10. Moonstone
For several days, my life follows the same pattern. Cold, shivering nights filled with nightmares and partial memories, and then frigid mornings with the comfort woman preparing me for Rholker and his strange, little parades with me around the lumber yards.
During this time, I am reduced to a pitiful foreign creature that others sneer and gawk at—particularly when I am given a dress with a low enough neckline to show off the Fuegorra.
My move to the palace has been delayed because he still cannot touch me. When we return to the cottage each day, I ask him to take me to Mikal. He denies me, hands me a strand of hair from my brother’s head as “proof” of his continued living, and then leaves.
I braid the black hairs together, desperately wishing that I knew they were actually his, and use the empty spaces in my day to memorize information I can take back to Teo. Everything I learned will be both a gift to my new people and an apology for the sadness that has followed in my wake.
Lord Fektir is the driving force behind the court, while Regent Uvog is the one who has been tending to some unknown business with the swamp ogres. The Six are here, though their presence mostly causes worried whispers in corners and dark rooms that I barely catch. I saw Dahlia once, waiting in one of the palace rooms. She dipped her head to me while I trembled in my chains.
There are twenty-seven families in the royal court. A majority must agree to Rholker’s coronation for him to stay in power, and at least ten families are loyal to Lord Fektir and will follow him in whatever decision he makes. This includes Regent Uvog.
The stakes are high for my sadistic captor—but even higher for me. The Six told Rholker that I would need to remain untouched for several weeks. That healing period ends on the night of the mid-winter feast.
His coronation. If he wins, then…
I try not to think of what it would feel like to be in his bed. The fractured bits of my consciousness are held together largely by ignoring my reality. Spiraling into the depths of my future if I fail is foolish.
I always have a plan. Gathering information and finding a way to save as many humans as possible—including Mikal—is the best I have right now.
Lost to my thoughts, my door opens. Like clockwork. However, only one form shuffles in, bearing a humble meal.
I look up at the comfort woman from the back of my cage, leaning against the bars.
“Hola?1,” I all but croak.
She looks at me, all that friendliness she puts on in front of the giants wiped away. She places a large bucket near the door full of my bath water, and then places the food on a table while she lights a fire.
Once the flames are warming the chilled room, she takes the waste bucket, goes back outside, and then returns with a mostly clean recipient.
“No debes hacer eso,”?2 I say. “If you would let me out, I’d clean it myself.”
She snorts. “Nice try, but your shit isn’t the nastiest thing I’ve had to clean.”
Then she washes her hands in the water bucket and comes over to unlock my cage door. She places the individual dishes in front of me. Bola de hoja?3, eggs, bread, and tea. Eager to speak to her, I sit up and cross my legs.
“Gracias,” ?4I say, picking up a piece of mostly fresh bread.
I tear it in two and hold out the other half. It is an old offering of peace between slaves—gods know that I’ve coaxed more than words out of fellow slaves by giving up my food. When Mikal and I had gone on the trek to Enduvida, I convinced seven of the others to keep quiet while I sabotaged a cart.
She eyes the bread as if it were a dead rat. The beginnings of a sneer tug at her top lip as she glares at me.
But she doesn’t leave.
“I’m Foreman Eneko’s comfort woman. You think they don’t feed me? He’s not the kind who likes to rut a skeleton,” she spits out.
The words are intended to scare me off, but I’ve been prickly enough times in my life to not run away when someone shows me their thorns.
I raise my eyebrows. “Why would the foreman let his comfort woman babysit me all day?”
“Probably because the king asked him to.” She folds her arms, watching me carefully. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five,” I say. “And you?”
She purses her lips. “Older than twenty-five and younger than thirty-two.”
I huff a laugh. “Does Eneko have a relationship with Rholker?”
“Eneko had to seek permission for me to become his comfort woman from Rholker,” she says bluntly.
This conversation is coming to an end, but I like talking to her.
“Do you know who my mother was?” I ask casually.
She narrows her eyes.
“All the slaves know who you are.” She takes the bread from my hands, tears it in two, and puts one half away. The action makes my chest hurt. We humans are always saving a bit for later. Just in case.
“You are the lucky, beautiful bitch who was spared rounds with giant lords and breeding pens because of her mamá’s legendary work,” she says.
I nod slowly, but then, I gesture at the cage around me.
“I wouldn’t say I was spared all the rounds with the giants. Keksej’s favorite hobby was tearing my back apart and… You see what Rholker does.”
She snorts, looking down at the bread as if considering whether to take another bite.
“A cage where everyone brings you food and you can sleep alone. Untouched.”
My mother’s face flashes before my eyes. I see her looking down at me in her short, silk green dress. She kisses my cheeks and whispers a prayer before she waves goodbye and joins the giant escorts. The only reason I’m untouched is because she went willingly into the king’s bed.
I can’t forget that.
“You’re right. I don’t want it to be said that what I experienced is worse than what you’ve been through. I respect you for the choice you made, and it kills me that it’s necessary to survive. I merely want to show you that I hate the giants just as much as you,” I say.
She pauses as if just now considering this. When her eyes flick back to me, her guardedness has faded.
“So, did you marry the Troll King because you wanted to escape? Or did he force you?” she asks, though I know she’s supposed to be pouring a bath. The bucket she brought with her is still by the door, and the fire remains unlit.
I won’t complain.
