Page 20 of The Bone King and the Starling

She’s hit me before, only once or twice and only because I’d done something wrong. I dropped a wooden plate, spilling hot food all over the ground. I broke a guiding rod on her loom. I spilled red wine on one of her shifts. Perhaps more than once or twice, but fewer than ten times. She’d never been overly cruel but this? Tears well in my eyes and my nose begins burning.

I cover my mouth with my hand and keep my gaze trained on my feet while she hisses in a rage, “You will get coin from the king if you have to steal it. Do you know how many males had already bid on your virginity? Do you know what Tori paid for it?” She sneers. “Cry all you want, but that will not change the fact that I have protected you from what males like Tori have wanted from you for years with this bidding war. Tori has won and now I cannot pay him back.

“You will need to pay, or I cannot be responsible for how he chooses to punish you for letting the king ruin you in this way.And you are ruined, make no mistake. You are too clearly used, even by a whore’s low standard. It will take weeks for those bruises to heal and Tori expects payment in three days. You will need to come up with eighteen silvers and nine gold coins to cover his payment alone, and you will need to pay me at least twice that for orchestrating it all and caring for you these past years.

“Do you understand me?” she says after a long pause in which I say nothing.

I shake my head, my fingers still clenched across my lips. “I… That is too much. I cannot come up with that.”

“If you bed every male in the village twice over, you might be able to pay Tori his fee. You will need to steal from the king to get more than that.”

I’m still shaking my head, flustered and confused. “Steal from the king?”

“Yes. Now, drop your shift and turn around.”

Panic assaults me. I take a half step back and meet her gaze. It is blood-red with fury. Her lips are twisted into a cruel line. “Did you really think I would let you humiliate me like that last night in front of the entire village? Drawing a bath for you? An orphan thrall? Turn around, you ungrateful little whore. I will not say it again.” I watch her pull a wire lash from between her robes. My lower lip trembles. She brought it here for me, intending to punish me all along. I haven’t done anything wrong…

But that does not stop me from dropping my shift to my waist and letting her slash her wires across my back once, twice, a third time. The pain burns, a ripe stinging that feels like the cool brush of nettles. I fall forward against the wall, thankful that she’s finished and didn’t hit me more. I’ve seen her hit other thralls with wild abandon, until their legs gave out and they collapsed onto the floor.

“Good,” she says at my back. I can feel my heartbeat in my fresh wounds and taste humiliation and fear in my mouth. “Now, get yourself cleaned up. You smell. And you’re dripping seed all over my floor like an animal. Go see Bruna about root’s wart as well. I will kill any bastards you produce, rather than help you care for them.” She’s gone in a flurry, the scent of blood lingering in her wake like a perfume.

After she leaves, I take a moment to sit on the ground and weep before following through on the tasks she’s assigned to me. But when I rise, it’s not regret that fills me. It’s not despondency, either. For the very first time in my life, my whole body comes alive with a cold, cold rage.

THE RUNAWAY

“There you fucking are,” I grumble unhappily as I finish lacing my boots.

“You did not have such a good night then, my lord?” Puhyo’s dry tone does nothing for my sour mood.

He leans against the post in the center of the entryway, looking in on me seated at the edge of this pathetic scrap of a bed. I glare at my second in command and debate his worth relative to my desire to bleed him dry in this moment. His worth wins out. Barely.

“That is not what I heard,” he continues when I merely grunt, stand and lace up my trousers. “I heard that our king has earned himself a new title. The king of lambs. At least, that was last night. Did something happen this morning?”

“She left.” I snatch the nearest fur off of the mattress and toss it against her pillow angrily — a pillow that was cold this morning when I woke needy and desperate to sink into the softness of my wife once more in the daylight.

Only to find her absence.

“Ah.”

I latch my weapons belt around my waist and affix my axe to the holster around my shoulders. It is the first day of the games and, though I do not intervene or participate in any way, it is important for the men that I look prepared for war. I am the bone king. What incentive would it be for them if their king arrived carrying flowers while asking for bloodshed? And I will ask for bloodshed. Many times over.

“The men did say there may have been a…lack of communication between yourself and my future queen.” His irreverent tone is undercut only by the words that he calls her.

My hands fumble the next buckle that affixes my furs to my chest. My chest swells on my next inhale and holds.

“The fact that she has no idea she is to be made queen does explain why I saw her out in the village before dawn laboring to carry water to the kitchens.”

“You saw her this morning and did not think to wake me?” I rattle out my next exhale, fury coating my limbs as I finish tying my furs to my body.

“Yes. I had no idea what had passed between you.”

I snarl and start towards him, “Where was she?”

“I saw her only once, briefly and from afar when I went out to take a piss. I take it by your…general aura that you did decide then?”

“There was no question, Puhyo. I will cut out your tongue, no matter how much I otherwise enjoy hearing your jokes, if you speak ill of my wife again.”

“I do not speak ill of your wife, my king. I speak ill of you.” He beams, his skin a darker shade than mine, his hair black. “She’ll make a fine queen.”

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