[A word of warning to young or sensitive readers: this story contains a scene of graphic violence against a minor. Reader discretion advised.]
When she was much younger—a child of four or five—Kyra had been, actually, a princess. Not the princess, of course: that was Alida of Hammont, the only daughter of His Royal Highness King Bennett, third of his name, who had ruled over Ulbaria most of his long life. His passing took Kyra and her family out of the line of succession. Used to be they received an allowance from the crown each year (“a stipend,” her mother called it… it was an allowance, Kyra knew now; just enough coin to keep them and several other small houses just like theirs from raising a small army and pressing their rights), but that all ended with King Bennett. Because of an obscure clause in the Treaty of Escuén drawn during the Times of Unrest, a rival family was able to assert their claim to the throne after the King passed and, in so doing, force Kyra’s parents to learn a trade and spend the rest of their noble lives working for their stipends.
Her mother took it hardest, and never ceased instructing Kyra in courtly manner, even years after her first blood, though of course there was no point anymore to heraldry, to curtseys, to being coy and demure. They were commoners now—even before they were “deposed” (again, her mother’s words), their claim was not the strongest. Kyra never was going to sit on that throne or any other; now it was just official. Her father took soon thereafter to the bottle with great enthusiasm, squandering whatever royal savings they had on wine and wenches. Gambling, too. One night he must have taken his chances on a game he couldn’t afford, because the next morning Kyra and her mother found him at the door, cold, his throat sawed open.
Still, Kyra’s mother did not relent. It seemed to be more important to her now than ever that Kyra appear to have the noble blood she never truly possessed. Her lessons continued, but now they were given to her by a tutor, Erwin, a scholar fresh out of the Academy, who her mother paid with meager coin from the one job she could accept without losing face—bookkeeper at the church.
So much about this situation seemed like abject idiocy, but Kyra’s mother would not hear of accepting a better-paying job, or of Kyra going to work, or especially of discontinuing the lessons. Did the woman honestly believe that some noble lordling would someday pass through their little fiefdom, lift Kyra onto his white steed and sigh with gratitude that, at long last, he’d found his True Noblewoman? Kyra suspected that little lordlings had no trouble whatever finding noble ladies and princesses to bed, and if he should somehow run dry, there was an entire kitchen of scullery girls, both plump and slim, a pliant young body for any mood, none of whom would dare deny anything their little liege commanded of them.
It was a farce, and on the advent of Kyra’s fifteenth year—her name day—she decided that she was finished playing along. Dressed in the plainest finery her mother allowed her, she strode into her dear father’s favorite tavern and demanded an audience with the proprietor. In the most imperious tone she could muster, she advised the tavern owner that she would be working for him now, whatever tasks he required of her, and in return she would be compensated generously for her services. He looked her up and down and grunted his consent; later, Kyra would realize that her victory this day had less to do with her noble bearing and more to do with the heads she turned, but at the time Kyra was ecstatic. Exulted.
Kyra’s mother was not.
“What will the people of this town think?” her mother demanded. “A noblewoman trussed up as a scullery maid, washing the spittle from the pint glass of some commoner?”
“Mother—” Kyra began.
“You will be silent until I am finished!” her mother roared, in a capably unladylike manner. “Can you even conceive of the damage you have done to our family’s name this day? These people will never look at you the same again. Nor I! Continue acting this way and you can utterly forget marrying some highborn lad. At best, it’ll be the butcher’s boy for you.”
Kyra wrinkled her nose. Conner wasn’t a bad person, but he had a red, pockmarked face and was missing teeth. And his breath smelled of the grave.
“That’s right,” her mother said, seeing Kyra’s disgust and seizing on it, “together you’ll whelp fat, ruddy children who will stink of pig innards. There will be no future for them other than the one they were born into. A base, common life, fit for common folk. Is that what you want?”
“I want—” Kyra began.
“You don’t know what you want!” her mother interrupted. “But how could you? You’re only just barely a woman and sheltered your entire life besides. All you know are your lessons. Your royal future. You have no idea why I sacrifice so much for you. What I am trying to save you from.”