“I proposed the idea to Teo because I wanted his help to save my brother,” I say. There’s so much more to say, that I am trying to escape, that I was made a queen. She doesn’t even know about the two powers in my chest—one from the Fuegorra with the ability to see the future and heal my body, and the other, a gift of light that burns others.
She raises an eyebrow. “I’d say you made a bad deal.”
I take a deep breath.
“Teo will come for me. I know it—and he’ll help me get my brother back. I just might have to help him out a little.” It’s a heavy gamble to reveal so much to her, but there’s curiosity on her side. It’s a risk I’m willing to take if I can have an ally.
“Did you consummate your marriage?” She decides to eat the rest of the bread.
The question prods at the ugly, broken memories, and I furrow my brow against the pulsing pain in my mind.
“I…” I wince against the pain in my head. “I fell in love with him. They have something called mates in the caves—it’s like your perfect other half.”
She watches the pain on my face but reveals nothing of her own thoughts. Then she looks at the marks on my neck.
“So you did.”
I nod.
“Ahh, so that is why Rholker was so mad. Gods, men are all the same—they get whoever they want, but the second you touch someone else, they start a fucking war.” She reaches into the cage and takes another piece of my bread.
I say nothing.
“Something like that,” I say, feeling that familiar helpless rage peeking up at me from its dim hiding place. Everything in Zlosa is cold, wet, and bitter. I just need to get out of here and go home.
“But the Enduares aren’t such jealous, fickle beings. They were all respectful. Even the king. He waited until I came to him.” I wince again in pain, trying to keep the panic at bay as false memories of blood invade my senses and the sensation of choking settles around my throat. “You might think me half mad, but the stories they tell you about trolls are lies. It took me… too long to realize that.”
She gives me a sideways look.
“It is a place where slavery doesn’t exist. Where you are given a choice over your life—where you can write your freedom on your heart for all to see. For you to choose. I wish I could paint you a picture of the love between the people, the hardworking community, the gentleness met with stone-tempered strength when necessary.”
The woman scoffs again but then reaches into her pocket. She pulls out a handful of jewels. They sing to each other, and my whole soul fills with the light of home. Not so much memories as feelings of memories, ghosts in my mind that are untouched by the slicing.
It’s impossible to contain the tears that well up and slide down my cheeks.
“Easy there. I found these when I was taking your dress to be burned,” she trails off. Then she holds them through the bars. “You should do a better job of hiding them.”
Our hands brush when I take them from her. “Why are you doing this? You could’ve kept them… or traded them for something better.”
She grows irritated that I’ve offered her anything. “You overestimate my relationship with most other slaves. Many comfort women are my friends, but many are merely pets to their masters—little songbirds. Someone would run their mouth, I would get in trouble, you would get in trouble. Besides, my things are searched regularly.”
I watch her, acutely aware of how precious this tentative allyship is between us. “By the foreman?” I ask.
She lets out a bitter laugh. “By his wife.”
My mouth drops open.
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugs.
I hold up the stones and then hum a note—one that Ulla used to make while we worked together on plants.
One of the stones on my necklace sings back, and the Fuegorra flickers.
Her eyes grow wide. “What the hell was that?”
I smile.
“Trolls get their magic from the hard things of the earth: metal, stone, and crystal. It’s beautiful. Each has a different purpose—I’ll be honest, I don’t know most of them. But I know this.”
I hum a short melody, and it’s amplified in the room. The woman is absolutely mystified. Before she can stop herself, she copies my clumsy tune.
They sing back to her, and her mouth falls open.
“That’s…” She trails off into stunned silence and when she speaks, she murmurs mostly to herself. “How did I not know this was possible?”
I pick up the small necklace I had made of gold buttons and stone silk and hand it out to her.
“Here. I made this after I saw you looking at my dress. It was my wedding dress. There aren’t any gems for you to sing to, but you should keep it.”
“So you wish to bribe me?” She rolls her eyes, shaking off the wonder from moments before, and stands, walking to the fireplace. She kneels down and begins to light sparks with a flint.
“Please,” I try again. “There’s a place near the eastern slave pens where I used to live. I have a hollowed-out tree where I keep herbs and supplies—keep it there if you wish. It was a place for me and my brother when we were young.”
She eyes my hand for a minute longer and then takes the necklace and stuffs it in her pocket.
“Herbs mean little when you don’t know how to use them, but I will happily steal them for other reasons.”
I shake my head.
“It’s not stealing if I am giving them to you. I can tell you how to use whatever you need.” My eyes drop to her wrist, where there is a faint cut stretching down to her forearm. I gasp, my insides twisting. Gods only know where she got it from. “That for example. You want to keep it clean. Even in the winter, there are trees, a type of elm, that have small pockets of sap scattered across the bark. Pop the bubbles and use the sap to create a bandage for the wounds at night; it will help prevent them from getting infected. Even better if you can put some moss on top of that, but it will be harder to find in the winter.”
She looks down at me, wary.
“I’ll come back later for the dishes. Consider today a day to yourself.”
She leaves the fire running but picks up the bucket by the door. Something inside of me relaxes at the thought of not having to be bathed.
The door opens.
“Me llamo Melisa. And you don’t have to keep annoying Rholker with your incessant questions. Your brother is alive—I know where he’s kept.”
Then she closes the door. More relief bubbles up, joining the relief from not having to take the bath. I press the gems to my chest, letting their songs mingle with my Fuegorra as I smile.
Thank you, thank you. Thank. You.
I need to get her out of here and show her just how precious the gift she gave me is.