Chained To Him [Editing]

Chapter Twenty-Two

When she opened her eyes, her cheeks were still wet with tears. Aylah's fingers loosened their grip around her arm, and Jayde looked up from where she sat nearby with a furrowed brow.

"You were dreaming," she whispered, and Jayde closed her eyes again, trying to conjure the feeling of Luc's arms around her once more. But the images were gone, slipping back to the recesses of her mind as the reality of the dark room took hold.

"Is it morning?" Jayde sat up, pushing a few strands of sweaty hair away from her face. Perhaps it was a nightmare; she couldn't remember. But if Luc was there it couldn't have been so bad.

"Nearly. Come with me."

She followed silently from the room, careful to step between the women sleeping soundly on their mats. Aylah brought her to their usual place among the cushions, and Jayde instinctively held one of the soft, beaded pillows to her chest. The realization that the morning was nearly upon them struck her suddenly, causing her head to swim. Tomorrow morning, she would wake up as one of Greywood's girls, or she would lose the first shred of hope she'd had in some time.

"Do you feel ready?"

"As I'll ever be." Jayde tried to offer a reassuring smile, but she lacked enough assurance herself to ease Aylah's worry.

The other woman took her hand and squeezed, smiling through the worry that showed plainly on her face. "I will be thinking of you while you're gone. I wish that I could go with you when you dance and offer my strength. I asked Maigi if I might attend, but she won't allow it."

"What if he won't have me?"

"There is no use in worrying about that yet. There will be plenty of time tomorrow."

"And what if he will have me?"

Aylah's smile faded, and she squeezed her hand again. "Then you can start your worrying a little sooner."

Aylah had told her enough about the man. He was easy on the other girls as long as they obeyed him, but the history of his enemies was written in their blood. Aésadel wasn't the first city he conquered and enslaved. Luther wasn't the first rebel that he tortured. Their lives were merely fraying threads on the tapestry of his conquests. Even if Jayde managed to catch his eye, a single misstep around him would be fatal. Aésadel was conquered once before after Aragon had taken it, and Greywood would be sure to not repeat the mistakes of his predecessor.

Somewhere deep inside of her, Jayde felt the urge to curl inward and stop fighting, to give into what her life had become and live quietly as a concubine, or perhaps to simply kill herself. But each moment of her suffering, of Luther's torture, of her years of grief and her city's mourning, had been created by the Empire – by Aragon and Greywood – and she would not give up the opportunity to make them pay for it.

"Jayde?" Aylah reached to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and Jayde felt her heart tug at the sight of the other woman. She wouldn't let her down. Aylah had a life to live outside of this palace and beyond the hold of the Empire.

"Today everything changes," Jayde whispered, and she felt a rare, genuine smile reach her lips. Aylah smiled back, and the fire that burned in her eyes was the same that Jayde now felt inside her chest.

* * * * *

Aylah wrapped the sage green sash around Jayde's waist, just tight enough to stay in place, but loose enough that it would move easily when she danced. Each woman to be shown to Greywood wore a similar loose white gown held in place by their own uniquely colored sash. It was a strange practice, to reduce all of them to puppets in white dresses, and then adorn them with a distinguishing color. It made her feel like an object; but then, that was how she was to act today, and her feelings on the matter were beside the point.