Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection

by C. M. Stunich

  “Ladies,” Old Britta called from the door, bringing me back to the present once again. “I have something very exciting to tell you. The Emperor has sent an emissary to evaluate our little village and the good work we do here.”

  My stomach twisted at the underlying satisfaction in her voice, though I didn’t allow my foot to lose the pattern. Old Britta only sounded like that when a new resident joined us—when she had someone new to break—or when pain was involved.

  “The son of a baron of the empire will be here in just a few hours to inspect and report back on what he finds, so you ladies will need to be working your very best,” she chirped. One of the herders had once commented on how a person who looked like a cheery old grandmother should not be such a foul person.

  He’d been gone the next day.

  “Oh! Mila, you may know him. I hear he spent much time in Tabos. That is where you are from, is it not?”

  My rhythm on the pedals faltered, and I halted the shuttle. A new dread filled me—not one of vague knowledge that pain was coming, but one that told me it was already here.

  Around me the others continued their work, and the hard soles of the overseer hit the floor as she returned to my loom. I knew I should continue, to meet my quota. That I needed the supper which would keep me going for one more day, would keep alive the small kernel of hope that someday I would leave this place.

  But I had lost the pattern, and a mis-woven length of fabric would be punished just as severely as falling short of the quota.

  “It is the Baron Trabine’s youngest. Jonathon, I believe, is his name.” The cheery words came from just behind me. “They say he joined our glorious empire’s Citizens’ Improvement Initiative when his fiancé was found to be flawed. She broke his heart, hiding such a thing from him.” She tsk-tsked as the blade of her words slid into me. I could imagine the headshake that accompanied it, the sympathetic expression, the soft smile that belied the evil inside.

  She didn’t move away, and I finally realized she was waiting for an answer. I swallowed, my mind scrambling for a response that would allow me to keep the last shreds of my dignity—a futile hope, yes, but one I clung to. “I did know him, Overseer,” I said, keeping my tone even. That should be safe enough.

  She tsk-tsked once more but let it go at that, moving away. I let out a quiet breath as I tracked her through the room and out the door, no doubt to go check on the other weaving rooms and bring them tidings of the “good news.”

  “Pick up the pattern from the beginning,” Katelyn, working the station next to me, said. Lame in one foot, she was given the simple, unpatterned weaves to execute. Her voice was soft, softer than mine, and so quiet it was a strain for even my sensitive ears. She’d been here since infancy, born with her flaw, and was the closest friend I had in this hell.

  I sent a shallow nod in her direction and picked up the pattern. An emissary was arriving soon, and we had to show our best.

  The low chime of the central tower’s bells indicated it was time for supper. Around me the looms gradually slowed, then stopped. Women rose, the rustle of their skirts and the soft falls of their bare feet a counterpoint to my pounding heart. As the last woman left, I let my own loom slow, then stop. I wasn’t worried about knowing the way out. After the first few weeks, no one helped me get about. I had needed to learn this place well enough to not rely on anyone. That was simply how things worked here. We tried to assist each other in little ways, but any overt sign of cooperation was squashed as soon as it was seen.

  I needed a moment, just a moment. I needed to be able to break down before I pulled myself back together. Jonathon was coming. Here. I had thought the fight, the anger, the sheer stubbornness had been ground out of me, stripped away by humiliation and punishment. Half-healed bruises were hidden under my dress and scars from whippings marred my back and thighs. I couldn’t see myself, of course, but the tattered hems of my clothes, the ragged edges of my nails, the roughness of my skin, all these things told me I no longer resembled the girl I had been.

  For Jonathon to see me like this simply ramped up my sense of shame. My lungs tightened, and I wrapped my thin arms around my now bony chest. Though I no longer thought about my state—I simply was—I could not help but compare the old me, the soft, hopeful me, to the creature I had become.

  A low gasp escaped me, and moisture gathered in my eyes, then spilled over, a tear snaking down my cheek. I concentrated on that sensation. I took in a breath and let it out. Again. Then once more. Wiping my cheeks, I finally stood. It was dangerous to allow anyone else to witness a weakness, even the other flawed. Or maybe it was the scrap of pride I hung onto—the piece of me still refusing to surrender to my situation.

  Time to get moving. I stood. Two steps to the right, a quarter turn, twelve strides to the door. The scent of fresh bread, roasted vegetables, and meat drew me to the dining hall. Three steps forward, turn left, forty-seven strides to the well, pass to the other side and turn left, two more steps, then turn right. Sixty-four strides to the entrance of the tent. The movements were slow and deliberate, precise. Most people would move out of my way. I would only have trouble if there was another flawed with no sight, or if one of the overseers or guards decided to discipline me. The rich scents of what was being served for dinner gave me hope that the overseers were seeking to put forward a front of generosity and beneficence, which meant this visit would prove less painful for us than the last.

  The Citizens’ Improvement Initiative. I snorted, taking the last couple of strides that would bring me to the entrance of the dining hall. Formed nearly two hundred years before, it was the Cilesian Empire’s answer to a rising population and unrest due to failing crops. Take all those unequipped to contribute fully to the society and provide them a place where they could be useful, could have a home, and could be productive. Where their flaws were assets instead of liabilities. That’s what we were taught, and what I had believed. Before.

