1st Draft Fridays - A Fistful of Air: Book #5, Chronicles of Marsdenfel

Year 234 in Grehafen, as spring turns to summer - post 2

Fear wakes me again, as I realize I don't feel my daughter beside me.

"She's here," my husband says, softly enough to avoid panicking the other women. Male though he is, he's never been cruel, and he's made sure to avoid even making demands since Darnell enslaved us all.

Since even my own half-brother uses me, their queen, as his whore, my subjects don't have hope of avoiding that, either. I don't know if it's a mercy or a curse that only the women are used that way, with the children and men either used for labor or killed. Onlé knows what's coming for her. All the girls do.

I wonder, sometimes, how they don't all slit their throats. It would be kinder than what awaits them, when they come of age.

Most are old enough to remember life without Darnell, but if Evonalé is to free us... That will be a generation that knows nothing else than this slavery and abuse.

My daughter whimpers oh-so-quietly for breakfast, already aware of the dangers of attracting attention.

Her generation already doesn't know anything else.

The weak cry and limited movement could be malnutrition, perhaps, since I still provide most of her food, and humans need more sustenance than elves—but there's nothing I can do for that. I can only feed her what I'm able to and pray to the Creator that it's enough.

May it be enough.