“You,” a voice says behind me. I turn on the road leading toward the western gates of the city, and a palace guard peers at me. He eyes my shabby dress, the cut tip of my right ear. “Where is your master?” he asks. His hand rests on the hilt of his sword as he strides over the cobblestones toward me.

“He freed me,” I say quickly. I grasp the blacksmith’s satchel as the strap digs into my shoulder. Inside it is some food and the rest of Barnard’s money for my journey north. The guard scoffs.

“Likely story,” he grunts.

“It’s true,” I say. Well, it’s half true. The blacksmith has been dead for two days now, his body burned to ash in his own forge. The guard squints at me, and I hope my expression doesn’t give my lie away.

“Clever savage,” the guard says. He grabs my arm. I try to wriggle free, but he yanks me to him. “Your master’s gone out of town so you think you can just run off.” I glare at him. “Not so clever.”

He wrenches my arm behind my back. I cry out as pain shoots through my shoulder. The salve I’d bought had very quickly healed the scrapes on my cheek and hands; they are just faint marks on my skin now.

The guard is clearly pleased with himself as he hauls me along the main road through Highcaster to the palace. “Piss off,” I growl, but he only twists my shoulder in response. Another guard stops him at the palace gates. His captain, by the medals on the front of his livery.

“What’s this?” he asks tersely.

“Runaway,” the guard holding me answers proudly. “Caught her trying to escape the city while her master’s gone. We should toss the savage in the dungeons—”

The captain sighs heavily. “The king was found murdered by his son last night,” he says. “I don’t have time to deal with one runaway slave.” He starts to turn, waving a dismissive hand at the guard holding me. “Just sell her or something.”

The guard brings me to a slavers’ auction house. He confiscates the satchel and binds my hands, slapping irons onto my wrists that are too tight. A portly man appears from a doorway behind a large desk, exchanging hushed words with the guard. He’s a slaver by the look of the expensive robes he wears. His face is ruddy, with thinning hair and a too-white smile.

“You know,” the man says. “Madame Camilla has been looking for foreign girls lately. She just added a Tajan to her stock and is quite pleased with her.”

The slaver looks me up and down, and I want to snarl at him. I settle for glaring at him. “She’ll have to be taught some manners,” he says.

“You can shove your manners up your ass,” I growl.

The slaver chuckles. He turns back to the guard. “I can pay twenty gold for her.” The guard accepts eagerly, taking the money that the slaver counts out from a small chest atop the desk.

Once the guard leaves, the slaver pulls me to my feet by the irons around my wrists. “You, with me,” he says. “Madame Camilla will be eager to have a savage to tame.”

The pleasure house is a marble monstrosity that mimics the columns and turrets of the palace. Ivy climbs the exterior walls, and even out on the street, my ears pick up faint moans from the open windows on the second floor. The parlor right inside the doors is dimly lit, with thin veils of red silk covering the windows. The air is heavy with perfume and the heat of sweat. The slaver enters, pulling me behind him. A girl in a sheer red dress greets him, and he asks for an audience with Madame Camilla. The girl curtsies, the gold bangles on her wrists tinkling, and leads us to a lush office off of the parlor.

“What have you brought me?” a languid voice asks. The woman behind the massive desk leans back in her chair, her legs crossed and her dress spilling to the floor. Her black hair is pulled back in a sleek up-do, her brows arched and a smirk playing on her rouged lips.

“Madame Camilla, you look positively lovely,” the slaver croons. She extends a ringed hand and he showers it with kisses as if she’s royalty.

Her dark eyes slide to me. “Who is this?” she asks. The slaver turns to me.

“Your newest girl,” he says, grinning. “An Ibim savage.”

“Very nice,” she says. She stands slowly. Everything about this woman is gracefully lazy, like a cat laying in the sun. She comes around the desk and circles me, taking her time to inspect me. I wince when she tugs on my hair.

She picks up a small silver bell that sits atop her desk, and rings it. I flinch, the sound shrill in my ears. A moment later, the same girl from the parlor enters the room. “Get this one cleaned up and dressed properly,” Camilla says, sitting back down behind the desk. The slaver unlocks the irons at my wrists, and turns eagerly to discuss my price with Camilla.

I don’t hear how much the slaver sells me for, because the girl has already whisked me out of the office.

When I emerge from the washroom an hour later into the small cobblestoned courtyard of the pleasure house, I thoroughly hate Madame Camilla. I am in bare feet, the stone warm under my toes from the sun, and the sheer red fabric that wraps around me hardly counts as clothing. It plunges low between my breasts, cinching around my ribs so tightly that I’m afraid to draw in a large breath. The skirt falls to my knees, but it is hardly modest. A slit runs up my right thigh, practically high enough to expose me completely.

Not that it makes much of a difference. The fabric is so sheer that looking down, I can see the pink of my nipples and the small tuft of silver hair at the apex of my thighs. I cross my arms over my chest, trying in vain to cover my body.

I feel people’s eyes on me; above my head, a balcony runs along the perimeter of the courtyard, leading to rooms where Madame Camilla’s girls pleasure their customers. Women stand leaning against the railing looking down at me. I hear moans drift down from the occupied rooms.

Camilla smacks my arms with a leather riding crop. “Do not cover yourself,” she says. She stands before me and lifts my chin with the flat end of the crop. My hands are curled into tight fists at my sides. “No use to my clients if my girls are constantly hiding themselves,” she says. She circles around behind me.

“Arch your back,” she says, and punctuates her command with a smack to the small of my back. I flinch at the contact.

“I’m no whore,” I say through gritted teeth. Behind me, Madame Camilla snorts.

“You are now, savage,” she says. I glance over my shoulder at her; she is smirking at me.

“Fuck you,” I growl.

The riding crop cracks against the back of my head. I cry out and hunch forward. Camilla yanks me upright by my hair. She tears the scraps of the dress from me; I feel the chill of the breeze brush across my skin.

The riding crop strikes my bare back. I scream, tears streaming down my face. My head stays wrenched back, Madame Camilla’s fingers grasping my hair. She whips the leather against my back so many times that I lose count. The force with which she hits me never lets up. I feel wet heat on my back, smell the metallic tang of blood.

Finally, Madame Camilla throws me to the ground. I hunch over, my hair spilling over my shoulders. It’s dripping red. My back stings agonizingly and feels too hot. I tremble on the floor of the courtyard, feeling my blood run down my sides as Madame Camilla walks away, her laughter dancing across the cobblestones.