Prologue
1685
Jari kept his expression blank despite the twisting in his gut. One of Father’s men looped the rope over a tree branch and pulled on it, forcing their captive to stand with his bound wrists above his head.
Father walked around their new prisoner and looked him up and down as though he were a horse for sale. “He’s like a twig, not that it really matters. He’ll do.”
Jari glanced at the rope holding the captive’s wrists together. The knife on his belt wasn’t much, but it could cut the twisted fibers.
Father grunted. “He’s already missing an eye and pretty beat up too. Where did you come from?”
The captive said nothing as he stared at the scant weeds and the gnarled tree roots snaking through the dirt around them. A slight breeze shifted the branches, and the speckles of sunlight coming through danced around. Jari had never seen a man with such a dead look in his one eye.
His blond hair was matted and filthy, and several strands hung over his face. The ends were uneven like someone had grabbed a handful and roughly sliced it short with a dagger.
The rest of him was also quite dirty. Bruises covered a good deal of his skin in varying shades of grey, blue, and dark yellow. Little cuts marred his bare feet and ankles, and dried blood had smeared them.
A lirek collar circled his neck.
Jari imagined him fleeing from Zorians despite his bare feet. Other nicks and scrapes marked his body. Those could have come from a lot of things. His right eye was missing, and the lid was sealed, so it likely wasn’t a recent injury.
They had found him collapsed in the dirt with the collar and nothing else. Father had forced water into him, brought him around with a few slaps, and figured he’d live.
“It’s not often we find someone already naked and collared. You made our lives easier. You must be from Nova, right?” Father stood in front of the prisoner who still didn’t move or give any indication that he’d heard. “I bet Zorians snatched you, and you got lucky enough to escape, except you’re on the wrong side of the border. This is Wockston, not Nova.”
“Or maybe Zorians came over here,” said one of Father’s friends. In his head, Jari called him Pimple.
“Nah. They haven’t bothered Wockston.” Father rubbed his bushy beard as he regarded the captive. “You’re filthy like you’ve been out for some time. Did they fuck you?”
The stranger stared at the ground.
“I know you can hear me, so you better quit the silent treatment. You’re not much to look at, and you’ve only got one eye, so I imagine you’re not looking at much.” The other two outlaws snorted at Father’s words, and Jari forced a faint smile as he wished, yet again, to be back at home. “Still good enough to sell. Check his rear. If it was Zorians, they might have wrecked him and not bothered to heal him.”
Pimple marched over and gripped the jutting hip of the prisoner who finally jerked and gave a weak kick. Jari jumped, and Father’s fist flashed out and decked the captive in the face hard enough to cut his lip.
“Your life isn’t your own anymore,” Father snarled. “Do you hear me? You’re a slave now, and that means you do as you’re told.”
The prisoner let his head hang again. The second of emotion was gone as the man checked him. Jari gritted his teeth as he stayed back. How could Father stand there and not feel anything? How could he look at himself later?
How was Jari going to look at himself later after this run? Or the next? If he cut the rope, the prisoner would never get far, especially with three others willing to chase him down.
“Seems fine.” Pimple released the prisoner whose lip bled. “It’s the rest of him that’s beat up, but it can heal.”
“Let’s eat. Come on.” Father turned to their boxcart a good thirty feet away. “I’d say two in one morning is good luck.”
Pimple scratched at one of the many red marks on his chin. “I didn’t think we’d find much this far south.”
They left the prisoner to stand there.
Jari tried to keep his body loose like the tension wasn’t ready to drive him up a wall. Since he was sixteen now, Father said it was time Jari stopped staying at home. He was a man now, and men have to go out and work. Not that Jari had been lolling around to begin with.
Also, Father’s “work” of catching stray travelers and people who had the misfortune to be alone was hardly a worthy job. Jari only knew that Father had a “client” who needed a steady stream of slaves and had special tastes. Whatever that meant.
Jari was sure the client must be killing them after a bit, and it was why he always wanted more. He probably sold some to other sick bastards as well. Jari didn’t know much beyond the barest basics since Father wasn’t too open, and he said Jari would learn more as he went.
“Is this client of yours going to buy him?” asked Jari.
Father grunted as they paused near the boxcart, and Pimple climbed in to find the box of provisions. “What the fuck you think we’re taking him for? To have a tea party with?”
Jari let his gaze roam inside the cart where a man lay bound and gagged. Whip cuts marked his back. They’d found him traveling alone that morning, and he’d gotten the breaking treatment as Father called it. He’d cursed, fought, and tried to spit in Pimple’s face. He hadn’t said a word after the whip broke him down.
