Two Hundred Years in Slavery is all the people of Xathania have known. Toiling and dying for a kingdom that has only snarled at them. Not until hope surfaces as a story in the wind and the flames of a spirit long forgotten resurfaces to face the g...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The King returned at night fall, no order had been declared to behead her. Perhaps, he intended to have his way with her before discarding her like a piece of worn parchment.
Mother save her.
Son protect her.
Cora had searched the King's quarters for an alternative way out other than the double doors. She searched high and low. Behind lighter furniture. Under rugs. In the book shelves but found nothing. Welkiamia was not arrogant enough to believe that their monarch would never have a reason to flee.
To hide in the shadows.
After the occupation of Xathania, they had only experienced slave uprisings which were settled in mere days or weeks at most. Every slave involved was always found and hung in front of their kin at dawn. She had watched a few of those hangings. Refusing to be present would've led her to be next.
There had been no uprisings in almost fifty years. Most recent hangings had occurred due to desertion or refusing to be violated or beaten. Preaching about rebellion was a far more serious crime which led men and women alike to the gold mines of Zolt. A city in the east of Welkamia where slavery was more bitter than most regions.
She shivered anytime she heard the stories of men working in only feather light clothes and worn out boots. Of women being violated by several men in one night. Those stories had always enraged her and Freya. It had made them angry at all hours of the day but losing Freya had made that anger become her.
She accepted that happiness would not be hers in this life. Perhaps, she would meet Freya and her beloved mother in the Mount of Glory. She accepted that her life would be full of pain and misery. She would mourn more Xathania's, lose more friends before her time was up.
'My mother still insists on you being here?' The King walked past her to a pitcher of water that had been brought in mere minutes before he arrived. Like they knew he was on his way. The King poured some of the liquid into a goblet that bore his sigil, a roaring dragon, before he drank the whole thing.
Mischievous purple eyes met hers.
She straightened her back and squared her shoulders. Looking right at him. His lip twitched upwards but she didn't give into it. The goblet made a dull clinking noise as he placed it back in the tray that it was brought in.
The Dowager Queen had summoned her earlier that day. Despite the cruelty of her late husband and her handmaidens, the old Queen was kind. Had commented on the smudge of purple under Cora's eyes, proof that she had not slept. Had forced her to do so. Afterwards, she was scrubbed and fed in a separate chamber in the Dowager Queen's wing.
She didn't see the Dowager Queen Alexia again as she was taken back to the King's quarters.
He arrived an hour later. Clad in a white tunic and black pants. She had not watched him be prepared for his day. She was left in his private library and that was when she had begun to search for a way out. She could not read. Most slaves couldn't. Maybe that was why she had been put there.
