Born for Silk (The Cradled Common)

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Aster

None of us can talk.

There is nothing to say.

Blossom has no optimism to share, and Daisy has no strength to ground us with rationale. I have no stories, no puzzle metaphors, or folktales.

And Ana…

She has nothing.

We watch with helpless eyes as the room clears, doctors and nurses, Rome and Master Cairo with the baby, leaving us alone with her empty arms and hollow expression.

Without a word, Ana twists her face toward the wall. With all two billion of her heart cells broken, I don’t think she has enough pulse left for anything.

I reach out my hand, desperate to comfort her, to touch her dark hair, and tell her it will all be okay, but I stop. It won’t. I retract my hand. It’s not enough. It is unbearably inadequate.

Unable to stay and remain calm, I walk from the Silk Girl Wing with my head down, the breeze stirring silence around me until I hear two men talking.

Rome…

How could he?

What did I expect?

I knew it would happen. Was warned. Prepared, even. But nothing could have prepared me for that level of… vulnerability. We cannot object, rally together or even mourn.

How do you mourn something that was never yours?

The ache is profound. And even though we are not meant to feel it, it is bottomless.

I follow the building until I get to the edge, listening to the private conversation as it takes place just around the corner.

“Was that necessary?”

I almost collapse under his rough tone, but my spine finds strength in the limestone wall, needing it to hold me upright as Rome speaks with such deep, dark apathy.

“ Sire. This is the great problem with removing boundaries. One’s place in The Cradle becomes confusing.” I hear Master Cairo’s sigh. “The girls will move on. I assure you. They will focus on their Purpose.”

His voice drops, hinting at anger. “You could have waited until the other Silk Girls left the room.”

“And protect them from reality? This is life. The babe needs to bond with the Sired Mother as soon as possible. A young Silk Girl can barely care for itself. They are spoiled and have leisure—luxuries. Fed. Bathed. Dressed. A Sired Mother is a mature, highly skilled caregiver. This is what is best for the child. When the Silk Girls finish producing, they will have matured and be ready to take on the important task of raising the children of The Cradle.”

I cannot listen anymore.

Strolling away, I head straight for the garden with the rose fields. The one that holds my first memory here in The Estate. When Meaningful Purpose was all I wanted. How has four months changed my desires so drastically?

I beg for the ignorance back. For the bliss of small pleasures, chocolate, reading, and birds. How I wish for the mysteries of love, not this… Not the reality of love. Love creates falsities—expectations that cannot be met. Love betrays.

It is painful and… unkind.

I sit on a disarrayed patch of grass between barricading rose bushes, long arms twist and creep from the trunks. I nestle between them. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I hold on as tears race down each cheek, leaving tracks of salty residue that cling and tighten the skin.

My eyes sting.

“Aster?” Paisley’s voice calls from the distance, but I ignore her. Crouching lower, I hold my breath. “Aster?” Her voice gets further away, and I know I can let go—just a little.

I sob softly.

Then, with a gentle thud, Odio lands to my side. My heavy gaze sweeps across to acknowledge him. Taken aback by how close he is, I should be frightened, but I don’t have it in me.

Lazily, I reach out a trembling hand and hold it elevated in the air. “Pet.”

Odio’s piercing eyes target mine, homing in, somehow pecking at all my shattered pieces. Edging closer, he lowers his head and presses his beak to my palm.

A sad smile touches my lip. I trace the smooth surface. It is like polished stone, but warm from his radiant body temperature.

Dropping my knees to the grass, I shuffle to better feel the contours and ridges, before exploring further. I slide my palm down his neck and stroke the feathers at his puffy crest, causing him to shudder.

He likes it.

He steps one talon closer so that I can explore the distinct tactile surface. Soft and airy, weightless, fragile, yet as a whole, can lift this great beast into the skies and carve a path through the Redwind.

More tears prickle my eyes. “How I wish to be an eagle today, handsome boy.” I shake my head as the memory of Ana’s broken gaze rattles it. “I cannot feel betrayed.” A sob punches from my chest. “None of us can. We knew. We were prepared. We were trained for this. Born for this.” I look at the skin graft on my wrist. “Born For Silk.”

But I wasn’t…

The thought is unwelcome.

I was Fur Born.

“Like you,” I whisper to the great deity as I smooth his feathers down his chest.

They are going to take my baby, too. Aren’t they?

Abruptly, lusty claims and reverent promises echo between my ears:

‘Let me make myself very clear to you, little creature. You are mine. And this”—his hand pressed over my womb— ‘child, is mine. Not The Trade's. Not The Cradle's. Mine!’

Was it a moment of weakness?

What did he actually mean?

Then, the day I sat on Master Cairo’s examination table slices through me like glass. I see myself—a silly, little Silk Girl begging for a lord and Meaningful Purpose. Sulking and jealous.

And then he tells me of my mother. She was in love and when her lord rejected her, she ran away. She had children in a Common Community. A baby she was able to keep—me.

But I am not my mother.

I couldn’t run from my Collective.

I would never be so selfish to leave Blossom, Daisy, and Ana—and… Him.

He needs someone to be tame with. He chose me. If I run from him… The wonderful, sweet parts inside him will be swallowed by the cruel beast they engineered to rule this chaotic world.

My Rome…

He is so much more than even he knows… And I love him. He is the man who pleasures me and holds me at night in thick arms of protection. Who smiles only for me, who loves and feels, who has humanity only for me…

My lower lip trembles.

I cannot escape my duties to The Crown and The Trade else rip my heart down the centre, leaving one scarlet half for Rome. No . I cannot do what my mother did.

And I cannot stay like this either.

Every detail in the puzzle eventually creates the same greater picture. No matter what, it ends the same way

With a billion broken heart cells.