“Hey.” Father snapped his fingers, and Jari jumped. “Get that look off your face.”
“He looks young,” tried Jari. “He’s probably my age, and he’s banged up. Wouldn’t you want someone in better shape for the client?”
“He’s good enough, and the client doesn’t need them to be in good shape.” Father frowned. “The money I get keeps us fed, and we have a nice savings going.”
Jari had no idea how many Father had snatched on his previous trips. He didn’t want to know either.
“If the Zorians ever do come this way and decide Wockston looks good, we can get the fuck out and go far away.”
Since Father had run with a gang in his youth before he decided to try his hand at settling down, treating people like dirt wasn’t anything new to him. Jari didn’t know the details about Father’s earlier life and didn’t want the details either. He could guess. How Mother had ever gotten with a man like Father was beyond him.
If she were still alive, maybe Father would have stuck with farmwork.
“You need to toughen up,” said Father. “Do you want to sit at home on your arse and do nothing while I do all of the work?”
“No,” replied Jari. It was the only right answer even though he’d been trying to do the farmwork himself for the past few months.
“Do you want to waste your life breaking your back on a chunk of dirt and probably end up poor or starving if you have a couple of bad years?”
Yes. Breaking his back on a farm was better than this. Jari didn’t want to see another man take the whip either. The Wockston had screamed.
Since he couldn’t say his real feelings, he shook his head. He should have run away from home the last time Father was gone out.
Pimple, who had also been with the gang back in the day, hopped out with a box. The other had started a small fire and told Pimple to hurry up because he was hungry. Jari’s appetite had vanished when they caught the Wockston earlier. Father got in the cart and returned with a coiled bullwhip.
“Do your part while we make something to eat. You’re not going to just stand around while we work.”
Jari wanted to drop the whip as soon as it was in his hands. “But-”
“Do it or else. It’ll toughen you up, and a slave needs to know we mean business. Once he’s hurt, he’ll be more compliant because he knows we’ll do it again if he tries anything. You break them right away, and they don’t fuss. The client doesn’t care if they’re marked up.”
A refusal hovered on Jari’s tongue. Saying no to Father was dangerous. He’d blackened his son’s eye for less.
“What if it kills him?” Jari’s heart thudded. “You can’t sell a dead-”
“He’ll survive. Stop your bitching and give him ten cuts. Don’t make me come over there.”
The dangerous glint in Father’s eye made Jari turn. The voices of the men faded behind him as he drew closer to the captive who hadn’t moved and only stared at the ground.
Father had made Jari practice with the whip, but he hadn’t used it on anything living yet. How was he supposed to beat a fellow fairy who had done nothing wrong?
It would have been better if the poor guy had died out there before they found him.
The prisoner didn’t move until Jari was about ten feet away, and he slowly turned his head to see with his remaining left eye. Jari paused with the dark blue focused on him and thought about cutting the rope again. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. He couldn’t look and remember this was a living, breathing fairy. Disobeying Father always had consequences.
As he moved around to get behind, the captive whispered two words in a cracked voice.
“Help me.”
Jari’s hand started to shake as he uncoiled the whip, and the words stabbed his chest. If he could…He didn’t dare look, but he was sure Father was watching him from the cart. The plea repeated in his head as the tail of the whip slithered through the leaves. The captive couldn’t run in his state, and Jari wouldn’t be able to carry him.
There was no way out for either of them.
The prisoner didn’t make another sound when the whip first landed on his back. Jari thought he would puke as the bloodied cut appeared. No more pleas came from the captive. Jari tried not to listen to the crack of the leather on the man’s thin back, but it was impossible, just like when he tried not to notice the captive’s shaking.
After the tenth, blood ran down his back from each lash, and he still hadn’t made a sound. Father approached and looked at the prisoner’s face. Whatever he saw didn’t satisfy him even though the man couldn’t stop shivering.
“Are you going to behave? When I ask you a direct question, I expect an answer. Do you understand me?”
Silence.
“Defiant little shit. Jari, give him another ten.”
The prisoner still didn’t scream or make a sound. Maybe the captive remained silent by going elsewhere in his head. Maybe he bit his tongue and tasted his own blood while more blossomed on his back.
The last lash finally made him sag from the rope, and Father, standing to the side, held up a hand and approached. When he grabbed a handful of the man’s hair to lift his head and let it drop, he didn’t move.
Thank Elira, the captive passed out. A brief reprieve. Or maybe he’d died. Jari wanted to throw up again at the sight of the lashes.
Father felt the captive’s neck and must have detected a pulse. “I’ll cut him down and put him in the cart. Go help with the food.”