Kyra removed a pouch of coin from her pocket and set it on the table with a satisfying clink. Her mother regarded it cooly for a moment, and then her. “That’s 30 silver crowns,” Kyra said, “for one day of work at the Mottled Goat. That’s twice what you make in a week from—”
A hard sting on the left side of Kyra’s face drove her to the floor. Her mother stood above her, hand raised for another blow.
“How dare you. How dare you insult me in this way, after all I have done for you.” Kyra had many times heard her mother angry, but this was something else entirely. Her voice was even, cool, but with an edge to it that Kyra had never heard in anyone. It sounded something like murder.
“Mother…” Kyra started, feeling a sore lump rising in the back of her throat and sharp tears welling in her eyes. Gods, she did not want to cry right now. She held it back, if barely.
“You will return to that den of iniquity first thing tomorrow morning, and you will inform the proprietor that you will never again work for him. I would go myself, but I see no need to sully both our names. Then, you will return home and continue your lessons with Erwin. We will not speak of this again, and someday, Gods willing, this town will forget what you did, and all will not be lost.” With that, she left her only daughter lying on the floor, cheek swelling and bile rising.
~~~
The next morning, as instructed, Kyra returned to the tavern and explained to the owner that she would not be returning to work for him. Behind his wild, bushy eyebrows he seemed disappointed but not surprised. As she turned to leave, he said something to her that seemed to be an answer of some kind: “The Prince, he weren’t as bad as your mother told you he were.”
Kyra turned. “The Prince?”
“Your Daddy,” the barman said. “We all called him our Prince on account of his blood and kind nature. Generous, he were, and a good man. Sure, he enjoyed his cups, but what man doesn’t? He didn’t judge no one for the station they held, and that was all right by me. Shame what happened to him.”
A thousand questions rushed to Kyra’s tongue but she gave voice to none of them. Instead, she left, and wondered.
~~~
At her lessons with Erwin this day, something was different. Always so formal with her, so deferent, today Erwin let his eyes wander… and linger. Kyra tried to continue her work as if this were not out of the ordinary, but his tone too was different. Challenging, almost cruel. Finally, unable to focus on her letters, Kyra felt she had no choice but to say something.
“Yes, Adept?” Kyra said, using his honorific to remind him who he was.
Erwin blinked, caught off guard. “Yes what?”
“Something I’ve said or done seems not to your liking. What is it?”
“Oh!” He smiled. “No, not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s just that…” He paused, trying to find the exact words. Kyra set down her quill pen and waited.
“…All evidence to the contrary,” he continued, “I always thought for some reason you were highborn. The way your mother carries herself, your snooty manner with me.”
Kyra swallowed a hard lump she felt rising in her throat.
“I knew your father fell on hard luck but I guess I assumed he’d been offed for political reasons, like your mother seems to think. Then I saw you at the tavern last night, all trussed up like a whore and radiant as a tallow candle to have all those peasant eyes and hands all over you, so I began asking some questions.”
Get angry, Kyra willed herself, feeling the helplessness rise and, with it, the tears.
Erwin looked brazenly at her, unafraid. He leaned in closer to her.
“You’re just some town drunk’s whelp, aren’t you? Third in my class at the Academy, and I’m tutoring some lowborn whore.”
Kyra felt her world falling away. Her mother would be able to think of something sharp and precise to set this arrogant prig back into his place. Kyra had nothing.
“You work for me,” Kyra tried, hating the waver in her voice. “And… I’ll not broker this sort of disrespect.”
“Oh, I’ve made you upset,” Erwin smiled, not unkindly. “I didn’t mean to. And I’m happy to continue our lessons. Your elocution really has been coming along lately. But… just a point of business, I’m afraid.”
Krya said nothing, tried not to breathe. Simply regarded him in a manner she hoped was imperious.
“Your mother doesn’t pay me enough to tutor baseborns. If I’m going to condescend myself to continue these lessons, I’m going to need more for my efforts.”
