Page 38 of Born for Silk
I widen my stance, making the mass of my body even larger. “You visited Kong and pressed me for an heir. I now have two new Silk Girls. A random selection. I don’t seek anything outside of an heir. They will do fine.”
He lifts his gaze once more, eyes hitting me hard. “You will choose one, then, Sire?”
He wanted this. He’s desperate for the entire set of five to have Meaningful Purpose, a complete house. But I’ve never been a willing part of The Trade’s chessboard, a piece placed just so. The king. The queen. The pawns.
“Who has the most power in the game of chess?” Kong asks me the day before my eighteenth birthday.
“The king,” I answer, moving the pawn ahead of my favourite piece to give him an opening. I like moving the king around the board. He is the largest piece and that is my misguided priority.
“Why?” Kong moves his pawn.
“The entire game is about him.”
“So he is important,” he agrees, “certainly. But is he the most powerful? What about the queen?” He slides his queen out on a diagonal to target my king. “Why not her? She can move as many squares as she wishes, in all directions.”
Annoyed at the thought, I look at the girl who I am sure is my little sister, sitting cross-legged a few feet away and playing porcelain dolls with her Sired Mother. “She is not being chased. That’s why she’s got more freedom to move. Nah. Not the queen. The game continues without her.”
“True. But you’re still wrong. Try again.”
“I don’t know, Kong. This is stupid.”
“The player, boy. The player has the power.”
I suppose—I flick my tongue—I didn’t want my Silk Girl to be too compliant. It would amuse me to have her ruffle his feathers while carrying my heir—untouchable based on his own policies and practices.
“I will choose one. Perhaps the redhead.”
“Perfect. Tell me when the union is made, so the others can begin. They have been waiting rather patiently. Well, all except one.”
I turn from him and head back down the corridor toward the outdoor, thinking about her compliance.
Aster isn’t compliant with me, she addresses me incorrectly, she speaks her mind, she dances sweetly on the line of appropriate behaviour and bats her lashes in nativity, but… She chose scolding, Aster, and gold. A conditioned response. Perfectly obedient.
A clone.
A boring little Silk Girl.
Doing as she is told to do.
Obeying the player.
Lost in thought and sentiment, annoyingly so, I freeze at the outdoor, and stare down the adjoining long passage that forks from this one.
To Tuscany’s old room—the room we both died in—before she moved into the Queen’s wing. The night she was carved open, I remember the agony in my abdomen, remember how sleep spun me, hurt me, tossed me around. I should have woken up. I should have known… She was calling to me. To make my way to her. To save her.
I scowl at the patched bricks several meters before it, from when I crushed the skulls of two Guards trying to stop me from getting to her.
Nevertheless, I was too late…
I open the door and head outside.
Chapter Three
Aster
Silk Girl Vows:
For The Cradle, I shall adore all its children equally and with quiet humility. I have no claim over what I provide for The Cradle.