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At that exact moment, the tip of my shoe kicked a chunk of broken stone about the size of my fist.
Thatwould do.
Hurriedly, I grabbed it, took aim above the door, and hurled it with all my might, the rock soaring over the prisoners.
“Hey!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as the stone smashed into the wall, bits of rock raining down. “Let her go!” I yelled, adrenaline stampeding through my veins, tamping down the pain I felt.
The guard turned towards me, the little girl kicking and screaming in his arms. “Grab the bitch!” he yelled at the others. “Her life ends today.”
“No!” roared the guard who had been giving orders before. “She is to be publicly Cleansed. King’s orders.” He jerked his head to the door. “Let’s go.”
The guards listened and headed towards the exit.
When they were all out, the iron door swung behind them, the locking mechanism sounding in the stunned silence of the cavernous dungeon.
I dropped to my knees. She was just a little girl.
“Are you okay?” the boy asked as he ran up beside me.
“No. Not really,” I answered honestly, fighting how angry I was with myself, and my uselessness—I was supposed to be the Goddess of Life, and I couldn’t even protect one little girl.
Sage
“When you woke, you asked about an elderly woman. We could go look for her if you’d like,” the boy said. He was standing to the right of me, hands tucked behind his back as he rocked in place. It was amazing to see how quickly he recovered from what just happened—although I supposed living down here for two to three years would have that effect on a person.
I, however, was still slumped in my defeated position, an arm thrown across a bent knee as I leaned against the cold wall. I blinked, his words, or rather the task they created—a reason to continue forward—was enough to tug me out of my stupor.
I stood up, feeling every ache and pain in my body from the way the guards had handled me during the trial. And then there was the wound in my side from the arrow. It hurt viciously.
“Alright, let’s go see if we can find her,” I said.
He nodded.
“What’s your name?” I asked the boy as we started walking, glancing over the faces of the prisoners, searching for the healer.
He gave me a funny look. “Myname?”
“Yeah, your name.”
He exhaled a soft breath. “Names don’t exist down here.”
“What do you mean they don’t exist down here?” I asked, stepping around the body of an elderly male who was sleeping on the wet, cold floor.
“Peoplehave names. The second the guards shoved us down here, we stopped being people,” he answered as he walked ahead.
“That’s absurd.” I lengthened my stride, catching up to him, the pace taking more effort than it should, but my body wasn’t exactly in tip-top working order. Gently, I grasped his shoulder, turning him to me. “Whether you are in the Well or not, you are still a person.”
“People don’t live like this.” He gestured for me to look to my left. “Animals do.”
I glanced in the direction he had indicated, and my mouth fell wide open.
A man had pulled down his breeches and was hovering over a wood bucket. He wasgoingto the bathroom, right in front of everyone—his rear on full display. The people sitting around him didn’t even seem to bat an eye or care. This lack of privacy was normal for them—as well as the lack of sanitization.
I looked back at the boy, his eyes as dull as an overused bread knife. There was no spark there, no zest for life. And suddenly, I understood. He was no different than Vera, the girl who worked in the bathhouse. He became what he needed to become so that he could survive in this place. And survive he had.
“Alright then, you don’t need to tell me your name right now. But on the day you feel you can be a person again, that is when I want you to tell me.”
He nodded but didn’t say a word more.
