The damp rhythm of the mop against the stone felt like a ticking clock. I kept my head down, but my eyes were constantly darting, mapping every shadow and guard rotation. Beside me, Joy moved with a practiced, weary grace, her golden tail twitching occasionally as she scrubbed the footprints left by those thugs.
"You're too quiet tonight, Clara, I know those bastards are cruel, but don't let them steal your spirit. Think of the little ones waiting for you." Joy whispered, her voice barely audible over the slosh of water.
"I'm trying, I just... I have a lot on my mind."
I moved toward the far end of the hallway, using the pretense of cleaning a stubborn stain to get a clear line of sight through the high, arched window. My heart sank.
"Oh, you got to be kidding me."
The side-gate lever was positioned in a stone alcove across the courtyard. Two bandits, larger and better armed than the ones from before were seated at a small crate, hunched over a game of chess. Their heavy crossbows were propped against the lever itself.
Approaching them now would be an execution.
I leaned toward my shoulder, whispering into the hidden earpiece.
"Mochi, the lever is heavily guarded. Two targets, playing chess. They're literally leaning on the mechanism. What's the play?"
Static buzzed in my ear, followed by Mochi's tense voice.
"Wait for a distraction or a shift change. If you move now, they'll…"
The connection died instantly as a shadow fell over me. I jumped, nearly dropping the mop as Joy appeared at my side, holding the empty bucket.
"I'm done with my section! Come on, Clara. Put the mop away, the head housekeeper signaled for dinner. If we're late to the mess hall, we won't get a scrap of food, and you need your strength."
I looked back at the lever, then at Joy's kind, unsuspecting face. If I refused, it would look suspicious. In a fortress run by the Bronze Coin, suspicious was a death sentence.
"Umm... I'm not really hungry today, Joy," I whispered
Joy stopped dead in her tracks. Her golden ears flattened against her head, and her amber eyes narrowed with a piercing, localized suspicion.
"But Clara... you're always hungry. You're the one who licks the plates clean so not a single drop of grease goes to waste. And your basket? You never come to dinner without it so you can sneak the scraps back to the slums for the little ones. Did you forget them, too?"
The weight of Clara's poverty hit me like a physical blow. She was a scavenger, a mother who traded her dignity for the crusts of her oppressors. Joy's suspicion was a blade at my throat.
"Actually, my tummy just gave a growl. Must be the nerves. Let's eat."
I followed her, my heart hammering against my ribs. We bypassed the main hall where the Bronze Coin mercenaries sat, feasting on roasted meats and shouting over flagons of stolen ale. Joy led me toward a small, reinforced wooden door at the back of the kitchens.
"The maids and the debt-laborers eat here," she said quietly.
When the door creaked open, the stench hit me first, a revolting cocktail of ammonia, sour rot, and the metallic tang of old blood. This wasn't a dining room, it was a converted stable, dim and damp. In the center of the room sat the manger.
"Holy shit ." Plasma muttered
"Goodness gracious Plasma, what on earth was that."
"It was a mix of leftover foods that was dumped in the manger, it was a mix of several discarded foods and saliva. It'll be a discerning taste."
"Eww… disgusting."
It was a long, grime-crusted stone trough, stained dark by years of neglect. Into this trough, the bandits' kitchen hands dumped the refuse of the manor.
I watched in horrified silence as a large bucket of slop was upended. It was a nightmare of discarded waste: grey, water-logged bread crusts, gristle-heavy bones stripped of meat, wilted vegetable peels covered in a film of black mold, and the congealed, gelatinous remains of soups that had sat out for days.
The most disturbing part was the sound, the wet, heavy thud of the refuse hitting the trough, followed by the frantic, rhythmic scraping of wooden bowls against stone.
The maids and slaves didn't hesitate. There were no utensils. I watched a young boy, no older than ten, plunge his skeletal hands into the grey slurry to fish out a piece of gristle. They scooped the foul, lukewarm mixture into their bowls with a desperation that bypassed disgust.
Joy stepped forward, her l flat and hollowed out, as if her soul had left her body to allow her stomach to survive.
She reached in, her golden fur staining with the oily, grey liquid as she scooped a portion into her bowl.
"Better eat fast, Clara! The night shift is long."
I stood there, my hand trembling as I held my own wooden bowl. The sight of a floating, half-decayed onion skin bobbing in a pool of rancid fat made my stomach turn a violent somersault. The hero had seen battlefields and gore, but this, the systematic stripping of human dignity through a stone trough, was a different kind of horror.
I felt Joy's eyes on me, watching for any sign that I wasn't the Clara she knew. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat, closed my eyes, and reached toward the manger.
"Roxy, get a grip! Fifteen minutes. Do what you have to do to stay in that room. If you puke now, the guards will know you're not one of them. Eat the rot, or die in it." Mochi's voice crackled through the earpiece, cold and distant.
I dipped my hand into the cold, slimy mess, the texture slick and repulsive against my borrowed skin. I was no longer a warrior. I was Clara Becker, scavenger of the Bronze Coin, feeding on the remains of the men I was sworn to kill.
I scooped the foul slurry into my bowl, my knuckles white, while the shadows of the manor seemed to laugh at the girl who had thought she was a hero.
I forced my hand to stay steady as I lifted the wooden spoon to my mouth. The slop was cold, a viscous mixture of textures that should never have shared a bowl. I could feel the grit of dirt and the sour tang of spoilage hitting my tongue, but I didn't flinch. I had survived the Blood Curse and the loss of my home, I could survive a bowl of refuse.
I chewed the rubbery gristle and swallowed, my throat constricting in a brief, silent protest before I forced it down. To my side, Joy was watching me with an intensity that made my skin crawl. She was looking for a crack in the mask, a sign that the Clara she knew had finally broken.
I looked up, wiped a stray drop of grey liquid from my lip, and gave her a thumbs-up. I even forced a small, tired smile to my face.
"Best batch yet, the remaining scraps in my bowl... they'll be a feast for the kids tonight. They've been asking for meat for weeks." I lied, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.
A wave of genuine nausea hit me then, but not from the food. It was the crushing realization of Clara's reality. Those five children in the slums weren't just waiting for their mother, they were waiting for this, for the discarded trash of the men who had enslaved their city. I was playing a part, but for Clara and her children, this horror was their only "normal."
Joy's eyes softened, her suspicion melting into a weary, shared grief. She didn't smile, there was no joy left in a woman who ate from a manger, but she nodded in understanding.
"At least they'll sleep with full bellies tonight, well, dinner time is finished. The guards will be looking for us. Back to the hallways, Clara. We have to finish the West Wing before the midnight bell."
She walked toward the door, her shoulders slumped under the weight of her servitude. To her, it was just Tuesday.
As I followed her out, the earpiece crackled. It was Harold this time, his voice sharp and focused.
"Roxy, I've been tracking the guards at the side-gate lever. They're getting sluggish after their own meal. One of them just stood up to stretch. The chess game is almost over. You have ten minutes until the moon hits the shadow of the Minting District. Get into position."
"Understood,"
I whispered, clutching the wooden bowl that I now had to carry as part of my disguise.
I broke away from Joy at the next junction, claiming I needed to dump my wash bucket. Instead, I ducked into the shadows of the outer corridor, my eyes fixed on the courtyard. The air was getting colder, and the hero was finally starting to wake up beneath the skin of the starving maid.
The time for chores was over. The time for the lever and the blood that would follow had arrived.