Born for Silk (The Cradled Common)

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Aster

Silk Girl Vows:

For The Cradle, I shall adore all its children equally and with quiet humility. I have no claim over what I provide for The Cradle.

I stare at my feet, watching my toes disappear into rich, clean soil. I’m not sure I have ever walked outside with bare feet before.

Where are you?

What is this place?

I must have noticed the weather shift, cooling. Must have walked down the giant manicured hill, the one surrounded by castle-like buildings made of granite, veined with grey and white marble.

I must have smelt the fresh-cut flowers and sniffed the lemon and vinegar cleaning tonics through the open windows, must have walked these gardens more than once already, but I cannot recall the specifics.

I only remember eyes tracking me. For days now, between one shadowy memory to the next, I recall several eyes on me—one from above, keener than the rest.

On my tippy-toes, I pluck a red rose from a tall perimeter hedge. Looking at it, I inhale. There is a breeze. My hair moves on my shoulders, the ends brushing my waist. Surely, I noticed such an odd sensation, a perfectly controlled gust from the south.

I must be at the very bottom of The Estate. I look down the green landscaped garden hill to a high wall in the distance, and beyond, to the tops of woven tree canopies. The branches move with life, but the limbs strangle together, unwelcoming and defensive.

I wonder how deep the woods are…

I know that to the north, an architectural masterpiece makes the Redwind behave—a fort of protection, with just enough vents to allow a conditioned atmosphere within the keep. I only know this from my studies. I have seen pictures of The Estate. It houses over fifty-thousand citizens and is entirely shielded by a rolling limestone wall shaped like the open wings of an eagle.

Foliage moves beside me.

“Are you ready for some lunch?” someone calls from my right.

A grumbling in my stomach suddenly answers for me. That’s good. I’m present. I know what happened. The Endigos cut my tongue and sliced my mark right off like a strip of meat. Though, all the things that happened to me are jumbled together now. I am still not convinced I didn’t bite my tongue while eating an apple or maybe Iris cut me in my sleep.

All possible.

Iris… is she alive?

And the Wardeness?

With the fever I’ve had… was it three days? I’ve been gliding through one strange land to another, stepping from cloudy plain to cloudy plain, never knowing which is real and which is a construct of my mind.

“Aster?” Someone touches my shoulder.

I look over at Paisley. I like her. She wears the cutest dress shirts, in all colours, and trousers that are pleated down the centre. I wonder if she presses them each day.

She has the strangest expression, and I realise I have the rose to my mouth as though I am going to eat it. I cannot have her believe that I’m not better, because I am.

“Are you ready for some supper?” she repeats.

“Yes.” I drop the rose. “I’m ready.”

“Are you sure? I can’t eat with you today. Sire returns from the trial, and so you’ll be eating with the other Silk Girls for the first time. I need to meet with him and Master Cairo.”

“What needs to be done?” I ask. “Can I help?”

“That’s not your Purpose.” Taking my hand in hers, she says, “Come with me. We can just stand outside, and you can decide if you’re ready to sit with the other Silk Girls. If you are, then I will leave you with them. If you don’t want to, then you can eat in your room just this once.”

I want to be ready.

To prove this, I straighten and keep her pace as we stroll toward their wing on the opposite side of The Estate.

“As you were a little foggy, I didn’t get a chance to give you a tour of The Estate,” she starts as we stride onward. “But you are welcome to enjoy the gardens, and every unlocked door you come to. Stay away from the forest line to the south, there are wild animals in the trees, but don’t be frightened. Sire and his hunters cull them back into the mountains. It's what we eat most days. There are three new greenhouses, best not to go in there or you’ll get in the way of production. The majority of The Estate dates back nearly two thousand years.” As we pass under a stunning archway, she gestures toward it. “The original structure was renewed with unbreakable marble stone, but the integrity of the buildings still shows respect to the old-world. All except the piazza. The late, Turin of The Strait, The Cradle’s longest standing Monarch and Protector, desired a more elaborate piazza, so fifty years ago he completely recreated it with crystal mosaic tiles and water fountains.”

