Goda's Slave (Lesbian, Dystopia, LGBT Fantasy)

Chapter 21: Freedom

The thunder that followed nearly drowned out the last edges of Goda's words. It shook the ground and vibrated against the sides of the well, sending shock waves through Kanna's bones, rattling her joints and making it hard for her to keep propping herself up. Even with the rain dropping into her eyes, she could not tear her gaze away from the woman who stood over her.

Lightning cracked again through the sky and the metal around Goda's wrist gleamed more brilliantly than before. In response, Kanna pulled her own cuff tight against her chest. She could feel its oppressive edges digging through her soaked robes and into her ribs. She shook her head over and over. She couldn't accept any of it. She shouted up through the rain at Goda, "How? How is that even possible?"

Goda looked at her for a long time. The rain had transformed into freezing pellets, water so sharp and cold that Kanna wondered if they were being showered with tiny hailstones—but Goda did not even shiver against it.

"This cuff," Goda said, running her fingers against the metal on her arm. "It has a battery like yours. If its twin cuff is opened early—if my prisoner escapes or I let her go—then it unloads its charge all at once and I die."

Kanna shuddered in the rain. She could barely move her jaw to speak anymore and the muscles of her face convulsed with the rest of her. "I don't understand." She swallowed some water that had fallen into her mouth. She furrowed her brow and shook her head again. "You're lying! What you're saying just isn't possible. Why would you be a slave? Why would they send a slave to transport another slave? It's ludicrous! It's nonsense!"

"This was the job they gave me—transporting runaway criminals who had fled into the Outerland. It's a job no one wants. It's dangerous. It's very easy to die, and if I try to escape or I tamper with my bonds or I fail to deliver on time, this cuff will end my servitude very quickly."

"What kind of godforsaken country is this? What kind of perverse reality do you people live in?" Kanna shouted. This time she jerked her head towards the sky, as if to catch a glimpse of some deity who could answer her. Instead, another flash of lightning nearly blinded her, another crack of thunder shook the inside of her ears. "If what you say is true, that's not a punishment, that's a walking death sentence!"

"Yes." Goda's voice sounded so calm, so empty of emotion that it chilled Kanna to her core. It was like she was hearing the voice of someone who had already been stiffened by that final shock. "I was convicted of a capital crime when I was sixteen. I was too young to be legally executed, so they gave me a life sentence instead. But they'd prefer if I die. My job is designed to kill me."

The rain made it too hard for Kanna to keep her head up anymore, so she let it hang down, and she pressed her chin against her chest. She felt the water roll in torrents from her hair, to her face, to her neck, to her shoulders, down into every crevice beneath her clothes.

Among the cacophony of thoughts that were bursting through her mind, one memory stood out among the rest. Even then, days later, bruised and numb, she could remember the words as vividly as if she were experiencing them for the first time again.

"You're lucky, anyway," Goda had told her the first night they met. "Your slavery is temporary. What is it, a ten-year sentence? Not everyone is quite so fortunate."

"My father has life."

"Better than death."

Better than death.

Better than death.

Kanna pressed her hands to her face, and felt her tears flowing anew. They were burning hot against the contrast of the freezing rain. They began washing the numbness from her face, but she didn't want it—she wanted to stay numb. There was a pain in her chest that she had never felt before; it was like a splinter in her heart, but it had erupted from the inside.