Reluctant Concubine Read Online Free

kicked me.
    Blinding pain seared through my head; then I heard the crack of my own skull as I bounced against the doorframe. I saw nothing but darkness, hearing her screech from far away as she called for her servants.
    Rough hands closed around my ankles. My mind floated as if in a dream. They dragged me over the cold stone floor for hours, it seemed…
    Then blessed darkness and peace.
    I awoke on a pallet in a cavernous room that spun around me for a several nauseating moments. I closed my eyes. Opened them again. The walls settled.
    Moonlight peeked in through rows of small holes high up near the ceiling—nine rows, hundreds of fist-sized holes in each, most covered in glass. Braziers stood against the wall here and there, coal glowing in them, pushing off heat. But still, goose bumps covered my skin.
    Silence filled the room, barely ruffled by the delicate sounds of shallow breathing. Dozens of girls slept on the other pallets on the floor around mine—all younger than I.
    I sat up. Pain throbbed through my body, my forehead aching the most, worse than when I had fallen from a numaba tree on my first climb. I lifted my fingers to my temple, and they came away sticky with blood.
    I could not see any water jars in the room, so I grabbed the hem of my tunic and used my own spit to clean the wound, then dabbed a few drops of moonflower tears into the gash.
    My legs folded as I pushed to stand, so I stayed on my hands and knees. My whole body shook, but I crawled among the sleeping girls, toward the giant door that stood an eternity away.
    When I reached the door at last, I pushed against it gently, then a little harder, then with all my strength. The wooden panel refused me freedom with no more apology than a soft creak.
    I sank against it and thought for a long time about my mother, our hillside, and the numaba trees. Then I crawled back to my bed of rags and cried myself to sleep.
    * * *
    Morning came too fast for night to have sufficiently eased the pain. The little windows showed only a dim light outside when a smaller door on the other end of the room, one I had not seen in the dark, flew open and banged against the wall.
    The woman who had bought me strolled in, dressed in an embroidered red silk gown, followed by two servant women with torches. She gazed over the neat rows of girls as they stood with their heads bowed, then she walked to the middle of the room.
    I rose to my knees but could not push all the way to standing. My body swayed from the effort; the light in the room seemed to dim. A small hand clamped on my arm and tugged me up, and even as I struggled to stand, the rows of girls before me parted like saplings bowing to the wind. Then that richly embroidered gown came into view, the color of fresh-spilled blood.
    I lifted my gaze, finding neither recognition nor emotion in the woman’s eyes, not even when my knees buckled and I fell at her feet.
    “You may take this morning to heal yourself.” Her voice was cold and clipped. She turned to the girl who had helped me. “You stay with her and prepare yourself for tonight.”
    All the color washed out of the girl’s face as she bent her head even deeper. Faint whispers rippled through the room. Without another look at me, the woman gave instructions to the others, designating a myriad of chores with practiced ease.
    Once she moved away, I could no longer hear her, her voice drowned by the rushing blood in my ears that sounded like waves crashing against the shore. The room began spinning again. I closed my eyes to stop it. When I opened them, the room stood empty, except for myself and the girl on the next pallet. Her shoulders shook as she cried, but then she caught me watching, and she wiped her eyes.
    “I am Onra.” She swallowed the last sob. “Does your wound hurt?”
    She had kind, water-colored eyes, reminding me of the sea at the inlet not far from our beach, the place where Jarim fished. Her hair, several shades lighter than mine, fell down