We walk between grand double doors and into the Silk Girl Wing, the scent of lemon growing with each step.

Entering a cloakroom, I remember I’ve not worn a coat. It was imperative whenever we visited the Lower-tower. The wind is sharp there. But here, the breeze swirls my hair and skirting all around my body, rising hairs on my legs and arms, and I quite enjoyed the subtle and playful sensation.

She continues her tour. “You’ll find a library with appropriate reading material in your wing, as well as a room to dance, paint, and do puzzles. And, of course, the birthing suite with the finest luxuries and equipment for your safe delivery.”

We stop outside double wooden doors fitted with square glass peepholes. Perhaps so the house personnel can peer in and see who is eating before entering.

I test it out, squinting through the square window and see a cute dining room painted in dark purple with trimmings and patterns etched into the walls and a large window that shows a long courtyard. Inside, four girls dressed in Paisley’s pleated trousers stand in a corner conversing while four Silk Girls sit around a circular wooden table.

Straight away, I spot Iris, and remember… Like a flickering flame, the hours we spent captured by the Endigos. The blood, the live meat, and her head injury.

I blink, refreshing the sight of her.

She looks different. Softer. Or am I endlessly hopeful she will come around… I gaze between the other girls. Quite the most beautiful girls I have ever seen, and so round in all the right places. Unlike me.

“Enchanting, aren’t they?” Paisley says humbly. “A full set including yourself. Trade be kind , each will have at least three babies. A girl, a boy, and a spare.”

I cover my mouth when I see a lovely, dark girl is already pregnant, her beautiful round stomach stretches her silken dress, and crumbs dust the area in a playful way.

I’ve never seen a pregnant Silk Girl in real life. She does look as though she is glowing but then it is very luminous in that room with the large window offering crown-light, the hazy yellows bathing them and the table.

“She has Meaningful Purpose.” My voice is breathy with awe. “Is that baby the king’s?” I don’t know why I ask, but my stomach tugs as I do.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Paisley whispers.

I look up at her. “I don’t know. Is that wrong to ask?”

“I thought that was in your studies?”

“What was in my studies?” My eyes widen. There is something I don’t know. “I didn’t finish. Is it important?” She looks shocked, so I continue, “Please don’t tell anyone that I asked. Just pretend I didn’t.”

“It’s okay.” She touches my shoulder. “I’ll tell you, so don’t ask that question again and give yourself away.” She looks through a different square hole at the girls eating around the wooden table. “The four Silk Girls in there are for his Collective, four plus Sire.”

“I don’t understand.” I swallow. “They share?”

“Share your womb? No, that would be messy.” She laughs a little. “How would they know which one is the heir if they all put their seed inside every girl? They share the sight of you, but they do not share your womb.”

I blink at her. “I still don’t understand.”

“All the Silk Girls are treated the same. All the babes are raised the same. To protect the heir, he is only revealed when he turns eighteen. A child is a frightfully fragile creature. No one can be trusted. No need to put a target on one.”

“So, who knows?”

She keeps her voice low. “Only The Trade Master knows all, and the lord knows which child is his, as he picks his Silk Girl, but they do not know of each other’s babe.”

I nod my understanding. “And the Silk Girl.”

“She will never know. That is utterly important.”

“I’m sorry.” I stare at her, confused. That can’t be right. “I must be hearing you wrong. How is that possible?”

She pulls me to the side, away from the wooden door, lowering her voice further. “How do you not know what happens when he comes to you at night?”

“We learn of the night in the last six months of training. It is private until then. And I didn’t finish. I was in the crash and now I am here, and my head is fuzzy.”

She touches my cheek, drawing me back to her. “I like you, Aster. It’s going to be okay. Don’t ask questions as a rule. It’s best that way. You’ll wear a beautiful solid, silk veil, Aster. When a lord visits you at night and gives you Meaningful Purpose, you won’t know who he is. This way, there is no jealousy or favouritism, and the heir’s safety is kept to the highest degree. When you give birth, the child will be taken to a Sired Mother to raise and nurse, and you will return to your Meaningful Purpose until you have given your lord at least two boys and one girl. If he likes you, maybe more.”

