Surelin’s arms and legs were crossed, and she was staring down at the carpet by her feet when Gideon turned away from the door towards her. He gave her an expectant look, waiting for her to say something, but she refused to look up at him.

An exasperated sigh erupted from him. “Alright. What the hell happened?”

She was slow to respond, and her gaze remained locked onto the carpet.

“Please put your clothing back on. I can’t look at you when you’re dressed like that.”

“This is my fucking room!” he immediately shouted.

“I don’t care!” she shouted back. “I can’t talk to you when you’re almost nude!”

“I’m not—”

Gideon gave up mid sentence and stormed into the bathroom, muttering to himself as he slammed the door shut. He stripped out of his bathrobe and threw it fiercely at the couch. When he grabbed his clothing off the countertop, his nose wrinkled. It smelled like it hadn’t been washed in two months.

As he put it all back on, he thought to himself absently.

After she’s dealt with, I’ll go down to the forum and get something to eat. And I’ll buy some new clothes, too. That’ll be a better use of my money than this fucking room was.

Once he was done, he walked out of the bathroom and approached the couch opposite from Surelin. She watched as he grabbed two of the sacks that were resting on the couch and dropped them on top of the others, clearing a space to sit.

He sat down heavily, and rested his arm on the pile of sacks next to him, bringing his right leg up to rest on his opposite knee. After getting comfortable, he gave Surelin a dismissive wave.

“Oh, should I have asked for your permission to sit down, first? I keep forgetting I’m in the presence of royalty.”

“I’m surprised you sat down at all,” she replied coldly. “You spend all your time hurting people or screaming at them. Relaxing doesn’t seem like something that comes naturally to you.”

“You’re funny. Now why don’t you explain what happened, so I can figure out a way to get you out of my hair.”

“How obtuse can you possibly be? Do you really need something so obvious explained to you?”

She leaned forward, towards him. “They stopped me in the lobby because I’m a woman. And a Forelian. They automatically assumed I was lying when I told them you let me go. Freeing a slave is completely unthinkable for the Kenanites.”

Contempt spread across her face as she leaned back. “Is that plain enough for you? Is there anything else you need me to parse on your behalf?”

“Hey, what’s your fucking problem?" he asked angrily. "Can’t you show me even a little bit of gratitude? It’s twice now I’ve saved your ass in the last couple of hours, and all you’ve done in the meantime is shit talk me!”

Surelin looked dead serious. “Do you really want to know what my problem is? I’ll tell you, since you don’t seem intelligent enough to understand your role in the complete annihilation of my life.”

“Oh, go on, then," he scoffed. "I can’t wait to hear all about how I’ve done something wrong to you. The guy who just saved your ungrateful ass for the second time in a row. Sure, and why don’t you tell me about everything else I’ve ever done wrong in my life, too, since you’re so fucking smart. Go ahead! I’m all ears.”

“I'm more than happy to tell you. I’ll tell you why I’m sitting here, in this repellent, gaudy room, hundreds of miles from my home and what’s left of my family. Talking with the most ill-mannered, tiresome, and dull-witted man who has ever lived.”

She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

“Six months ago—”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

“Six months ago!” she shrieked. “The Kenanites marched into our lands from the East. Their army was huge, at least twice as large as ours, and the first thing they did was occupy the roads and highways leading into the city. They cut us off from the outside world and attacked our outlying villages. Then they sent refugees fleeing towards the city. It slowed our response. My father decided to surrender the countryside, and we brought everyone we could into the city to wait for the siege.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

She frowned deeply at Gideon. “You were there with them, weren’t you? You were part of their army.”

He frowned back, nodding.

A look of utter loathing crossed her face before she continued.

“My father settled us in for a siege. We planned to wait for the Kenanites to run out of food, and then we’d sally out to defeat their starving forces if they didn’t turn tail on their own.”

“For four months we languished within the walls. Fifty thousand people, plus thousands of refugees from the countryside. We ate through six months of food in less than three. By the end, we were starving.”

“Really? Even you?” he asked dubiously.

“Of course!” she snapped. “Do you think I can just make food appear at will?”

“Dunno," he sneered back. "Can you?”

She seethed with anger, but let the comment go. “The whole city was starving. Our elderly and youngest died first. More died, dozens each day. We ate everything remotely edible in the city. All of us were weak with hunger, but the Kenanites showed no signs of weakness.”

She waited for him to explain.