Krya didn’t have the gall to take Erwin to task for all the awful things he was calling her, though she knew she should have. She would tell her mother of this and, though she would fairly glow with validation, her mother would capably solve this. Would scour his flesh with her words and then find a new tutor. All Kyra had to do was get through this right now and everything would be well.
“How much more?” she asked.
Erwin’s right hand snaked out and clutched at her small breast. “More,” he said, and pushed his tongue into Kyra’s mouth. It tasted sour, and he bit her lips, hard, as his tongue explored seemingly every tooth and crevice.
He was stronger than she, and almost twice her size. She didn’t think she could possibly fight him off if he was truly determined to have his way, but Kyra wasn’t thinking at all. It was for this reason that she took his face in both her hands, sunk her nails into the soft flesh of Erwin’s temples, and pulled down, hard. Erwin cried out and let her go, and she saw that she had carved eight ugly welts down his smooth face.
“Bitch!” he spat at her, gingerly touching the reddening tracks. His face twisted into an expression somewhere between betrayal and rage. Wrath. Maybe this was wrath.
Kyra turned to avoid the sting she knew by now was coming, but instead it was a blunt force that knocked her off her chair. In her flailing, she took the table with her, spilling the inkwell, her parchment, the quill. She hit the hard wooden floor, realizing that he’d punched her. And what’s more, in exactly the same place her mother had slapped her the previous evening.
She started to pick herself up but suddenly Erwin was on her, one hand clutching her neck as the other fumbled at her dress, finally tearing off her undergarment before unbuckling his trousers. Blood rolled off the scratches on his face and dripped steadily onto her forehead, eyes, mouth. Kyra could not breathe, he was clutching her neck so hard. She began to feel light, the room turning bright yellow and then perfect white as the edges of her home closed in. Somewhere far away, she felt something probing, trying to push its way inside. Her fingers grazed something soft on the floor. A feather. Her quill pen. Pain exploded between her legs, inside her. She drove the sharp point of the quill into his neck, and then knew no more.
~~~
Kyra awoke to the feeling of being pressed down, to a sticky feeling on her face and neck. Something tickled her ear, and as she turned to see what, stiff fingers brushed her still-throbbing cheek. She opened her eyes.
Erwin was splayed on top of her, heavy and dead, his right hand cupping her face almost lovingly. His blood was all over her, over her mother’s floor—thick and sticky. Kyra coughed, her throat on fire. Maybe he had crushed it and now Kyra would be mute. Without meaning to, Kyra screamed, coughed painfully from the effort, and then turned to vomit everything inside of her. The bile burned worse than any pain she’d known, and the disgusting scene on her mother’s kitchen floor made her want to vomit once more, but one thing at least was clear: Kyra was not mute.
She was also alive, and now a woman. A ruined woman, she knew her mother would say. Erwin had taken her honor, and with it, all her mother’s hopes of securing for Kyra a noble marriage. She’d never wanted that, of course, but neither had she wanted this.
With a grunt, Kyra wriggled out from beneath Erwin’s body, noting that his other hand clutched the quill pen she’d driven into the soft of his neck. Blood still flowed from where he had pulled the pen out. Had he left it in, Kyra realized, he might have lived. Third in his class, and they didn’t even teach him how to save his own life.
Had he always wanted her, Kyra wondered, or was the illusion of her nobility the only shield she had these past years against Erwin and whoever else that felt they had a right to her?
Painfully, and with great effort, Kyra worked her way out from beneath Erwin’s heavy body, careful to avoid touching the thick pool of his blood or… it. He was much heavier in death than in life, and it seemed an eternity before Kyra stood above the bloody scene, clutching her torn breeches and wondering what in the seven Torments she was supposed to now.
The town guard would have no sympathy for her—whatever her mother’s delusions of class, Erwin had been an Adept. Both she and her mother would surely hang for this.
And neither would his sudden disappearance go unnoticed. That her daughter benefitted from the tutelage of the King’s own Mageguard was fairly how Kyra’s mother began a conversation with someone. She made certain that everyone knew Erwin was in their employ. And now they did, at that.
