Chapter forty-three
There is no room in my life and in my heart for love… Or anything like it.
I replayed the words over and over again.
Those were the words he had spoken to Camilla.
Was it all a game for him? Did I mean anything different?
I shook my head.
It didn’t matter anymore.
I’d never see him again.
Forget him.
Forget him.
I forced the image of him out of my mind so I would forget the memories that killed me the most.
That had caused more pain than any of this combined.
I imagined he’d say the same to me like he did Camilla, if he were here right now, seeing me in filth and rags.
I was hardly recognizable.
The clothes I came with barely stayed on my withering body.
My skin wasn’t pale anymore; it was black and brown from humidity that stuck in the air and the smoke and dirt that blew our way.
It had been thirty-something days since I’d been locked up in this cage, on display for all visitors who prowled about and spat in our faces.
But that wasn’t the only thing these people did.
The only food I ate was what was thrown from the children that mocked and laughed at us.
Us.
We were animals, in a sense.
Some of us were dead, and it would be a few days until one of the guards would notice enough to drag one of our bodies out and stab them to ensure their death.
The day before, they had dragged a prisoner out, stabbed him in the gut, and the man roared his last breath.
The guards weren’t always accurate, so it put more pressure on others to act as if they were alive—if they wanted to live.
The old man in the cage to the left of me, I learned his name: Rubert.
I heard some of the women hissing at him, calling him a thief.
Regardless of why he was in here, we’d sleep near each other for warmth during the cold nights between the bars that kept us apart.
We never had the energy to say more than a grunt to each other when strange things would happen like the day before. We’d give each other looks when one of us got slapped in the face with fish pieces or the like. Sometimes I’d see a smile from him, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen—I thought. I was not entirely sure.
Helon visited on more occasions than I’d care for.
He bored me with his relentless bribes.
“Tell me what you know.
You must have heard of something during all that time you spent with him distracting him, luring him.
If you tell me something valuable, I’ll consider freeing you from here.”
I stared into his cold eyes.
Was that why he brought me here? To tell him something about Aris?
Oh, I see.
Camilla no longer had eyes on Aris for Stroka.
Why they thought Aris needed to be watched and why they thought I would know anything valuable blew my mind, but here we were.
Weeks and months had gone by since I’d been here, and Helon stopped his occasional visits.
I’d seen the full moon at least three times since I arrived.
The Day of the Hand passed the week before.
Celebrating the lowest of the low class by selling us off to the highest bidders.
I vaguely remembered a certain servant threatening me with that day.
It seemed like years ago. Memories were becoming harder to remember.
“A dirty little witch, aren’t you?”
A man had appeared before me.
Tall, dark, and nothing good.
He seemed wealthy, his rich blue tunic shimmering in the fading sunlight.
I narrowed my threatening eyes, the same I’d always done to chase prowling predators away.
They always believed the silent curse from my green eyes.
“Fiery.”
A slow grin appeared.
“You’ll do perfectly.
We’ll have fun, sweetheart.
A much better place than this has to offer.”
He was one of those men.
I half expected me to feel sick over his words, but nothing came.
A few hours went by that day.
The square was overly crowded with wealthy lords and ladies and the lower class.
There was a dais in the square where they auctioned off the best slaves.
Most of them were men with meat on their bones. The withering slaves and prisoners were bordering the square in their cages.
I remembered the man coming back again with a guard, who carried a set of keys.
“How much for this one?”
the man had asked the guard.
“Ah, this one.
I’m not sure she’s for sale.
She belongs to Helon,”
the guard murmured.
“I’ll bring her back.”
He placed a purse filled with coins on top of the guard’s gloves.
“Eventually.
Is this enough to keep you silent?”
The guard had only shrugged.
I glanced towards Rubert, who for the first time had an expression on his face.
His eyes were wide.
I thought he was going to be sick.
Poor Rubert, I had thought.
The door to the cage opened, and the man stuck his arm in to retrieve me.
I had fought back, but nothing seemed to work.
In fact, the wealthy man seemed to enjoy it the more I wriggled from his grasp.
I remembered biting his forearm as hard as I could, and he let out a scream.
I might have smiled, but he struck my cheek.
My neck nearly snapped.
