17
Kaya’s POV.
Two weeks later.
The sun burns my skin, forcing me to wake up and sit up. I am on a spherical-shaped mat, placed directly on the ground, just a few centimeters from the bed.
Raising my face, I see that there’s no one there. I can only fathom a meaning: the triplets didn’t sleep in last night.
It has been two weeks since they released me from that ill-fitting dungeon, where my skin still suffers bumps from the worms in there and the insects.
Anyway, my life has moved from poor to agonizing. Every day that I wake up, I wish I did not. I wish it was death knocking into my ears to wake me up, not the sound of the triplets telling me what I must do for them that morning.
“Why?” I cry into my hands. I change my view to face the rays of the light entering the room. “Why are you doing this to me? Fuck you, universe! Fuck you, nature. Why?!” I try as much as possible not to scream to the top of my lungs like I wish.
I can’t even move my neck well because of muscle cramps, having slept in a ball. There’s no difference from sleeping directly on the cold tiled floor to sleeping on this mat.
It’s all a cycle of punishment that I cannot make sense of.
“You took my family away from me, and now you’re torturing me. For what? Why? Why? I just want to know that. Please, just...please, just tell me. It’s too much. The suffering. My head hurts.” I stare down at my hands, seeing many unhealed cuts there, before I touch the side of my cheek where there are sore wounds as well. Every inch of my skin hurts as if it’s been pierced by one event or another.
And to make matters worse, not only the triplets punish me now. It’s everyone, even the maids. Everyone in the kingdom. I don’t understand why.
They all seem to know my identity as a witch now, and maybe to gain favour from the triplets or so, they treat me like a rag, and the triplets don’t even stand up for me.
“Stand up for me? I must be crazy.” I stand up from the mat and sniffle, feeling sick, but I dare not be sick.
I make my way to the slave’s quarters, catching the attention of these betrayals. Maybe I can understand why the guards and the other royals punish me, but the maids here are literally all eyeing me with filthy eyes, yet they think punishing me as well would be a pain reliever for them...or whatever other reason could they have for treating me even less?
I now shower in the slave quarters, but they’ve all rejected me from using the general ones. Although Melissa, being the head of the maids, has her own private one, she allows me to use it.
If not for her, my situation would be much worse. In the shower, I stand there for some minutes, lost in my thoughts as I drift into darkness, wondering exactly what offense I might have done to the universe.
I mean, anyone could have been in this situation, but why me?
What is being proven here? What happy ending is there?
I see none. Well, maybe I should come to accept that it’s all to make my life a misery. Perhaps some of us don’t deserve a life, so when we have one, we are punished.
After I am done, I go into Melissa’s room. She’s dressed up for the day and raises a brow at me, scanning me for a bit.
“You have a lot of wounds on your body. Did you get into trouble?”
“That’s an unrealistic question. You know my situation, Melissa.” And that’s only true. She and I have been conversing quite often. I could almost see her as a friend, except she’s hard to comprehend.
She’s caring and uncaring at the same time, if that makes sense.
“Well, get treated. I have some food on there; eat before you start another session of pain, all right?” See? She acts caring yet uncaring. Her actions are complicated.
“Thank you.” I say when I see that she’s ready to leave the room to me alone.
I cannot thank her enough. Because of her, I don’t eat just once a day.
“Well, hurry.” She’s about to open the door when I clear my throat, stopping her in her tracks. “Talk...fast.”
“I... I don’t know if I should talk about this with you, but,”
“Then do not. If you’re looking for someone to give you comfort, I will not.”
“You’ve given me enough comfort.” The distance between my brows lessens as I sheepishly raise my gaze at her. “I just...it’s all too much coming from different junctions, different people. Everyone in here is disgusted, and I have come to the conclusion that it gives the brothers some pathetic and psychopathical delight. I want to kill myself, but witches aren’t allowed to kill themselves. It’s taboo. There’s a chance that if I do, I won’t be reconnected with my family and be returned to the earth, and much worse, no one would bury me into the ground, not to talk of my body being under there forever.”
I finish in silence, with Melissa not saying anything. She opens the door, and stopping at the threshold, she speaks. “I have some plans. Try not to die yet. You don’t want to go to hell anyway.”
“Uh?”
“You did have a lot of spirit when you arrived here, talking about escaping and shits like that, so don’t die yet.” And she disappears.
What plans?
Oh, fuck, is she planning to escape?
My head hurts from the imagination, and I shake it off. Not long after, I dressed up in a simple black gown that Melissa gifted me. I don’t have anything to call my own here.
I am smiling, thinking about whatever plans Melissa has when it all washes down the gutter at someone hitting me on the shoulder with theirs as they pass by.
“The triplets have been asking for you for... about an hour or so now. They asked me to call you, but oh, I forgot.” Comments the maid in front of me, having stopped to be sarcastic.
I flare my eyes in distress, my heart already quickening, fear gripping me in shackles, and I just run without even asking her for more information.
“There’s a guard waiting for you outside.” Her voice rises, so I can hear.
Please, I don’t want to be punished again for the offense of being late when it’s not even my fault.
I’m suddenly swooned off of my feet by a strong hand, and I whelp on the air when I see that it is the guard the maid mentioned.
“You piece of garbage, how dare you keep me waiting?” He says then throws me down onto the ground. Quickly, I pick myself up and apologize.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t receive the information soon.”
“What the fuck is this thing spilling?” He stretches his hand to hit me, making me press my lips together as I was ready for another shot of pain, but it didn’t come. “You should have seen your face.” Oh, he’s having fun scaring me now?
At least, I’m glad that he didn’t hit me.
“Now, walk.” Immediately after he orders, I stand up and start to walk. My left leg hurt from the strength with which he hit me to the ground earlier, so I slowed down a little, and before I knew it, he kicked me in the back, hitting directly at my spinal cord.
Pain shoots out of me, shattering every will that I have inside not to show a reaction, but I just can’t help it. Laughing at my discomfort, he waits for me to stand up again.
“Walk properly, or I’d do more.” I dare not hurry in my walk, regardless of my back screaming at me to take a rest or my feet wailing for some balmy massage session.
When the guard shoves me into the room, I quickly bury my head earthward. “Masters, you call for me.”
“Get us some coffee.” My ears pick on Kieran’s order, and quickly, I nod my head, going to the coffee machine to pour them coffee.
“... combat yet. That alone is fishy. Something is up, and we must find that out.” I hear Kade speak to someone.
I’m passing the coffee to each person’s front and notice that there are two other faces in the room that I haven’t seen before. They look like butlers, sending chills down my spine at their stoic expressions.
Something is off in this room—a tension that I cannot understand.