Kyra had to flee. What other choice did she have? Working her way out from beneath Erwin had been task enough—it would be impossible for Kyra alone to move the body. And where would she move it to? The town guardsmen were not likely to miss the sight of a small girl slowly dragging a limp body across town, through the marketplace, and down the well. But neither could she leave this mess for her mother to sort out alone.
The root celler, Kyra remembered. Of course, once the town guard was looking for Erwin, it would not be long at all before they discovered him down there. But it would buy Kyra some time. A few days, perhaps.
He was flat on his belly, his face turned side to, his eyes open. Incredulous, almost. But dead. Her father had been much more stiff—his body was likely on their doorstep for hours before Kyra found him there. He’d been heavier, too; his love of the bottle had added considerably to his already considerable girth. But despite their differences, Kyra was surprised to find that dragging a dead man across her floor felt a lot like dragging a dead man across her floor. She hooked her hands into the pits of Erwin’s arms and heaved backwards once, and again, and again, until she had painted a broad swath of dark red across the floor that ended abruptly at the root cellar’s trap door. He fell as one juddering lump down the steep wooden stairs to the hard dirt floor below. When she was much younger, Kyra was terrified of monsters in the cellar. Now she knew there really was one down there.
Kyra swung the trap door shut and numbly surveyed the bloody mess. Mop, Kyra thought. Clean this before she gets home. But there wasn’t nearly enough water in the cistern. Bucket, Kyra thought. Cover yourself and go to the well. In her mother’s things Kyra found old clothing that her mother wore when washing—Kyra’s delicate lady hands must never touch mop or sponge. Dress up a commoner however you like, her mother was fond of saying, her calloused hands will betray her every time. Kyra’s mother was never without gloves for this very reason—her hands were a commoner’s hands. And when they slapped, Kyra knew now, it stung.
Kyra tenderly probed her face, feeling a sharp throb whenever she touched the hard swollen flesh of her left cheek. It had split open, too. There would be scarring, Kyra knew. Not only was her “honor” gone but now she was marred, for King’s sake. Even the brothel wouldn’t take her now, never mind a highborn lad or aging baron. She felt the tears swelling and stuffed them back down. She had never wanted that life. Why should she grieve the loss of it?
Dressed in her mother’s basest finery and swaddled with an old scarf to hide the ruin of her face, Kyra grabbed the bucket and slowly made her way to the town’s one well, trying her best to avoid eye contact with the many villagers who were about.
She needn’t have bothered. Trussed up like a highborn and carrying herself “the way a lady should,” Kyra always received a certain amount of attention from her neighbors, but dressed as she was—like a beggar, Kyra realized—no one even looked twice. Hunched forward, her shawl pulled close around her face, she recognized the clothes and voices of several townsfolk—friends and neighbors, many of whom she had known most of her life—though not a one of them recognized her. She needed to disappear in the worst way, but that she already had filled Kyra with relief and something else. Regret, maybe. Loss. As if she could see her life after her life had ended. So I’ll be a ghost then, Kyra thought.
There were not many people at the well, but as Kyra had never before retrieved water, she had not anticipated the pulley system. It was simple enough to tie her bucket to the rope, but once the bucket was in the water, Kyra wasn’t certain which side of the rope to pull on next.
“Here then, let me,” said a male voice from behind her. “You’ve just got to—” leathered fingers grazed hers and Kyra instinctively jerked away. “Apologies, miss. It’s this one, see?”
Conner, the butcher’s boy, hauled her bucket back up and untied it for her. “It’s a bit hefty when filled,” he said, still holding on to her bucket, in addition to his own. “Can I bring it somewhere for you?”
He’s going to know who I am the moment I say a word, Kyra thought. She shook her head, the shawl rustling back and forth, grazing, for a brief moment, her wounded cheek. She winced.
“It’s no trouble at all,” the butcher’s boy continued, peering at her more carefully now.
“No, thank you,” Kyra said, firmly, reaching to take the bucket from him, but it pained her burning throat to speak, and when the words did come out, her voice was not her own. It was scratchy, low, the voice of some baseborn who slept outdoors and begged passers by for spare copper bits. The effort sent her into another coughing fit, though at least this one was slightly less painful than the last.