  Instead I had entered a hell designed to hide the atrocities committed. Did Jonathon know the truth of these places? Did he know the things done to us here?

  Did he care?

  “Mila,” a whisper came from my left. “End of the line.”

  I moved toward the sound. David, another resident since infancy. His flaw? He was an albino. I had never seen one, and… well, I’d still never seen one. He was a good kid, though.

  All these people were good people.

  “Did you hear?” he asked, his voice low, on the edge of my hearing. He took my hand and stepped forward, bringing me with him.

  My throat tightened, and I swallowed. My emotions were out of control today, and I needed to get a handle on them, fast. “I heard,” I answered. “Has—When was the last visit by an emissary?”

  We took another step. “About ten years ago. I was four. They gave us the good stuff, like now.” A pause as David probably gestured to the food. I’d gotten good at guessing. So good, others often forgot I couldn’t see, or they didn’t care. In David’s case, I knew he cared. “Then—” He broke off as the tent quieted around us. The hush spread from the entrance behind me and out over the entire space, a wave of silence that was more ominous than a scream. The screams we were used to.

  Every muscle in my body drew tight. A clank of metal, then leather against leather came closer to where I stood. Movement fluttered around me as the other flawed still in line for food drew away from me. David stayed by my side, the slight tremble of his hand in mine telling me that he, too, wanted to run.

  A slight draft accompanied a final scrape directly in front of me, followed by a heavy sigh. I didn’t dare move. I couldn’t have even if I wanted to. My heart pounded, fear and anticipation mixing together. Was this him?

  “Mila,” the man said, the word a low whisper.

  It sounded like him, like my Jonathon. But not. The voice was deeper. There was a new rasp of harshness to it that hadn’t been there seven years ago.

  There was none of the old warmth.

&
nbsp; I nodded.

  There was nothing more from him. Only a rustle of cloth, the clank of metal—spurs probably—and the scuff of leather moving away from me.

  My shoulders sagged. I wanted to drop. I wanted to break down and let the last of my hope go. I had gotten the answer to my final question: What would Jonathon do? He would walk away.

  Around me low whispers started up, and sound once again filled the cook tent. The line progressed, and David’s hand in mine pulled me forward.

  My feet moved. My lungs worked.

  Another step forward.

  David squeezed my fingers, and I concentrated on the calluses on his palms. His hands were growing. They used to be little, his fingers small in mine. Now they were nearly the size of a man’s.

  Funny how David’s hand in mine was all I could feel. It was the only part of me that existed. There were no feet in my shoes, no body in my dress. There was no voice in my throat or thought in my mind. There was nothing of Mila except that one hand linked to another’s.

  We stepped forward again. David’s hand slipped from mine, leaving me adrift. A tray pressed against my middle, and my hands rose, gripping it. As a weight was added to it, I moved again to the next station. A new weight hit the tray, and I moved once more, acting purely and wholly on habit. A third weight pulled my hands down an inch, and we were done.

  “This way,” David whispered.

  I stepped forward and turned right, making my way slowly to the table where I usually sat in the rear of the hall. Silence fell as I approached, and whispers followed in my wake. I imagined if I could somehow view the tent from above, I could track my progress by that alone, a bubble of silence and distance. With one action, one word, Jonathon had managed to single me out as both special and insignificant.

  My knee encountered the edge of the bench, and I twisted, sitting down. The numbness began to wear away. My trembling increased, setting the bowl and glass on my tray to rattling. I lowered it to the tabletop as slowly as I could, then drew my hands to my lap, gripping them together. I pulled in a breath, then another, concentrating on centering myself. Why bother? The thought drifted across my mind. Why bother keeping calm? Why bother with this facade? Why bother continuing with life the way it was? What was there for me to strive for? Creating a length of cloth that I could no longer see? Why continue on just so that I could be used as slave labor for an empire that didn’t care?

  Then two things happened. Small things, things that in and of themselves were nothing much, but in that moment pulled me back from the edge.

  First, David settled next to me, nudged my arm, and whispered, “Eat it. It’s the good stuff, with real meat.”

  Next, a new sound reached me. A low roaring, constant and unceasing, hovering on the edge of my hearing. It was like a storm wind, but there was an element I couldn’t put my finger on. It was new and different. Below that something else reverberated—something that brought to mind golden fur and feathers and reminded me of my dreams and my solace.

  I found my fork and speared it into the bowl of roasted vegetables and meat, then took a bite. David was right, it was the good stuff. I savored the flavor of herbs we didn’t usually receive and the texture of meat against my tongue. My left hand brushed against the roll we’d been given, and I brought this to my mouth as well. It was still soft, the flavor rich and a bit nutty. It went well with the meat.

  We ate in silence, the occasional whisper from farther down the table reaching me. Nothing new and nothing I wouldn’t expect after the little show Jonathon had put on.

  Anger stirred in me, and my hand tightened around my fork. Why would he do something like that? As part of the Citizens’ Improvement Initiative, he had to know what life was like here. He had to know what singling me out like that would mean for me. The overseers would be harder on me once he was gone and my fellow workers would be distant, fearing I would somehow report them, that I was earning special privileges. I’d seen it before.