If I had to guess, for about a week, I was with that man in the countryside.
It was chaos.
It was a fight to keep that man off me.
I didn’t remember the specifics, but he touched me more than I liked to be touched, and I hurt him more than he liked to be hurt.
When I was thrown back into my cage, I remembered feeling out of my body.
Not recognizing it more than ever.
How could I survive this?
The most unusual thing happened a few weeks ago when I was huddled against the bars of the cage, close to Rubert.
I had a dream, and it had color.
I saw green grass and rolling hills, and there was a cliffside looking out to the sea.
That was the last color I had seen—in my mind.
I thought I remembered what it was like in my dream to see the color green, but it was fading from my mind every day that went by.
Now, all I saw was gray.
The sky was gray, my clothes were gray, even my skin was gray—everything was gray.
An empty color.
At least darkness had the color black that was filled with depth and feeling.
Gray was nothing.
I took a glance around.
I could deal with the harsh stares, the name-calling in Siniya, but this—I couldn’t handle it.
I lost myself.
The dream and its color were the first memory that faded from my mind, and then next were events that passed in my life.
I didn’t want to hold on to anything anymore.
I let the people I used to know fade as well, holding onto only my family, but even that was hard to hold on to.
It wasn’t worth it at that point, to remember some things that caused more pain than what it felt like to barely breathe from starvation.
For what reason should I remember them? It was already hard to remember their faces and who they were in a place where there was no laughter, there were no smiles, and where there was no love to remind one of what life used to look like before—
Before… Before what?
I tapped my head on the bars of the cage I lived in.
What happened before I came here?
Hurt, pain, death.
It was too much energy.
I dragged my body down near Rubert, who had his eyes closed sitting nearby.
Carriages came by, causing mud to splatter on our bodies.
I hissed at the reckless men who rode the carriages, and they shook in their pants at the sight of me.
“Don’t go near the Insulatus.
They’ll bite your head off from hunger,”
one of the men said as he pulled the other wide-eyed man further from our cages.
Insulatus.
“Why are they there?”
the other younger man said.
“Some are prisoners, some are slaves, and others are simply there because they disrespected the crown.”
“Do they ever get out?”
“Yes.”
The man paused.
“Once they’re dead.”
A young girl jumped from the open carriage and joined the two men.
“They don’t look human, Daddy.”
“They’re not anymore, sweetie.
That’s what happens when you don’t listen to Emperor Malakar.”
The child tugged on her father’s tunic and pointed towards me.
“But who is she?”
“She was a witch, they say.
Stay away from her.
She is darkness incarnate now,”
the father warned the girl.
“If you get too close, she’ll snatch you up and eat you.”
The wide-eyed girl looked over to me in fear and bolted into the market after her mother who walked ahead of their clan.
I swallowed air down my sandy throat and looked over to Rubert, whose eyes were still shut.
I slammed his shoulder with my fist through the bars that separated us.
He gave me a grunt, and that was enough to tell me he wasn’t dead.
After a few hours of watching people go by, I heard a peculiar sound.
“Don’t,”
Rubert said in a raspy voice.
I’d never heard it before.
It sounded like nails on a stone.
“Don’t—forget.”
I knew what he was implying.
Who I am? I looked towards the gray, smoky sky.
Don’t forget who I am?
Who am I? I could barely remember looking at myself in the mirror.
I had red hair—I thought.
Red, evil.
Maybe I was a witch. I remembered I had a family, and they loved me. And I loved them. But where were they?
I loved herbs.
I could remember that.
Herbs and healing others.
A flash of a tan man on a bed came through my mind as I cleaned his wound on his torso.
Was I a healer? Another memory of water, herbs, and he was there again.
He, him—a man.
He was not love. I forgot what love felt like in a place like this. It was so hard to remember more. He was not— He was…bad. Don’t remember.
Who was I?
I glanced over to Rubert and gave him a look that told him I appreciated his effort.
I reached my hand over to his and held it.
He gave me a light squeeze for assurance.
I thought for a moment I did remember, but the memories had been pushed so far in my mind it would take too much energy and effort to recall.
There must have been a reason why I didn’t remember anymore.
Maybe it was for the best that my mind was empty and alone.