp form away with them.
Weeks?
Weeks?
Vordan didn’t leave me much time to think of a way out of this while he put me through test after test, but now desperation sinks in.
I have to find a way out.
I can’t reach any of the surrounding trees. On the ground, there’s nothing but tall grass and sand. A rock here or there. Nothing helpful for getting out of a cage.
I have nothing else except the clothes on my back. Useless, all of it.
They can’t keep me in this cage forever, can they? Eventually they have to let me out to—to what? Eat? They’ll feed me through the bars, no doubt. Relieve myself? Not a chance. Vordan has already been extra careful thus far. He’ll no doubt expect me to go in a corner of the cage.
It’s a strange thing realizing all you need is to eat and drink and you will go on living. You don’t need to interact with others. You don’t need to move, run, walk. You really don’t even need to sleep. I can be trapped forever and go on living.
There were some days, shackled deep beneath my father’s keep, when I thought that might be my life. I would live as an eternal prisoner. I refused to use my powers back then. I pretended they didn’t exist. It was only when I was faced with being trapped forever or using them to escape that my father could coerce me into using them.
