Seloue cleared her throat. “I was banded by a jeweler on merchant's row.”
Edlyn froze, her eyes flicking up to Rayne's and then back to Seloue. “Oh?” Here it was. She could get up and storm out and the decision would be made. Or she could stay and listen, hear from the people she was supposed to lead and come out on the other side a better ruler. “And how did that come to happen?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Rayne
“My mother was a Redbrace,” Seloue started. “I guess I'm a Redbrace, too, but I've never been able to use the name before.” Redbrace was an old Southern name, a family that crossed the border between Hail and Ash, their blood a mix of both nations. Tierri had told her that he remembered the name Redbrace in the Malstrom court. An adviser, perhaps? Certainly someone her father would have wanted to ruin.
“And your father?” Edlyn asked. Rayne could tell the idea of not having a name was lost on her sister, but Rayne knew the importance of it. Her name had both condemned her and then kept her alive when she arrived in Shade. It was because of who she was and who her father was and the blood that ran through her veins that she'd ended up in the situation she was in now instead of dead and burned. And Tierri—if he had not carried the Malstrom name, where would his fate have taken him?
Seloue shrugged. “My mother was captured during the invasion. King Innis sent her and the other young, Southern noblewomen to brothels. He didn't need more subservient nobility; he needed money. They went for a high price and it was gold he could use to feed his war, to pay his soldiers, to appease the nobles that he deemed worthy.” They were harsh words but it was obvious Seloue was done being a slave to the Crowheart nation. Edlyn balked but Seloue didn't apologize. “She ended up in Alas, but when she got pregnant, likely by a Shaddern who had come into Alas for trade and other…activities, they shipped her off to Silverton. When I was born, she acted as a wet-nurse for noble Ash families for years. Those babies drank my milk while I was fed on goat's milk. My mother held those babies while I wailed alone on a straw pallet.”
Edlyn was quiet. They all were, images in their minds of a baby crying for its mother; of a mother crying for her baby while holding another one to her chest. It was the ultimate loss of power—the inability to care even for your own children. Why would Innis allow such a thing, when he himself had lost one of his own?
“I was seven when they decided I was old enough to be taken from her,” Seloue continued. “I worked in noble houses throughout Ash, and when they saw I would be beautiful, they sent me to Flagend to begin prepping me for the same work as my mother.”
Rayne wanted to gag. Prepping her? She looked to Edlyn for her reaction, but the girl's face was stoic. The only indication she had heard anything that bothered her was the way her hands gripped the arms of her chair, the knuckles turning white, the cup of cider forgotten at her feet.
“I met Jeph at the boarding house in Flagend. He was a spellwielder training in the forges. He would be bound and sent to the army when he turned sixteen, but he had a year or so left. And he was beautiful,” Seloue gushed. “All the girls thought so, but I was the only one brave enough to talk to him.” Rayne could believe it. Seloue had come across as fearless.
“What happened to him?” Edlyn asked quietly. They all knew this story didn't have a happy ending or Seloue wouldn't be sitting here now.
“Slaves aren't supposed to develop relationships. It's one of your father's rules, why they keep moving us around. Even in the boarding house, they never let us stay with the same group of girls. Other girls came and went, and they beat us freely to keep us quiet. But do you know why?” she asked, leaning forward and putting a hand on Edlyn's. Edlyn shook her head slowly but didn't pull away. Maybe Seloue was getting through to her where Rayne hadn't been able to. “Because relationships breed passion. And passion among the unhappy breeds revolt. And that's the one thing a man like your father can't have. So he takes away our chance at anything resembling happiness, any human connection, because of his own fear.”
Rayne looked at Tierri; she couldn't help it. Seloue had risked everything for that connection, for the chance at love, and here was Rayne, squandering her opportunity by pretending it didn't exist. She bumped her knee against his, wishing that she could talk to him, not about assassinations and crowns, but about the two of them, a boy and a girl, and their chance at happiness.
“But Jeph and I were blind to all that. We just saw each other, and it was fun. He taught me my way around a forge, taught me how to work the metal, how to write spells even if I couldn't imbue them with magic. He made me feel like I could. And that was enough.”
Rayne watched her little sister. Was she thinking about Danyll? Did he make her feel like magic or did he make her feel like a burden? Like a responsibility? She would bet all her money that Danyll had never once tried to teach her how the very spells that protected her worked.
“After almost a year together, we were caught. He was beaten and bound to a Duskan general and sent away.”
“What was your punishment?” Edlyn asked.
“I was also beaten. The madame said to me, 'If there is a baby, I will beat it out of you.' But even worse, I was ruined. No upper-class brothel wanted me if they couldn't get my virgin price. The madame didn't care what happened to me anymore. I became her whipping girl, beaten when the other beautiful girls misbehaved. So they put me on the auction block and sold me to the highest bidder, the jeweler who banded me.”
“Where is Jeph now?”
Seloue shrugged, feigning nonchalance, but Rayne saw the barely-disguised hurt, the sadness that she knew better than anyone would never go away.
“If he is in my father's army, perhaps we can locate him,” Edlyn said. “Perhaps we can bring him back.”
Small steps, Rayne reminded herself. But Seloue looked annoyed. “And what will that do? One freed girl, one transferred soldier. We're not pieces on a game board. We can't be moved around at your whimsy. What will you do? Pick and choose who you help? Only the saddest stories or the ones lucky enough to reach your ears will be heard?”
“I’m only trying to help.”
Seloue’s upper lip curled dangerously. “Trying? Can’t a queen do more than try? Shouldn’t a queen want to help all her people?”
“Enough.” Edlyn stood. “I will not be attacked.”
“No, you won't,” Seloue said. “Not as long as you're behind your magic doors.”
“Seloue,” Rayne warned.
“Was that a threat?” Edlyn's cheeks were as red as if she had been outside in a snowstorm. “We're leaving. I suggest you do the same lest you find guards knocking at your door someday.”