I nod slowly. I knew that last bit. That I wouldn’t raise the child, but I thought I would know the lineage. But then, it is not mine. It’s The Cradle’s. It’s all of ours.

I look at my hands, remembering why I have to get well. Why I have to be sane and clear. Because once I have fulfilled my Purpose, and if I am very good and lucky, I will be a Sired Mother and look after the babies of The Cradle until I am old.

“Are you ready to enter and meet the girls?” Paisley asks, walking back to the door.

I wonder what Iris will think…

“It’s okay,” she says straightaway, thankfully, because I don’t know how to answer her. If they are anything like Iris, Lavender, or Ivy, then I am not ready to meet them.

She guides me back to the door. “I will see you after your meal and take you to your forever room.”

I force myself to nod, and she opens the door for me.

The girls look up as I slowly walk in.

“I’ve seen you in the garden!” the pregnant one says, bouncing to her feet as though she isn’t carrying a boulder under her silk dress. “You’re feeling better then?”

I stare at Iris as she pales to behold me. “ That’s your ghost girl?” Iris startles. “That’s the girl you keep seeing?”

“Yes,” she agrees. Taking my hand, she says, “Come with me,” guiding me to sit at the table beside her. “A full set. I am so excited. I’ve waited for this day. My lord, whoever he is, could not stop himself from starting early. I wonder who has that kind of hubris to just initiate my rite before a full set is even in The Estate.” She lifts an eyebrow, her message clear—she believes she carries the heir.

I believe so, too.

She is the most beautiful girl in here.

Even compared to Iris.

I try to hide my face as a sinking feeling in my stomach takes over. Our moment—the king’s and mine—in the tank comes to me in strange, curt images; his hand on my face, covering the mask; his eyes drilling me in place, intense to a tangible level; his desire for me, pressing at my backside?—

“I thought you were locked away,” Iris blurts out, before shovelling a spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth. “Finally gone completely mad. She has imaginary friends, you know.”

Ignoring her, I look around the table, and a few of the others smile softly, wary but kind, each saying a little hello.

“Locked away…” A blonde girl says. “For what exactly?”

I look at her.

“She is very petite,” a curvier girl adds quickly. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. Only it is rare now to see a girl under five-foot-five. How tall are you? What are you measurements?”

Umm.

“Do you not speak?” the blonde presses before I can answer either of them.

“I speak,” I finally get in. “My tongue is healing, and it takes a bit of effort to speak.” I withhold the truth about not having many friends or knowing how to chitchat. Except with a mutated bird… I am a witty conversationalist with him.

The blonde stares. “What is wrong with it?”

Uncertain, I sit down, and they all follow me with their eyes—all four beautiful creatures.

I blink at them, reading. My bully gauge is broken, I can’t tell whether she is taunting me or merely asking a question.

I pick up the spoon beside the oatmeal, steamy ribbons carry exotic spices and honey up my nostrils. I wonder how they came to find such rich fragrances.

“I have a small, erm—” I look at Iris. She is staring at her meal as though her appetite has vanished. “My tongue has a small wound, and it feels a little awkward to speak at the moment. The more I talk, the easier it becomes.”

The curvier one, with lovely rosy cheeks and auburn hair that matches, straightens. “ Oooh , can I see your tongue?”

“You can’t just ask her that,” Iris deflects.

“No, that’s okay.” I stick out my tongue, and they take a big breath in.

“ Cool ,” the curvy girl says. “I’m Blossom. You’re lucky, we were served honey and oatmeal today. Usually, it’s fruit, toast, and eggs. Sometimes soup. I don’t really like eggs, especially because I know where they come from, but they are good for us, so I do eat them.”

The blonde smiles. “I’m Daisy. I’m so glad we are a complete set now, and all so different. That is by design.”