“You don’t sound well, miss,” the butcher’s boy said, still holding her water bucket.
“Please,” she managed again in that stranger’s voice, holding out her hand. “Please just give me my bucket.”
His eyes widened, and as Kyra followed his gaze down to her outstretched hand, she saw it too: Erwin’s blood caked her fingers down to her wrist. Oh, Godwin’s balls, Kyra thought.
“You’ve injured yourself,” he said, taking her hand in his. It felt rough and calloused, but strong. “My father can bandage you and maybe give you something for that cough. He’s the town butcher, but he knows a bit about bandages, too. Come on then—it’s not far.”
Kyra desperately needed to get back home and clean that bloody mess before her mother saw it all over her floor, but Conner’s insistence and concern was starting to draw attention to them. Unable to do otherwise—Conner had her only bucket, and he clearly wasn’t going to let it go—Kyra followed the butcher’s boy. They walked in silence, and Kyra’s fears were realized when they reached the back of his father’s shop.
“M’lady,” he said, nervous, but still bold enough to reach and pull back her shawl. “What happened to you?”
Kyra jerked backwards, slapping away his leathered hand. “Don’t touch me!” she screamed, or tried to, before another fit of coughing overtook her. Conner stood there, dumb, both hands outstretched but uncertain what to do. “Don’t,” Kyra said again, quieter now, and began to cry.
~~~
Later, Kyra dangled her legs off a table in the back room of the butcher’s shop and allowed Conner to dab at the dried blood on her face. His ruddy complexion was not at all improved by a closer look at his pocked and bumpy visage, but his brown eyes were kind, and his strong hands dabbed gently around the ruin of Kyra’s left cheek. He asked no questions, working quietly and with great care.
“How did you know?” Kyra finally croaked.
He stopped. “Know what?”
“Know that it was me.”
“Well, uh,” he stammered, his red face turning a deeper shade of crimson. “I seen you around, m’lady. With your mother in town sometimes.”
“You don’t have to call me m’lady,” Kyra said, smiling. “It’s just Kyra.”
“Well, it’s that we knew your father, miss. Knowed who he was, that is. And, well,” he said, averting his eyes, “you’re our royalty here. Least, that’s how we think of you. And your mother, ‘course.”
“Well, I’m not,” Kyra said, eager not to talk about her father. “And no one’s going to think of me that way anymore. But I meant, how did you recognize me with…?” she said, indicating her clothes.
“Oh! Well, as for that, miss,” Conner said, brightly, “once I saw your hands I knew you weren’t no beggar. Er, well, that is, a beggar’s hands wouldn’t be so… that is, would be more…” he trailed off, mortified.
“I know what you mean,” Kyra said, allowing herself a smile and immediately regretting it.
“Gods I am so sorry if I was too free with you, miss,” Conner hastened to add. “It wasn’t to say neither that I been staring at your hands or nothing like that. I just meant you didn’t look like one of us everyday folk. Nobles, well, they tend to stand out. Like your Adept, what’s his name.”
Kyra nodded, willing herself not to show the anger or terror that rose inside her, unbidden, at the mere mention of her tutor. Former tutor, she supposed.
“He’s no noble,” Kyra said.
“No, ‘course, he’s just part of that world is all I meant. You’re our betters. We notice you,” he finished, blushing again.
“He’s dead,” Kyra said, almost whispering the words.
“Beg pardon, miss?”
“He’s dead,” Kyra said again, louder, surprised by how calm she felt now that she’d given it words. “He tried to… he was inappropriate with me, and tried to hurt me, and…” She regarded her hand, still caked with Erwin’s blood. “I killed him.”
Conner looked at her with dawning horror. “It were an accident, surely miss.”
“No,” Kyra shook her head, feeling some small power rise within her. “I didn’t have a choice, but neither was it an accident. It was desperate, but it was also what I had to do. I don’t regret it.” She watched as Conner took a step backwards, then another. “So there it is, I guess. I’m no noble. But you’re right that I’m not like you. I’m not. I’m… I think I might be something worse.”
