Page 14 of Rise of a Fallen Man

Once we finished, they would shove a silver coin or a cheap cigar into my hand as a personal thank-you for the experience, then leave promptly to marry their innocent grooms with unsoiled reputations.

It hadn’t been hard to follow Traeh’s advice and keep my heart to myself. At first, I had occasionally longed for a connection. But as the time passed, my heart grew numb and my mind tired.

I no longer missed the physical intimacy. On the contrary, I often loathed it. So many women had come and gone. I’d grown tired of so many faces and so many different bodies in my bed, treasuring the rare nights when I got to sleep alone in my bunk in the attic.

Worn out by all her orgasms, Madam Edirp snored softly by the time I returned to the bedroom. I took a spare blanket and lay on the other side of the bed. There would still be enough time to spoon her before morning as she’d requested and paid for. Until then, maybe I could get some sleep too.

ERIF SHOOK ME AWAKE, frantic with terror.

“Salas, fire!” He coughed in the smoke that was filling the room through the open door. “The house is on fire. You need to get out.”

Alarm speared through me, sending me into action. I tried to wake Madam Edirp, but she only rolled her head on the pillow, keeping her eyes closed.

“Smoke. She must’ve breathed it too much.” Erif ran out the door. “Get her out. I’ll wake the others.”

Taking shallow, careful breaths, I carried Madam Edirp out of the room. The fire had nearly completely taken over the main floor. The flames licked under the stairs, their bright tongues flicking through the gaps in the boards.

Pressing the unconscious woman to my chest, I ran down the stairs as fast as I could, leaping over two steps at a time.

The cold winter air met me outside. The flames brightened the night, flooding the fence and the frozen ground with a sinister red glow.

Wearing only her nightgown, her long hair unbraided, Traeh ran to me with a blanket in her hands. “How is she? Alive?” She tucked the blanket around my client.

“I think so.” I gently laid Madam Edirp down a safe distance from the fire. She groaned, then coughed, gripping her throat.

Traeh clawed at my arm. “Where is Erif? Did you see him?”

“He was inside, waking everyone.”

Someone else ran out of the burning house, and Traeh rushed to them with another blanket.

The freezing cold bit my skin and seeped through my thin linen pants. Frost covered the ground, numbing my bare feet. I ignored it, looking around wildly.

What happened?

Why was the world ablaze?

A window frame collapsed, shuttering the glass panes. Flames burst out, illuminating more of the yard.

“Burn the evil in the cleansing fire!” a female voice shouted over the roaring flames and the crashing of burning wood. “Burn the wicked!”

Wind tore at the pristine white robes of the priestess who stood in the gap in the fence around the yard, surrounded by townspeople. She wore white—the color of Yarnus, the God of Purity. The priestess held a long pole with a ring mounted on top. It represented the circle of life, the symbol of marriage and procreation.

“Burn the wicked!” a man parroted, kicking another section of the fence in.

He tossed his torch through the kitchen window, as if it would make any difference at that point. The house I’d called home for the past eight years was burning to the ground, and nothing would either save it or make it burn faster now.

“There are people inside!” Traeh screamed at the priestess and those who came with her. “You’re burning people alive, you monsters!”

Except that for them, we weren’t “people.” They held us below the animals. We were whores, with less right to exist than scum under their shoe.

Traeh frantically dashed between the men and women in the yard, checking on them and counting the survivors.

Madam Edirp coughed again, then sat up, staring at the fire in horror.

“What’s going on?”

“Are you alright?” I kneeled at her side and pulled the blanket higher over her shoulders.

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