The pregnant one puts her brown hand on my knee, tapping softly. “I’m Lantana, but you can call me Ana. You are the most interesting thing to me. Seriously. I have seen you in the garden, like a wraith. Half doped-up. White skin. Black hair. And you are so lovely, I wanted to stare at you all day. I wasn’t sure that you were real. But my lord whispered to me at night, that you have been through quite an ordeal.”

“Maybe I’m not real.”

They all laugh—except for Iris. I didn’t mean to be funny, but their smiles become contagious. I think my bully gauge is in a state of sleeping.

Maybe this is what being a Silk Girl is meant to be? I wouldn’t mind that at all.

“That was a successful meal,” Paisley says as we walk through the Silk Girl Wing, under arches of wooden rafters adorned with gold and purple licks of metallic. “Follow me. I think it’s time you settle into your forever room in The Circle.”

Forever room.

That means it’s going to happen. A lord will choose me. I’ll grow babies, eat the most glorious food, and dance ballet. My entire life has been leading to this moment.

Floral wallpaper seems to move with us and stop— When we pause, it is outside a guarded door.

“Hello,” Paisley greets, and the man at the door nods. He is dressed in full black, tactical leather armour, his head high, eyes level.

He steps aside, allowing us to enter.

This new room seems to be a kind of holding space with two painted footprints in the centre of the floor. There is another door, and it’s made from an aged wood; I can tell by the veins and burns. Carved into the centre are flowers of all kinds and bird feathers woven through the foliage. Small birds—not eagle feathers.

“I’ll show you what to do.” Paisley walks to the spot, stepping onto the prints. “Stand by the wall.”

Leaning against the wall, I watch as a white beam glides down her body, before beeping.

“What is that?”

“It is to check that I am well. And you, too. The Silk Girls sleep in here. No one enters besides the lords and the Watchers. You each have one. I’m yours. You will need to do that each time you enter and leave The Circle, or the door will not open for you.”

She waves me over. “Your turn.”

“Does it hurt?”

“You won’t feel anything.”

I step up to the prints and place a foot on each. The beam begins to slide down my body, and I feel nothing at all. Can it read my mind? My mind isn’t entirely well. Can it tell I am nervous? My heart is a vigorous little thing in my chest.

It beeps, and I exhale hard.

“One final thing.” She points at a dot on the wall. “Press your upper arm to the dot.”

Breathing shallowly, I walk over and press my arm to the black dot, imagining it might measure me. My weight activates something mechanical inside the wall.

“It will beep twice,” she advises, coming up to me. “Then it gives you a little pin prick.” She holds me still. “Ready?”

Pardon?

Beep.

Beep.

I wince at the little prick.

“See, easy.” She steps aside, giving me space. “Every first-light when you start your day, you must have your shot, or the door will not open for you. It’s a special serum, with a concentration of vitamins and minerals. Formulated specifically for a Silk Girl.”

I rub my upper arm, repeating the tasks in my mind; beam every time I enter or leave; arm prick each first-light when I leave to start my day. I understand. “You don’t get one?”

“I don’t get one. Let’s go.” She guides me through the pretty door, and I brush the wood with my fingertips wondering if the old tree has memories in its splinters. Tales of the sun, heavy winds, and giant birds of prey.

We enter an empty room shaped like a hexagon, with six walls, forming perfect angles. No furniture or d é cor but for a mural on the floor depicting a colourful garden, reminiscent of the ones outside. It’s peaceful, quiet, and pretty—and without much character.

Is that what I’m to be?

On each angled wall is a closed door. “Six doors,” I breathe softly, scanning the space. “Five Silk Girls and the exit.”

“Yes,” Paisley confirms, walking to what I presume is my bedroom door. “This is called The Circle. I have set your room up already. With your gold sheet, Aster flowers, and the temperature of your shower is set to hot. I’ll leave you to get comfortable.” She looks around, even though we are alone. “I also put a little light reading in your drawer… I know you can read. Lucky girl. This one comes with an illustration.”

I nod, but then she is gone, back through the sixth door and out of sight. I look at the closed door to my room. Blink.

