Master of Bones | The Royal Legacies Series

| 𝖕𝖗𝖊𝖈𝖎𝖕𝖎𝖙𝖔𝖚𝖘 |

𝖕𝖗𝖊𝖈𝖎𝖕𝖎𝖙𝖔𝖚𝖘 |𝖆𝖉𝖏| (𝖔𝖋 𝖆 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊 𝖙𝖔 𝖆 𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖘𝖊 𝖘𝖎𝖙𝖚𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖔𝖗 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖉𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓) 𝖘𝖚𝖉𝖉𝖊𝖓 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖉𝖗𝖆𝖒𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖈

The laughter ran through her ears. That's all she could remember. The laughter was loud, it echoed in her ears and bounced around. Even when they weren't laughing at her it felt like they were.

The punches. The pain. The random objects that were thrown at her. It hurt at first but then she realized it wouldn't stop. So she stopped caring about it.

One time she remembered hearing a man chuckle and pick up something. She caught it in her hand. Surprise ran through everyone in the town. That was her biggest mistake: standing up for herself. It only got worse.

At a young age, it was a bit different. For the first few years of her life, she was fine. That was until her mother was murdered. Her father tried his best in teaching her but the alcohol took him too. Even when he was alive it seemed like he was barely there even if he was right next to her.

He was distant. Then he was gone. A nine-year-old burying their father wasn't uncommon but she was different. She had no one to go to.

It was funny. An older man walked up to her and offered her a place to stay. It was almost tempting but she knew who he was. Her father might have been a bad man, but he knew the even worse men around town.

Rhish looked at him. He was greasy and looked like he didn't bathe in months. A putrid smell seemed to follow him around, "I'm fine."

He squinted, "You'd make a lot of money."

Yeah, she knew she would. The only price for that was her dignity and childhood.

It started there. A nine-year-old, not even double digits yet, is being asked to be a prostitute. Not that it surprised her. A lot of men liked little girls. But she couldn't say that older women didn't go after younger boys either.

"I'd rather die."

And she walked away. Her parents were gone and that was only the start of the terror. She could hear him growl under his breath. But she wasn't going to stoop that low.

At first, people pitied her until they found out her mother really killed herself. It wasn't murder. Only a way to cover it up. To them, it was the greatest sin. And since the mother wasn't alive they'd do it to the child.

She'd be picked on lightly at first. The boys would make jokes about her being an orphan and it affected her at first. The girl would go to adults but they'd only look at her and tell her, "Well, dear, they're not wrong."

That was when she knew no one was going to save her. Rhish knew it was time to make something of herself. So she worked odd jobs, made enough to live, and put herself through a decent education.

But then it only got worse. The younger woman made it her mission to train. The men who she worked under didn't seem to care as long as they were getting paid. An amazing warrior she became by the time she was eighteen.

Yet, what made people fear her was her features. When she was smaller a young boy threw a rock at her face, making a rather large scar over her nose. Her nose was already slightly offset from getting punched in the face sometime in her teen years.

To humans, being out of the ordinary was something frowned upon. From not being able to have a stable parent figure in her life, she didn't care about much of her dress. Trousers and a tunic were easier to move around in any way.