“What? What do you want me to say?” he said impatiently. “Do you really think food for the whole army was my responsibility? All I know is there was food in the camp. I didn’t starve, and no one else I knew did either.”

“Yes, of course you didn’t,” she said bitterly. “You aren’t Forelian, or a Kenanite. You’re a hired blade. Someone who kills people for money.”

He simply stared at her, unmoved.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t know for sure what happened next. There were rumors that a traitor raised the southern gate and let the Kenanites in. What I do know is my mother and father were both in the area at the time. They died when the Kenanites burned the southern bastion to the ground.”

Uneasiness began to pool in Gideon’s belly as she continued.

“We tried to escape from the palace, but the Kenanites were in the streets. The guards split us up. My brother went with his guards. They wouldn’t tell me where. We went into the cellar, to a hiding spot I’d never seen before.”

“They found us. Me. Raped me. Took me to their king.”

She looked away from Gideon, down towards the carpet by her feet. Her arms were still crossed across her chest, and he watched as her hands curled into tight fists against her sides.

“It was like being a toy. A doll he would pretty up and play with whenever he felt like. I wasn’t the only one he had, but I was the one he favored the most.”

She paused again to gather her thoughts. Gideon moved his leg off his knee. His anger was fading quickly, replaced by growing horror.

When she was ready, she looked back up at him. Traces of the apathy he’d seen on her face in the arena had returned.

“Two months passed, but it felt like two decades. The days were unbearably slow. My only escape was sleep. I had very vivid dreams, most of the time about my grandmother. Oftentimes they were nightmares, but it was still better than being awake. I could be somewhere else for a few hours. Sleep was the only thing I had to look forward to.”

She blinked slowly. “Eventually, he grew bored of me. He decided to give me away as a prize to whichever of his confidants won his favor at the tournament. Then you came along.”

Another pause. “That crazy man you fought. Did you have something to do with him?”

“No," he said, shaking his head. "I don’t know what that was about.”

“I see,” she said tersely.

Her expression hardened into a glare. “You asked for me as your boon, and he agreed because the idea of giving me to a feral foreigner amused him. I expected nothing but the worst from you, but the very first thing you said to me gave me a little bit of hope.”

She uncrossed her left arm and pointed at the sacks under Gideon’s arm.

“Then you forced me to carry that sack for you. For miles.”

Her arm returned to its crossed position across her chest. “You used me to carry your money until we got here, and only then did you declare that you did not want a slave. And you were cruel with your words to me the entire time. Vile. Despicable. Hateful.”

“And now you want my gratitude.”

She scoffed quietly and shook her head.

Gideon sounded defensive. “Oh sure, I should have freed you then and there, right in front of the king and all those other Kenanites. That definitely wouldn’t have led to you being immediately recaptured.”

“You could have done it at any point after we left the arena!” she shouted. “But you didn’t! You used me! Don’t you dare try to deny that!”

He opened his mouth to speak, but then shut it.

She’s right.

“Alright,” he said bitterly. “You’re right. I did use you. I’m sorry.”

Surelin looked like she had more to say, but stopped herself. She blinked several times.

“...That’s the first time anyone has apologized to me in months.”

They looked away from each other, and Gideon felt as though the new silence in the room was needling him. It was hard to let go of his anger, and harder still to accept that he’d given her valid reasons for her hostility.

He looked back at her. She was looking out the window.

“I didn’t fight any Forelians.”

Her gaze returned to him, waiting for him to continue.

“During the siege, or before. I didn’t fight any of your people. None of the Singing Blades did. They kept us in reserve.”

She processed his statement for a moment. “...But you would have. You would have fought if you were told to.”

“I—” he began, then stopped himself. He wanted to deny it, but she was right. Again.

He let out a defeated sigh, and nodded. “Yeah. Yes, I probably would have.”

Anger began to spread across her face, but then exhaustion supplanted it.

“...It doesn’t matter either way. Your mere presence outside of the walls was enough. Starvation was what destroyed us.”

Gideon brought his hands into his lap and stared down at his boots. He’d done many things he wasn’t proud of, but he’d never been forced to confront them so directly before. It felt like a black void had opened within him—a void he was slowly being drawn into. One that would eventually destroy him.

He wasn’t responsible for everything that had happened to her, but the fact that he’d contributed to the suffering she'd just entailed was unbearable.

They made eye contact when he looked up from his boots.

“Surelin,” he said, “do you want to get something to eat?”