Fae (4 page)

Chapter Three

Ráj Manor, Caledon, Ontario

By the time Fae walked back to the upper floor of the East wing the bands of light on her wrists had faded to a dim ghostly outline, but her throat only hurt worse. Especially when she swallowed. At least it would be gone in the morning, like everything else. A blank slate, like every other day, so he, or Butler, or one of the guards could do something new. As Fae moved down the hall, Ebere walked out of one of the bedrooms holding a large basket full of sheets on one hip.

As soon as the other girl saw her she started shaking her head and murmuring to herself as she approached. “Fae… your neck.” Her long fingers reached out and touched the tender skin, and Fae fought the urge to jerk back. She hated being touched, but she forced a smile for the kindness the girl was showing.

“I’m guessing it looks great?” Fae tilted her head and Ebere stepped back so she could finally breathe again.

“It’s already bruising. What did you do?” Her forehead was creased with concern.

“Nikola -”, Ebere grimaced at the use of his name, so Fae corrected herself, “Sorry,
Master
heard about my little breakfast boycott. He disagreed with my decision.”

Ebere made a tsk’ing sound. “I told you to eat it.”

“Yeah, I know, but I didn’t want to deal with the drug today. I made a choice. There were consequences.” Fae shrugged and stepped towards the next room she needed to clean.

“I already did that one,” Ebere nodded her head at the door behind her, “and this one. I came upstairs to bring you fresh sheets, and you weren’t here. I figured something had happened, so I tried to help.”

“What’s going to happen in laundry if Butler does a check?” Fae crossed her arms, not wanting to be responsible for someone else’s punishment.

“Mei-Li will tell him I’m running sheets up to the bedrooms”. She shook the basket she was carrying for emphasis and grinned. “And I am. See?”

Fae smiled back, if that was true it was going to be nice to have the help since she had lost time that morning. It would also be nice to be done when Lena decided to check the rooms. “Alright then, which room is next?”

Ebere stepped across the hall and opened the next room, setting down the basket of fresh sheets at the doorway. They got to work pulling the old sheets off the queen sized bed. Ebere’s eyes were glued to the bands of light that were barely visible in the dim light of the bedroom. For a second Fae thought she’d ignore them like everyone did, but then she spoke. “Those things are on your wrists again.”

“Yeah, it’s because I was around Master.” Fae wadded the sheets up and stepped into the hall, leaving them in a pile before grabbing new sheets from the basket of clean ones.

“Do they hurt?” Ebere spoke quietly, keeping her eyes on the bed as they fluffed out the sheets. No one really asked these types of questions in the female section. You just didn’t ask about punishments, or scars, or prismatic wings, or glowing bands. A few girls had asked her one on one in the last years, and it seemed being alone made Ebere brave enough to ask for herself.

Fae sighed, hating the itching heat that was starting to crawl under her skin as the Oblivion took effect. She didn’t want to explain the bands, but lying would be worse. “They only hurt if I don’t obey him, they’re tied to his commands.”

“Do they hurt right now?”

“No.” Fae started tucking the sheet in on her side, tempted to ask Ebere to drop it but too grateful for her help to snap at her.

“Then why would you disobey him at all?” Ebere pulled the new sheets across the bed, and when Fae looked up at her she realized it was an innocent question. She wasn’t judging her. It was just that she couldn’t imagine consciously choosing pain over obedience.

Then again, Ebere hadn’t served for two thousand fucking years
.

“Because it’s my choice. My choice to obey or not. I’d have gone crazy years ago if I just said ‘yes sir’ or ‘no sir’ all the time, my life wouldn’t be mine anymore. At least this way
I’m
making the choice, not them, and the consequences are mine.” Fae surprised herself with the stream of words that had just left her. She
never
talked this much and usually shut this kind of conversation down. The Oblivion was really starting to affect her –
great
.

“But you could have a much easier life, without so many consequences, if you just did what he asked.”

“He never
asks
, Ebere. He commands. There’s a big difference.” Fae turned to check the bathroom as they continued the routine. Bed linens, bathroom, towels – rinse and repeat.

“Okay, I get that, but don’t you always end up doing what he tells you anyway? Because of those things?” Ebere pointed at her wrists and Fae was grateful the bands had faded away. She hated the attention they brought from the others, and the constant reminder they were of her own failures. Reminders of the ways they had all failed Eltera.

“Ebere, how long have you been a slave?” The question came out harsher than Fae had meant it to and Ebere straightened up for a moment before returning to wiping down the shower.

“Almost four years,” she mumbled.

“How did it happen?” Fae almost bit down on her own tongue. It wasn’t a good question to ask. It wasn’t tactful to make Ebere talk about it. It was sort of an unspoken rule not to ask about any of the
before
, but Ebere had opened the door asking about the bands and the drug was making Fae talkative for once. They were silent for so long that Fae was about to apologize and tell her to forget it, but then Ebere started speaking quietly.

“I was sixteen and… and my family needed money. I heard about this job in the city, and so I went. When I arrived they said it was housework for a family. I would stay with them and clean their house, only once I went… they never let me leave.” Ebere stepped out of the shower and wiped down the mirror. “They did not pay me, and they said if I tried to run they would kill me and my family. I had four younger sisters, and I didn’t want anything to happen to them, so I stayed, and I did not try to run away.” Fae shook her head as she listened. Her story wasn’t unique, it was similar to others she had heard from girls all over the world in recent years, one of the traffickers’ best traps. “I was there only a year before they sold me to a market in Cairo, that is where Master bought me. I have been here since then.”

“I’m sorry, Ebere.” Fae said it on reflex, but Ebere just shrugged and walked towards the next room. Just as they started working again she spoke up.

“What about you? How long have you been serving?”

