Chapter Eleven
She leads me into the shower room. I refuse the turquoise dress again. “I already told Vermilia. Not wearing that.”
“Fine, fine.” She drops the dress dramatically back into the drawer.
“I just…” I close my mouth and swallow. “I don’t want to look pleasing to a boy who might…violate me.”
I hadn’t thought about it much, but now I realize it’s not out of the question. In our community, if a boy forced himself onto a girl, he was kicked out, left to fend for himself in the wild. But on Tavdora, living as a slave… Kalen is my master. Tarik told me to do whatever my master tells me. What will my master do if I don’t obey his orders? I can’t imagine Kalen doing anything to me, but who knows? He might expect some sort of payment in return for his saving my life.
I suddenly feel sick.
“I wouldn’t worry if I were you,” Briala says. “You’re not going to last long anyway.”
Why does she keep saying that? She pulls out a case from a cabinet and picks out a deep blue marker like the one I imagine she used on her own skin. “Close your eyes. Let me paint your face.”
“Is it necessary to wear that?”
Briala rolls her eyes for the twentieth time. “If you keep fighting me on everything, you won’t even last through the night. Master Kalen likes his women submissive and experienced.”
The air suddenly seems thicker.
“What if I don’t want to do this?” I whisper.
Briala arches a sculpted brow. “What a perfectly ridiculous question. When does a slave ever have a choice?”
I look down at my knotted fingers.
She sighs. “Look, it won’t be so bad. Just do whatever he tells you, and you’ll be fine. He’s gentle.” She shrugs. “You might enjoy it. I do. Now close your eyes.” She smears the makeup on my eyelids and draws curly-cues across my temples.
“What are you?” I ask.
Briala pauses and looks at me. “I dance at the parties. I serve drinks.”
“What I meant was what…species are you?”
Briala frowns. “Onmarian.”
“And Vermilia?”
“Ve’occ. How the stars do you not know this?”
Can I tell her I know nothing of this culture, of any aliens? That I lived in utter seclusion with my own people all my life? Instead I shrug. “Just got transported from Earth. That’s all.”
“Ah. A new one. We don’t get too many fresh imports around here. The Rydells like to keep their slaves local, even though they’re now transporting the off-planet units.”
I’m about as far from local as they’re going to get. When Briala finishes with the makeup, she steps back and smiles in satisfaction. “Perfect.” She hands me a mirror.
We have an old mirror back home, though I rarely used it. When I did, I would see a scrawny pale face with freckles and plain brown eyes looking back at me. But this mirror holds a picture of someone entirely different. My lips are painted the color brass and my eyes stand out like amber, thanks to the shimmering blue markings curling around my temples and eyelids. My hair has more body, the copper waves more defined, and I look prettier than I ever have in my life. I shove the mirror onto the counter.
“Why are you upset?” Briala asks.
“I don’t want to attract that sort of attention from Kalen,” I say.
“That’s master to you. And there’s really nothing to be afraid of…as long as you obey three simple rules.”
“What…rules?”
“First, always call our master ‘my lord’ or ‘master.’ Tavdorians don’t like familiarity with their slaves.” She says this without a hint of remorse as she puts the makeup away. “Second, never look him in the eyes unless he instructs you to do so. Such an act is an abomination. Third. Do whatever he tells you. Easy.”
Not that easy. My stomach is tied in seven hundred knots when I follow Briala through the estate and across the courtyard. The sky has turned violet with a new sunset. This afternoon passed in a blur. So much has happened. We climb a flight of stairs to a balcony overlooking the courtyard, then enter through the second door on the left.
I step into a spacious room with a black tile floor. Everything in the room is either black, gray, or red. Behind a black leathery couch is a door that I can only assume leads to his private bathroom. A small black table with two chairs sits in the middle of the room. Two round chandeliers hang from the ceiling, made from metal strands welded together like a bird’s nest. Apart from that, everything is so simple, so neat and sparse and clean.
“Wait here until our master comes home.” Briala switches on a few dim lights that give the room a violet glow. “He’s working a long day and will be tired. Plus he just got back from that long journey yesterday. It’s your job to, you know, help him relax.”
The knots in my stomach tighten into balled fists, tugging, pulling, fighting to get out.
“No,” I say. “I can’t—”
“He will want you when he gets home. He did instruct we put you in his room, right?”
Zimri did, not Kalen.
“Do what he says, then leave when dismissed.”
“Please don’t leave me—”
“Oh, and when you hear him open the door, make sure you’re kneeling at the end of his bed. It’s a sign of submission that will gain you some points.”
“Wait—”
With a wink, she steps out, sliding the door closed before I can stop her. I press my hands against the smooth surface of the door and try to slide it open, but it doesn’t budge.
Sheer black curtains blow lazily in the breeze. The window is open. No, it’s not a window; it’s a door leading out to a balcony. Escape. Perfect. Hope surges through my veins before I can stop it, and I race outside, but the drop from the balcony to the ground is too far to jump. Even if I did find a way to climb down, the entire estate is guarded by a stone hedge with those glowing wires at the top, and if I’m not mistaken, those wires will fry me alive.
There’s no way out.
My fingernails dig into my palms, the familiar emptiness creeping over me. Maybe I can talk reasonably to Kalen. Maybe he’ll listen, like he did on Earth.
Releasing a deep breath, I lean my forearms against the railing of the balcony and look out to the city. From the estate’s place on the hill, I can see the majority of the city at a glance. It’s dark now, and Neket stands in as much glory as it did this morning, if not more. Skyscrapers stretch hundreds of stories high like thin cones, giving the city a soft turquoise glow in the cloak of night. The streets move with the late-night traffic, the white-glassed roads glowing.
Beside the city lies the ocean, a black mass with a few lights dotting the water. And way far out on the other side of the city, bordering the city limits, is a wall with bright lights at the top. At first I wonder what the point is of having a wall to guard your city when the majority of the population owns hovercrafts, and then I remember that I’m a slave and there are millions of slaves in this city, and that wall is probably there to keep us from escaping.
Releasing a defeated sigh, I look at the sky. Two moons. Tavdora has two moons. The one the color of rust is full and looks smaller than our moon on Earth, but the other one, though only a crescent right now, is easily twice the size of ours on Earth. And the stars are so much brighter here. This time of night on Earth, we’d be gathering around the fire. Mom would be humming some lullaby to the little ones. Daniel would be lying back in the grass, the rotten smell of horse dung and hay wafting off his body. He’d probably be telling us one of his stories of life before Tavdorians took over. Stories passed down from his grandparents.
Are the runaways still there? The girl’s words echo in my memory. Tavdorians are violent creatures with no compassion, no mercy, no humanity.
She was right about their brutality. Zimri could attest to that. And now, locked in this room…
The bedroom door latch snicks. My heart remembers how to beat. I scan the drop below once more. Wonder if I should just jump and hope there’s a way out of this estate. But where would I go? The entire city is locked down. And I don’t think it’s any safer out there than it is in here.
I spin around, then hurry back into the room just as the door slides open and my new master steps in.