“Guess it don’t matter none either way, now,” intoned a gruff voice from the doorway leading to the shop. The butcher, Conner’s father, Kyra realized. He stepped into the room and strode purposefully toward Kyra, his heavy boots resonating on the creaky wooden floorboards. “We got a problem that needs fixing. That’s our concern now, ain’t it miss?” He placed a large hand on Kyra’s shoulder and she flinched without meaning to.
“Now, now,” the butcher chuckled, “we ain’t have the time for that. These hands of mine will be needin’ to do this and worse before the day’s through.”
“Pa!” Conner said, aghast. “Miss Kyra… she… you can’t talk like that…!”
“Hold your tongue, boy!” the butcher roared. “I’ll talk however I damn well please. And as for Miss Kyra,” he continued, taking her by both shoulders now and looking her directly in the eyes, “she wants to survive in this world, she best make herself comfortable with all manner of courseness.” Kyra looked away, but nodded.
“Survive in the world? By herself…?” Conner stammered.
“‘Course not by herself, boy,” the butcher answered, procuring a thick needle and holding it over a candle’s flame. “Brings a girl home and all sudden-like he’s learned how to backtalk to his Pa. Fetch the lady’s lady mother, if you would be so kind. You’ll find her at the church. And be quick about it!”
Conner shook his head and left the way they came in, closing the door behind him. “Now,” the butcher continued, threading the needle with equally thick twine string, “we need to stitch up that pretty face of yours.”
“Don’t bother,” Kyra said. “Let it scar. I want it to.”
“Oh, believe me, miss,” the butcher chuckled, “no matter what we do, it’s gonna scar. This is gonna hurt like all seven Torments and three more besides, but someday you’ll be glad I did it. Now…” he continued, pulling an opaque glass bottle from a drawer beneath the table she was sitting on, “drink this, and deeply.”
~~~
By the time Conner returned with Kyra’s mother, the work was done, and Kyra was drunk. Or she supposed she was—surely half the bottle ought to do it. The other half Conner’s father used to sterilize the wound, else Kyra might have drank that too. The pain had been unbearable: The heavy needle pushing through the meat of her cheek. The jagged pull of the twine out the other side. The blaze of pain as the butcher pulled it all together and made a knot. Whatever was in that bottle was the only thing that got her through. It dulled the pain—though not by much.
“You’ve got some will in you,” the butcher grunted when he finished, wiping his hands with an already-bloody rag. “Didn’t cry out once and stayed up for the whole thing. Not many girls your age could say the same.”
“‘A noblewoman is temperate in all matters,’” Kyra smiled at her near-perfect impression of her mother, which turned into a grimace as her left cheek protested the effort. “Except no one’s going to mistake me for a noblewoman now. I’ll be fortunate to end up as anything other than a common whore…”
“Least whoring’s honest work,” the butcher replied. “But you’re right—it ain’t no life for our princess. You need a skill.”
“‘Princess’?” Kyra chortled, enraging her cheek a second time. “How about calligraphy?” Kyra offered, once the pain subsided. “Embroidery? I wasn’t so very good at ornate lettering but I suppose if my life actually did depend on it I could try…”
“No,” the butcher said, screwing up his face in contemplation. “You’ll need to keep all of that secret. What’s a scarred lass with a husky voice need with embroidery? The Arcane Order will be looking for you for what you done. Best thing you can do is be someone else when they find you. Here,” he pressed the hilt of a knife into Kyra’s palm. No—a dagger. It was sharp on both sides and tapered to a lethal tip. “Learn to use this for coin. Make sure everyone knows what you can do with it, and they’ll think twice before crossing you. And if someone does cross you… well,” the butcher smiled grimly but not unkindly, placing his heavy hand once more on Kyra’s shoulder, “I ‘spose I don’t need to tutor you on what happens next.”
“Take your filthy hands off my daughter this instant!” Kyra’s mother shrilled from the back entrance. The butcher did—and quickly. “Know your betters,” she continued, making her way around the table, “and do not ever again presume to—…” Her eyes found Kyra’s face, and for the first time in Kyra’s memory, her mother had no words. “Oh, Kyra…” she could only say. And then: “What did you do?”