A forever room . But forever isn’t forever , only until I stop producing babes, but it is many years.

I reach for the doorknob and— ' Why do you hesitate? Don’t you want my mark.’ I push open the lovely wooden door, immediately swept up in the scent of flowers.

The room seems to open up as I walk inside. Tapestries adorn the walls, all depicting scenes from the gardens outside. An artificial fire hearth burns low flames around logs. In the corner, a sofa and a side table with a statue and a lamp.

I wander around.

How many girls have slept in here before me? Was the Silk Girl who birthed the king once in this room?

In the centre, is a grand bed carved from the same ancient wood as the doors. It is too high to sit on, one must use the stool fastened to the side.

That’s for a Xin De man…

He can sit on this bed; I must climb onto it.

In a small closet, I find modest dresses in white and a few in various hues of purple. There is a pair of brown leather pants and hide boots—to protect our skin in the Redwind. And three pairs of sandals, one with flowers on the straps, one with vines, one with rope twined laces. They’re not the exact styles as in the Silk Aviary, but similar. All Silk Girls wear alike dresses but for slight differences depending on the girl’s shape. In the Silk Aviary, the Modistes Girl, a girl who has The Trade responsible for designing, creating, and fitting apparel, would choose a modest style for me, whereas she would dress Iris in lower cuts with shorter sleeves.

I shut the closet.

I take the small steps up the side of the bed and crawl on. The mattress beneath my knees is like nothing I have ever felt before. Soft, yet forming.

Rolling to my back in the centre, I stare at the ceiling. A sensation unsettles my stomach, a flutter of anticipation and nerves.

Will a lord visit me tonight?

Or tomorrow?

Will I know beforehand?

The veil.

I turn to my knees and crawl to the bedside drawers. I hold my breath as I pull it open. Like I thought, the veil sits just inside.

I slide it on. It is a solid black silk piece that cups the top of my crown, curtaining my eyes and nose, ending at my upper lip, leaving my mouth mostly exposed. Available. Open.

Staring through the lush fabric, I see dots of light, blurry shadows that could be furniture, but no further detail. I remove the veil and place it back inside the drawer.

Do I wear this each night?

Will it hurt when he…

When he opens me?

I flop backward and cover my face with my palms, taking a big breath. Suddenly feeling hot and bothered despite the curated temperature of the room. I wish I had someone to ask questions—about the… act. Maybe one of the other Silk Girls will be kind. I’ll test her friendship by making minor mistakes, and then if she passes, I could ask her about the six months I have missed.

The details I should know.

Iris already knows them…

She is a summer older than me.

‘I also put a little light reading in your drawer… with diagrams.’

My eyes widen on the ceiling.

Slowly, I sit up and look across at the drawer again. Stare. I go to it—again—and open it, now noticing other things inside: a brush, a small towel, folded white pages. Right.

Taking a big breath, I retrieve them before laying on my stomach and opening the pages up on the pillow.

My cheeks flush as I read the scene, a first-person account of being with a man.

I squirm on the mattress.

I wasn’t entirely sure I could take him inside me. I was afraid to be in the dark, but he slipped two fingers through my folds. “You’re ready,” he murmured.

He pressed my thighs down and worked himself into me, making loud noises that rumbled from deep within his chest.

And I took him.

All of him.

I was shuddering with pleasure at each pump, at each thrust. Having the special places inside me rubbed, soothed, and massaged, every inch previously untouched, now pressed, and caressed. I exploded.

Hesitantly, I turn the page to see the drawing of a wonderfully curvaceous woman wearing a Silk Girl Veil. She is throwing her head back, her body arching upward, and he… A massive Xin De man is fully sheathed inside her. Veins pop along his arms as he pins her down, muscles on his abdomen crunch together?—

I start to pant, feeling strange. So strange that I flip the page over, unable to look any longer. Shower, I need to shower— Or pee. I want to pee so badly.

I stand up and rush to the bathroom, sit on the toilet and feel a tingle when I wee into the bowl.

What the hell is wrong with me?

What the hell is happening?