  That meant Jonathon did plan to use me somehow, he was an idiot, or he was toying with me.

  “That was him?” Katelyn asked from across the table.

  I nodded.

  “Not what I imagined.”

  I wanted to ask, wanted to know what he looked like now and what she had pictured from the stories I had told her in the dark of night when the overseers had retired for the night. I didn’t, though. I let it go.

  She didn’t. “He looks hard, like the overseers. When he looked at you…”

  I turned my head to her.

  “He was cold.”

  “It was like he hated you,” David said, a little too loud for my comfort.

  “Yes,” Katelyn said. “It was as though you were something foul he found on the bottom of his boot and needed to wipe off.”

  I let out a huffing laugh, though I felt no humor in the situation. Then I said what we were all thinking, but only the stupid uttered. “They all look at us that way.” Apparently I was now an idiot. I thought that had been beaten from me years ago.

  Silence. Then, “You can’t see how they look at us,” David muttered and poked my side.

  I conjured up a smile for him. No, I couldn’t see how they looked at us. But each of the people sitting with me knew I was right. The seed of anger in me grew and sprouted a flower of rebelliousness. I opened my mouth—to say something else imbecilic, no doubt—but a draft of air from behind us had me holding my tongue. The small hairs that had escaped my bun stirred against my cheeks. I couldn’t forget to be careful of who heard my words.

  We finished our meal in silence. David took Katelyn and I’s dishes to the scrub bins along with his, as he always did, and we waited for him at the end of the table.

  “Do you hear it?” Katelyn asked.

  I focused. The strange wind was growing closer.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Sandstorm. They never come close enough that we need to beware, but they happen sometimes. Usually every fifteen years or so. The last one came close enough we were cleaning specks and dust from the looms for a week.” Her voice went low. “I was only a child, but I remember. It was not a good week.”

  Sandstorm. That was the sound I couldn’t place. Not just wind, but tiny grains of sand hitting everything in their path, including each other. Maybe if the storm came close enough, it would wipe the compounds from existence. No, the empire would simply rebuild. Or find a new place to send the flawed.

  Water splashed to the floor near the scrubbing bins, and David cried out. Other flawed murmured then quieted. I stepped away from the table, and Katelyn caught my arm.

  “No,” she whispered. “It will only make it worse.”

  I tensed. David hadn’t just slipped, then.

  Another cry, the sounds of a struggle, then the snap of bone. I flinched. Steps approached, one heavy, deliberately so, the other softer and accompanied by whimpers. They stopped in front of me.

  “This one got water on my boots,” a man said, tone vicious. “I saw you talking earlier. Did you send him to do this?”

  The scent of blood reached me as David whimpered again.

  “No, sir,” Katelyn whispered. “He helps with our dishes so the line is not slowed.”

  A waft of hot breath, not unpleasant smelling, hit my face. “And what,” the man whispered, “do you do for him in return?”

  “Gareth.” Jonathon was back.

  “My lord,” Gareth said. “I was investigating a matter that’s come up.”

  “And what matter is this?” Jonathon drew closer.

  “These two were using the boy to do their work for them.”

  “And for this you broke the young man’s arm? Should not the punishment be visited upon those who believe they are too good to perform their own duties?” He used such a calm and reasonable tone that it took a moment for his words to register.

  “My Lord, no, they did not—” David cut off and groaned.

  I reached out instinctively, wanting to draw the boy to me, to p
rotect him. As soon as I moved, I knew it was a mistake.

  “And what do you have to say for yourself, Mila?” Jonathon said, his words a hiss. “Seven years, is it? Still seeking to come above yourself, are you?”

  I shrank back at the venom infused in those words.

  “Seven years is a long time to be holding on to your pretentions, my dear,” he continued. “Maybe we need to try something new.”

  The sandstorm roared closer, the rumblings filling the silence left by the current confrontation.

  “Take them to the yard,” Jonathon said. David groaned, and beside me Katelyn cried out.

  “What are you doing?” I couldn’t hold the words back. Some part of me couldn’t believe this was Jonathon, that he would do this.

  A large hand wrapped around my upper arm, yanking me forward. “Overseer Britta has told me about you. Maybe a judicious use of pain will show you your place,” Jonathon said.

  “What happened to you?” I whispered.

  Fingers dug into my flesh. “You dare?” I was jerked from the dining hall. Warm wind hit me—dry, with a hint of spice. Faint cries and shuffling bodies surrounded me. I lost count of the steps and the turns.

  “Secure them,” Jonathon said, though he didn’t release me.

  I was pulled forward. In front of me, the very familiar whish of a whip snaked along the ground then cracked. I flinched. Katelyn screamed. Another crack. David moaned. A third, and Katelyn whimpered.

  Wind roared and dust filled the air. The storm was closer. I coughed, and my heart pounded. A moment later, I was free of Jonathon’s grip, and the wind swirled around me, almost gentle. Where was the guard? The whipping posts? I was free, but I didn’t know which direction to move.