“What did I do?” Kyra replied, her new voice belying a steely calm she did not feel.
“You defy me, you debase yourself for every drunk in this town to see,” her mother sputtered, working her way back up to the shrill indignation that was her true strength. “I tell you to quit and attend your lessons, but where do I find you?”
Watching her mother, Kyra felt outside herself. As if this were one of those puppet plays she’d heard about (but of course never been allowed to attend). Her mother, gesticulating wildly, wrathful, angry as Kyra had ever seen her… but she felt no fear of this woman. On the contrary, Kyra’s mother was the only person in this room who had no inkling whatsoever of the truth of things. Kyra had been terrified of this woman for as long as she could remember, but, strange as it was, she felt, somehow, that she had a power over this ridiculous woman. That she was, impossibly, her better.
“I find you in the back room of a meat shop,” her mother continued, desperate now, “some commoner’s hands all over you. And you’re—drinking for the love of the Gods, and… and you will explain to me this instant what you’ve done to your face. No one will take you now. Gods, Kyra…”
Kyra looked to the butcher and then his son, both of whom seemed to have only just discovered the floor and could now gaze at nothing else. “Mother, you must know by now that I never particularly wanted to be… taken. Now no one will?” Kyra smiled, but faintly. It hurt less. “Good.”
“And there’s a coarseness to your voice since just this morning. What a transformation! Yes, you should be very proud. Have you been smoking besides? Are you trying to become your wastrel father? Is that it?”
Here the butcher spoke up: “Well, begging your pardon, Miss, but the Prince—“
“You dare,” her mother fumed. “We’ll need to travel half a day to find a surgeon good enough to fix this disgrace,” she gestured violently in the direction of Kyra’s face. “You will not ever again meddle in the affairs of my family. Is that understood?”
The butcher, red-faced, cleared his throat and looked chastened. Kyra felt like laughing.
“Now,” Kyra’s mother said, turning back to her, “we are going to get Erwin to send for an escort, and meanwhile you are going to tell me all the terrible things that happen when you act contrary to your mother’s wishes. Maybe, just maybe, we can still save your looks, even if this family’s honor is truly lost and gone forever, Gods preserve our name.”
“Begging your pardon, miss… again, that is,” the butcher said, apologetically, “But things… well they’ve changed. Best thing for the little lady, truth be told, is to get her out of town, and fast.” The butcher finally met her mother’s withering, incredulous glare. “That is… if you please,” he added, lamely.
“What’s best for my daughter,” her mother said between clenched teeth, “is absolutely none of your concern. Kyra, we are leaving. Now.” And with that, she turned on her heel and began striding toward the back door, where the butcher’s son still stood, unmoving. “You will let us pass, child,” her mother intoned. The butcher’s boy looked to Kyra and then his father, uncertain.
“He took my ‘honor,’ mother,” Kyra said, stopping her mother cold. “I quit that job and went home for my lessons just as you wanted, and he forced himself on me. He tried to. I don’t know if he… And he did this to my face. And he strangled me, which is why… my voice,” Kyra finished, feeling as if she were just making excuses. But all of that had happened. Why should she feel guilty?
Kyra’s mother remained still and silent, her back toward Kyra. When she finally spoke, it was so quietly that she at first wasn’t sure her mother had spoken at all.
“And what, do you suppose, gave him the impression that he could take these liberties with you?”
A chill came over Kyra. “What?” she croaked.
“If he believed you to be a Lady he would never have dared. This,” she said, turning now to Kyra, “is precisely what I have been trying to protect you from all these years. And what you have ruined forever on a whim. For what? For some easy coin.”
Indignation bloomed in Kyra’s heart. “You… believe this to be my fault?”
“Our small nobility, which you have so long derided, has been your only protection against the base urges of every man in this town. You have no idea what I have sacrificed to maintain appearances since your father left us. Perhaps now you will appreciate, if not what I’ve done for you, at least why I did it.”
Kyra almost felt like laughing but could not trust that she wouldn’t cry instead, and so she swallowed the outburst that was pushing its way out, and hopped off the table. Everything was so sore.
