"Not all cages have locks.Some are built with fear.Some, with love."— Ella the Silvertongued Princess
Bartender.
The sky outside the pub had bruised to deep purple by the time I finished serving the two drunken fools at the corner table.Loud. Reckless. Talking too freely about robbing the Aviary.
Idiots.
When the moon was high, I called my son over and pointed."Drag them upstairs," I grunted. "Throw them in the blonde's room. Let the paying guest sort them out tomorrow."
The heavy thump of their boots and slurred curses followed as they were hauled up the creaking steps.
I wiped down the bar, shaking my head.Fools never lasted long in this city.
--
Dove.
My broken leg throbbed with every step as I dragged my mop and bucket across the sticky floors.Raven's absence carved a hollow place inside my chest that no amount of work could fill.
Her memory was a second skin now. Tight. Smothering.
Tonight, the madame was hosting one of her worst spectacles — The Lion and the Leper.A brutal play. A ritual humiliation dressed up as art.
Phoenix — the girl with the wild red hair and golden eyes — had been chosen to play the leper.Of course she had.It was always the beautiful ones. The ones who refused to break properly.
I remembered seeing her costume earlier: nothing but sheer silk, gold cords tight against bare skin.A lamb dressed for slaughter.
I caught her looking at me once, when I passed too close.Her golden eyes had burned with contempt so raw it made me flinch.
No words.No accusations.Just a glance sharp enough to bleed me dry.
The mark on her thumb — the brand of the Mat'ar — was burned deep into her skin. A wound my ancestors had helped carve.I hated it.Hated what it made me in her eyes.
I hated that she was right. She was justified.
The music started above: sharp, eager, obscene.
I left my mop and bucket tucked by the stairs and slipped into the shadows at the back of the great hall.Curiosity a noose tightening around my neck.
Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as the others whispered.Maybe.
It was worse.
Phoenix knelt in the centre of the stage, her flame-bright hair cascading over trembling shoulders.The brute chosen to play the lion towered over her, his face twisted into a sneer.
He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her down, pressing his face between her thighs.The crowd howled approval — a noise thick and animal.
Phoenix moaned — practiced, mechanical — her body obeying, her face cold as carved stone.There was no life in her eyes.Only the kind of hatred that outlasts kingdoms.
She caught my gaze across the room.And the weight of it nearly drove me to my knees.
The monster sucking at her core undid his decorative loinskin, his erect cock bouncing freely. He pressed her down into the stage, throwing apart her legs with fervour as the patrons nearby pressed themselves closer. He thrust himself deeply inside of her, his body's ricochet echoing throughout the room but her eyes never left mine.
You did this, her stare said. Your people. Your blood. Your cowardice.
I turned to flee, shame burning my skin.
Too slow.
A massive hand clamped around my throat and slammed me against the wall hard enough to rattle my teeth.
"And who might this little kitten be?" the man snarled, his breath sour and hot against my cheek.
I clawed at his hand, panic flooding my veins, but he only laughed — drunk on the scent of fear.
His knee wedged between my legs, pinning me in place.
"D-Dove," I gasped. "Please — I'm not for sale. Call the madame—"
He grinned, yellow teeth flashing."All the birds are for sale here, little Dove," he hissed, voice dripping with malice.
He ripped my blouse open, the fabric tearing like paper.
Pain followed — sharp and humiliating — as he latched onto my breast, sucking viciously, marking me like an animal.
I writhed, fought, sobbed, but it only seemed to excite him.
He shoved a hand beneath my skirt, rough fingers forcing their way between my legs.Rubbing, probing, humiliating. He relishes pressing a thick finger inside of me, groaning into my breast, "Fuck your cunt is so tight, I'm going to fill it with my big thick cock. You'd like that wouldn't you, you dirty little whore."
After a few minutes he pulls his fingers out from inside to lick them clean in front of my face, like a snack he'd intended to devour whole. A moray eel with his fangs fully latched into his pound of flesh.
"You want it," he whispered against my ear, grinding his erection against my thigh."Your pretty little body knows."
I sobbed, shaking my head violently that I didn't. His fingers slipped back down, touching me again against my own will.
A moment later he thrust his slick fingers into my mouth, forcing me to taste my own betrayal.Salt and shame choked me.
He fumbled with his belt, freeing himself — his cock an obscene, jutting thing — and used the strap to bind my hands.Tight. Brutal.
He pressed the thick head of himself against me, testing, savouring my helplessness.
And when he bent to strip his pants fully, rage ignited inside me.A white-hot blaze.Brighter than fear.Brighter than pain.
I kneed him in the face.
The crunch of bone breaking was the sweetest sound I'd ever heard.
Blood spattered my dress as he howled.
I ran — stumbling, half-blind — but he was faster, even wounded.
He swung wildly, his heavy fist catching the back of my head.
The world tipped sideways.
I crashed down the basement stairs, agony exploding through my body.
Dazed, bleeding, hands bound, I crawled.Memory guided me — the whisper, the loose stone.
My trembling fingers found the hidden groove.Pushed.
The wall groaned open.
I dragged myself inside, dragging the mop and bucket with me out of some stupid, desperate instinct.The hidden door clicked shut just as the monster's boots stomped into the basement.
I pressed myself against the cool stone, heart pounding so violently I thought it might betray me.
In the darkness, the world shrank to blood and dust and terror.
I tasted it on my tongue.
I was alive.
For now.
A low, awful sound crawled up my throat — half sob, half laugh.
I would not die here.
I would not be their broken bird.
Not yet.
Not ever.