Page 61 of Born for Silk
My heart hammers.
I spin to face forward.
“Better not to look back,” Kong advises smoothly as he ushers me inside, almost protective, but that wouldn’t make sense at all.
Shame nests in my stomach.
It finds company with naivety.
Kong directs me like a towering guard to my small significant self, past the wide-eyed Silk Girls and Paisley, who cups her mouth in shock, all the way through the various halls until we stop outside The Circle.
“The first time I saw the effect you had over him, I thought you were a spy,” Kong says, “the entire raid a setup. But seeing you feed Odio changed my mind. That bird can see the truth inside everything. You’re too naïve to be a spy.”
Too naïve to be a Silk Girl.
I look at the door. Blink. “Do I leave now? Who?—”
“Stay in your room,” Kong states, and I turn to look up at him— basically a wall of muscles in dark leather armour. “Sleep. Tomorrow you will know what is next for you.”
I grip my shoulder as a dull throb circles the joint. Kong notices and frowns. He has a distinctive stance, as though the plates in his back are made of pure indestructible metal, never bending.
I feel numb. Everything escalated so quickly to a place I didn’t realise was possible.
I have been so wrong, for so long. Daisy was right. Rules are there for a reason. Iris was right. There is something wrong with me.
“Will I be executed?”
“That is unlikely.” Kong’s voice is the deepest note I have ever heard. “The Trade has invested in your womb.”
My eyes burn; I barely ever cry. “You saw me. You let me speak to her.” I clear my throat. “To the Queen. You could have stopped me.”
“I was thinking about what she would have wanted,” he says, roughly. “Not him or you. I was thinking about her.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to. And if you know what is good for you, you will stop trying to understand.”
Chapter Nine
Aster
Silk Girl Vows:
For The Cradle, I will guard my seal of purity.
A voice stirs me.
The Endigo’s snarl coils around me. “Your tongue can’t be trusted, little girl. Let’s take it off for you. It gets you in so much trouble.”
I wake up to those words and a rumbling stomach. I cover my face, breathing into my palms.
Panic and anguish coil together in my mind, growing in size with each new thought.
‘You will never speak again.’ ‘No more questions from you.’ ‘Your tongue can’t be trusted.’ What about my Meaningful Purpose? What about all I have endured to get here? The nights I convince myself it would be better here, the split toes from ballet training, the hope of being a Sired Mother. The loneliness and optimism and perseverance.
The ball in my head pops.
Jolting upright, I fist my pillow and toss it across the room, knocking a small fertility statue over, the thing falling, shattering across a black boot.