“Come,” her mother relented, taking Kyra’s movement for surrender. “There is much to do, and these people have heard quite enough of this day’s disgrace. No doubt the entire town will know by sundown. Could you first send for the Adept,” she turned to the butcher’s boy, “before you tell all your friends what you heard here today?”
Again the butcher’s boy gulped and looked at Kyra uncertainly. This is it, Kyra thought.
“The Adept tried to kill me, mother,” Kyra said, her new voice sounding much more confident than she felt. “I truly thought he might.”
“Well clearly he did not, otherwise you would not be here, would you? Come. I tire of this. This crass talk is beneath me, if not you.”
“No, he did not. Only because I did not let him.”
The color drained from her mother’s face, and Kyra saw the one expression she thought she’d never see her mother wear: Fear.
“Kyra, tell me you did not strike Erwin. He is an initiate of the Magister Lords. The King’s own Mageguard. To strike one is to strike them all. They will not broker insult such as that. Please… tell me you did not.”
“And what is their retribution, mother?” Kyra spat, furious. “What is the capitol punishment for rape?”
The word hung in the air for a moment, Kyra herself surprised that she’d said it. But, again, saying these things seemed to give her strength, and she had no intention of enduring this silently, come whatever may.
“It was not rape,” her mother finally replied, her voice quiet but unwavering.
“I know what rape is!” Kyra shouted past the screaming protest of pain in her throat.
“Rape is a grave offense. I believe it is punishable by death in most cases. But when an honored member of the King’s court takes his privilege with a common woman, Kyra… well, there is no word for that. It’s merely the way of things. Whatever he did to you, it was not rape.”
Kyra felt her world falling away from her, not for the first time today. She still felt rage, but Kyra now knew it to be an impotent rage. There was something out there so much bigger than she, and Kyra understood now that it was going to come down on all of them, hard.
“Kyra,” her mother repeated, almost pleading, “tell me what you did.”
Kyra looked her mother square in the eyes and said the words she knew would change everything forever.
“Well, mother, I killed him.”
Her mother’s eyes rolled back in her head. Her knees buckled. She fell.
~~~
Years later, when Kyra allowed herself to think of such things, she always marveled how some years could feel like days when this one day truly felt like years.
When they revived her mother, she had little left to say to her only daughter. She would not even look at Kyra as she gathered her things and left the back room of the butcher’s shop. The butcher made arrangements to clean the gory mess and dispose of Erwin’s body (“Not to be indelicate or nothin’, but pigs will eat most anything,” he joked in a way that Kyra suspected was not a joke), and his son traveled with Kyra out of town that next morning.
By nightfall they made their way to a caravan of merchants and gypsies the butcher knew to be stopped a day’s travel out of their small town, and the butcher’s boy introduced Kyra to Mirela, the caravan’s rotund matriarch, who saved Kyra’s life by giving her a new one.
Kyra had spent her young life in study, but in these few short years she learned more than she had the entire fifteen years previous:
The worth of coin—what it could buy, what it could not, and when it was fake.
The art of dancing the cool steel point of a dagger between her fingers for the amusement of a crowd, and how to throw that same dagger across a room so that the blade always buried itself where Kyra wanted… including into the estimation of anyone who might think of crossing her.
How to speak with men, how to be accepted among men, and, on occasion, how to lay with them.
Two recipes for moon tea: one to prevent a womb’s quickening, and one to stop it once it already had.
But the greatest lesson of Kyra’s life was one she had learned that terrible day—that what people thought of her could protect her, or it could make her helpless. And Kyra would never again be helpless. Her friends and lovers began calling her “Princess” after seeing how the butcher’s boy, who found work quickly enough and insisted he remain for reasons of his own, acted with such deference around her. But she worked, drank, cursed, and fought with the best of them; they loved her as one of their own. Even her delicate hands coarsened and calloused in time. No one would have thought her a noble of any sort, not the way she behaved. It was a common life for a common girl, and it suited Kyra just fine. This was who she was. Who, in truth, she had likely always been.
A princess. A ghost. No one.
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