Chapter Eleven

Kia

I didn't know how long I sat on that floor.

Long enough for the light coming through the windows to change. The burning in my shoulder settled into something duller, more permanent, like it had decided to stay.

Eventually, a key turned in the lock.

I didn't move, I stayed exactly where I was, my knees pulled to my chest, my eyes fixed on the far wall. I wasn't giving anyone the satisfaction of watching me scramble to my feet like I was afraid.

The door opened slowly.

A woman stepped in carrying a folded set of linens, her head slightly bowed. She was older, perhaps in her late fifties, with a tight grey bun and hands that looked like they had known hard work their entire lives. Behind her came two younger girls, both of them carrying cleaning supplies they didn't appear to need.

None of them looked at me directly.

"Ma'am," the older woman said softly, addressing somewhere vaguely in my direction. Not my eyes, not my face. Somewhere between my chin and the floor.

"I'm not a Ma'am," I said, my voice still rough from earlier. "I'm the girl they locked in."

A small flinch ran through all three of them at the same time, so slightly I almost missed it.

I straightened watching them more carefully now. The two younger ones moved around the room in quick, efficient paths, adjusting things that didn't need adjusting, keeping their bodies turned away from me. Like proximity to me carried a risk they were doing their best to manage.

Not disrespectful but in fear.

I blinked, the realization landing somewhere hollow.

"What are your names?" I asked.

The older woman looked up briefly, like the question surprised her. "Dorla," she said. "These are Mia and Yenne."

The two younger girls dipped their heads slightly at the sound of their names, still not quite meeting my eyes.

"How long have you worked here?" I asked Dorla.

"Fourteen years."

"And they told you about me?"

A pause. "They told us what we needed to know," she answered carefully.

"Which was what, exactly?"

She hesitated again, and in that hesitation was the whole answer.

Handle her carefully without upsetting her. Don't get too close, don't ask questions. These were instructions given not because I was dangerous, but because they were afraid of what the Triplet Alphas would do if anything went wrong with their arrangement.

I was a fragile cargo or you could say a resource. Something to be maintained.

"Never mind," I said quietly.

Dorla placed the linens on the edge of the bed and moved toward the window. She paused there with her hand on the curtain rod, her back to me. "There is warm water in the basin," she said softly. "And the kitchen sends meals at seven, noon, and six. If you need something outside of those times, you knock twice on the inside of the door."

"And someone will actually come?"

She turned her head slightly to the side, not quite a profile. "Yes."

It was such a small and unremarkable thing. And yet something about it made my chest ache because it was the first time in two days that anyone had spoken to me like I was worth answering.

"Thank you," I said.

Dorla nodded once, quick and brief, then gestured to the two girls. They filed out without a sound, and she followed, pulling the door closed behind her.

The lock clicked again.

But somehow, it felt slightly less absolute than before.

The basin water was lukewarm by the time I got to it, but I didn't care. I stood over it for a long time, washing the journey off my skin slowly and careful around my shoulder where the burn pulled at the edges every time I lifted my arm too high.

I didn't let myself think too much. I had learned that trick over years of surviving in the manor. If I thought too much, the weight of it became impossible to carry. So I focused on small things. The temperature of the water, the grain of the wooden basin stands. The way the light shifted when a cloud passed over the sun outside.

I was drying my hands when the knock came.

Three short raps, sharp and deliberate.

Not a guard's knock. Guards didn't knock.

I turned toward the door. "What?"

A pause.

"It's Liam."

I said nothing.

"I'm coming in," he said, and the lock turned anyway.

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He was still in the clothes from the journey, jacket removed and sleeves pushed to his elbows. He wasn't looking at me with that usual icy blankness. He wasn't looking at me with cruelty either.

He was just looking at me.

In one hand, he carried a small leather case. The kind healers used.

"I don't want your help," I said before he could speak.

"I know," he replied, his voice flat but quiet.

He crossed the room without asking permission and set the case down on the table near the window. He opened it without rushing, fingers moving over the contents with a calm precision that didn't match him at all.

"Sit down," he said.

"Liam"

"Sit down, Kia."

This time it was not a command as usual, not the usual edge of warning underneath it. Just two words said in a low, tired voice that I didn't know what to do with.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

He brought a small jar and a strip of clean cloth to where I was sitting, then crouched in front of me like a man who had done this before, like he knew exactly how to make himself smaller when he needed to. He reached toward my shoulder and I flinched before I could stop myself.

His hand stilled immediately.

We both stayed frozen for a second.

"I won't hurt you," he said.

"You already did," I replied.

Something crossed his face fast, and then gone, like he caught it before it could settle. His jaw tightened and his gaze dropped to the floor for a moment before coming back up.

He didn't argue. He just waited.

Slowly, I shifted the fabric aside to expose the burn.

I heard the quiet intake of breath he tried to hide. He looked at it for a long moment, his expression carefully controlled, but something underneath it had gone very still.

"She didn't have to do this," I said, watching his face.

He said nothing. He opened the jar, pressed a careful amount of the salve onto the cloth, and began applying it in slow, gentle strokes that were completely at odds with every version of Liam I had known.

The salve was cold at first, then soothing, taking the sharpest edge off the burn almost immediately.

"Why are you here?" I asked quietly. 

"Really."

"I told you," he said. "Medicine."

"Ryder didn't send you?" I questioned.

"No, Ryder didn't. Kratavak doesn't care either."

"No," he agreed.

"So you came on your own," I said.

"Why?"