Content warning, this short story and its chapters will contain: mentions of abuse, war, some violence and gore.

*

They sold me for three sheep.

I arrived at the village. The sun had yet to rise. The tide was low and my wrists shackled, bruised—pale, as if they had never seen the light of day, just like the others in this caravan, whose faces were all grey, no smiles, no promises made, at the ripe age of seventeen.

They made three stops. I did not know who they were. But they had money, and that, was good enough.

Dusk fell. Day rose. Dusk fell again, and then, when midnight came, my turn arrived. With a foot to my back, I was pushed out of the carriage, onto dirt so soiled that the maggots were still writhing beneath my sullied palms. “Walk,” they said. And so I did. “Talk,” they ordered. But I did not speak.

They tore my clothes off. They hung me by the pier. I think I died that night, I am not quite sure, for I immediately woke, sweat-drenched and screaming in that dreaded carriage. And I wondered, was it a dream, was it destiny, or a warning?

Midnight showed its face. They pushed me off the old wood. I did not fall into the worms; I held my breath. I didn’t want to smell the cadavers, even if I knew they were still there, because I felt it—the hand from before, that I did not want to remember.

“Speak.”

I spoke. I did as they asked of my person. It took three days for them to trust me. I was given a name. “Lyra.” It was short for harp, apparently.

I did not know how to play the harp. I learned quickly.