Page 57 of Kingdom of Rot & Ruin
As if I favored any of them.
The queen was strong. Shava was strong.
Seeing she’d stumped me, Shava smirked and retreated into the cave, leaving me alone with the dying embers of the fire and the rest of the bird carcass.
Chapter
Fourteen
Shava and I quickly adjusted to living in a desert cave. Or as I adjusted, I supposed. Shava seemed in her element and … excited.
“You do this all with a very … practiced air,” I commented as she tied all our kindling together with a scrap of rope, fairly confident I was being complimentary.
Her eyes narrowed. “Why? Because I’m a mud girl?”
Her vehemence confused me.
“I don’t know. Is it because you’re a mud girl?” I asked, genuinely curious.
Her anger dissolved like storm clouds giving way.
She scoffed and left the fireplace, instead moving to take all the random blankets that made up our ‘bed’ and sorted them.
“Don’t act stupid,” she began, not looking at me as she meticulously matched the corners up and folded each scrap.
“I’m certainly not stupid,” I bristled.
She rolled her eyes at me, which didn’t help my temper.
Stay calm. Gather information.
That was what had always served me best, hadn’t it?
“What do you mean?” I said instead, pleased with how even I’d kept my tone.
Shava scoffed. “You’re serious?”
I glared.
“Fine. You Nobles at the Seat live up on your high cliff with all the food and money and protection of the crown. Do you know what it’s like to starve? Do you know what it’s like to have nothing but a dirt floor and a mud roof, and that’s even if you’re lucky? Do you know what it’s like to live without running water? Have you ever had to make the choice to hurt someone just so you could eat that night? Or have to fend off the rapists? Or consider giving into one to share his crust of bread?”
She cut herself off, clutching a ratty blanket to her chest like a shield. Realizing what she was doing, she shook her head and folded it, setting it down gently on top of the pile as if it were made of the finest silk.
“My life hasn’t been easy …” I began, then stopped.
My life hadn’t been easy, but there had always been food. There had always been shelter, clothing, and relative security.
Relative.
“Is the entire mud quarter like that?” I asked instead, mind spinning to the more obvious questions at hand.
Shava’s face shuttered. “Yes.”
Really?
I spoke my thoughts out loud as they came to me. It was illogical.
“I don’t … why? Why would the Seat be so prosperous, yet your people starve? We are the same kingdom, are we not? Does the queen know?”