Fae tried to stifle the giggle that bubbled up, but it only came out in a loud laugh, and once she started she couldn’t stop. Ebere was just staring at her as she lost it, and she ended up clutching her sides as she sat down on the floor. It had been so long since she’d laughed like this, years,
decades
since her cheeks had hurt from laughing.

Oh yeah, the drug was definitely in full swing.

Ebere stepped in front of her and touched her forehead, looking into her eyes. “Are you serious? Your pupils are huge, and you’re sweating like crazy. Master gave you the Oblivion didn’t he?”

Fae tried to control her smile as her laughter wound down and she patted Ebere’s hand. “I told you he disagreed with my decision.”

“It looks like a full dose though.” Ebere was staring at her, her brow furrowed in concern.

“It probably was, but it doesn’t matter I’ll be fine.” Fae pushed herself to her feet and felt a little dizzy before she grabbed the bedpost and steadied herself, the last of the giggles fading away with the hint of nausea.

“You’ll be fine in the morning when you light up.
Right now
you haven’t eaten and you got a full dose of Oblivion –”

“I will be fine. Just let it go, okay?” Fae cut her off and shook off the dizziness to get back to work. Ebere stood with her arms crossed on the other side of the bed, ignoring the sheet that Fae had tossed across to her.

“Tell me your story.” She pointed at the sheet on the bed. “Tell me your story while we finish these rooms and I’ll stay and help and …and I won’t bring up the Oblivion again.”

“You don’t want to hear my story, Ebere.” Fae smoothed her side of the bed, but then Ebere ripped the sheet out of her hands, ruining her efforts.

“Yes. Yes, I do.
Everyone
wants to know but everyone is terrified to ask. Now you know mine and I want to know yours.” Ebere held tight to the sheet as Fae tried to pull it back, and part of her wanted to attack the girl for making the task more difficult. She hated being cornered, hated being forced to do anything. Her whole fucking life was being forced to do things, and now this girl who had lived the tiniest fraction of Fae’s life was trying to bully her into telling a pointless story. It took a deep breath and a silent prayer to Eltera before she could speak again.

“I’m sorry I asked about your past, but there’s no point in telling you my story. Now, can I have the sheet back?”

“What do you mean there’s no point? I’m here helping you, we have six rooms left, just tell me your damn story!” Ebere had actually raised her voice, she’d actually
cursed
.

“There’s no point in telling you my story, because you won’t believe it. My story is a myth, it’s a fucking fairy tale, a legend that I doubt my own people even remember. It’s a waste of –”

“Then tell me the fairy tale!” The girl threw the wadded up sheet at her and Fae caught it. “You spend all your time with this giant wall around you, and you’re nice to everyone, and you do things for us, but you don’t let us in. You won’t be our friend, and what else do we have but each other? Stop trying so hard to be alone and just tell me your story so I can
understand
!”

“You’re not going to believe me.” Fae clenched her jaw, her fingers tightening in the sheet as she remembered the times in her past she’d tried to explain what she was, and how she’d come to be. The ones who’d called her a liar, the ones who had beat her, demanded she repent, commanded her to deny Eltera. All she had anymore was faith. Faith and the bands to remind her that Eltera was still out there – somewhere.

“I think you might be surprised what I will believe from a girl who lights up like she’s filled with fire every morning.” Ebere gestured at her, “And I’ve seen those things on your wrists before. I’ve seen you in pain, but I didn’t understand why until today. Until you
told
me the bands reacted to his commands and hurt you. I’m still here, still ready to help you finish these rooms, and I’m not running away. I just want to understand more about you.”

“So you can tell the others?” The anger was bleeding out of Fae, replaced by the shimmery buzz of the Oblivion in her system. It was hard to maintain anger for long while bordering on some kind of euphoric high.

“If you don’t want me to tell anyone, I won’t.”

Fae laughed a little to herself. “It doesn’t matter. Tell all of them. Tell them all about the god-touched warrior who failed her goddess and ended up on her knees for eternity.”

“Fae?” Ebere’s voice was much softer now, and when she looked up at her she once again looked like the beautiful, friendly girl that Fae liked to sit with. “I’m listening. Just tell me.”

“Alright, fine.” Fae fluffed out the sheet and this time Ebere caught it and helped her get back to straightening the room. The last thing any of them needed was Butler checking in before they were done.

Thinking of her past was like opening a locked room that she had long ago barricaded with heavy furniture and chains and nailed up boards. It was the stuff that normally tore her to shreds on the inside, but with the Oblivion burning her up and making her feel fuzzy and light the memories didn’t seem to cut as sharply. She swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth and steeled herself to talk about it.

“You’re not going to believe me, but here it goes. First, I’m over two thousand years old,” Fae glanced up to see Ebere’s mouth hanging open and she shook her head, “and no, I don’t know my exact age. I haven’t exactly kept track. I do know that I spent fifty-three years as a warrior for my goddess, Eltera, and for the seventeen years before that I was just a daughter.”

“And since then?”

“I’ve been a slave.” The complete shock on Ebere’s face slowly morphed into that pained look of pity that Fae hated, and she stopped her before she launched into some long apology for things she had no power over. For things she hadn’t even been alive for. “You said you wanted to hear the story.”

“I do, it’s just –”

“Okay, then listen.” She cut her off again, trying to figure out where to start. How to explain how she’d found herself on that battlefield the day everything had changed. “I guess I’ll start at the beginning… I can tell you my mother never wanted me. Pregnancy was very hard on her, and she almost died giving birth to my middle sister, but my father wanted a son very badly and so after my two older sisters he convinced her to try again, hoping for a son. Instead? I was born. She hated him for making her have another child, and so on the day of my birth my mother told him I was his responsibility, even though I was a daughter. Surprisingly, my father was just fine with that.”