9

Little clouds that, like ravelling skeins of glossy white silk, are drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the autumn sky. The scent of a thunderstorm and snow drifts by closely.

As River walks through the camp, she looks at the common women, noticing a split lip here, a bruise there. One girl, young and otherwise pretty, had a star-burst scar on her forehead where a spear butt had struck. Her stare lingers on their faces long enough to feel an ice finger touch her heart.

She wonders if Hadrius would be as callous and brutal as the men. She expects nothing short of such violence, yet hopes she would not surpass his limits. He held the power in their relationship and should he wake up one day and decide to whip her bloody, neither man nor woman would bat an eyelash at his actions.

River licks her teeth and grits her teeth at the possibility of such a thing happening; she is a slave and mistakes are bound to happen, a spill of wine here, the crease of cloth the