“I’m afraid all the time. It’s boring.” She felt the tiny flask of olive oil hanging inside her tunic. She still hadn’t thrown it out. Hadn’t been able to. Why was that?

His strike, when it came, was quick. But she was ready. A small deflection, and his open hand went over her shoulder rather than striking her cheek. She moved in, instantly. As she was small and not strong, everything about Teia’s fighting had to be technically sound. She went for the elbow lock, saw she wasn’t going to get it, stepped on his foot as he spun out of the elbow lock, and pushed hard.

And like a professional, he went with it instead of fighting it. He flipped, and she had no warning before his other leg clipped her in the back of the neck. It launched her into a wall, and she was so stunned, she couldn’t get her hands up in time. She smashed into the wall face first, staggered like a drunk, unable to control her limbs suddenly, and went down. Black rushed, stars winked. She felt her limbs being manipulated, bound, but it was too fast, they didn’t move right. She spasmed.

Two cupped hands slapped down on her ears, and trapped air went rushing into her head. The pain blotted out all. She gasped, breathless with pain.

By the time it faded enough for Teia to be aware of anything else, she realized she was trussed like a lamb, except her limbs were all pulled backward, her stomach on the ground, her feet and hands bound back in the air behind her. She had no leverage to fight the bonds. She heard a suck-click as Murder Sharp cinched the last rope, one hand knotted through her hair, pressing her face into the rough wood floor. Something wet dribbled on her cheek.

Drool.

She spasmed again. Some part of her retreated deep into the recesses and she bucked and thrashed like an animal. No use. No matter. She rolled over as he stepped clear. She tried to bite his feet. It felt like her arm was going to be pulled out of the socket. She gasped.

Murder Sharp stood. “Glad we got—ssscchhhht—that out early.”

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.

“Are you afraid of me now?” he asked. Then he laughed.

He promptly sat down cross-legged next to her, tilted his head, studied her, doglike. He chuckled. He put a hand on her butt to push her hips down and pushed down, let go to let her rock like a toy horse you’d give a child. Back arched and trussed, she bobbed helplessly, up onto her chest, almost smacking her chin, then down onto her pelvis, helpless, helpless.

Murder Sharp laughed like a little boy with a new toy. Then he grabbed the back of her trousers and yanked up on them and her underclothes, cleaving the moon painfully. He chuckled like a mean adolescent.

“Just so you know,” he said. Ssschhtt. Again, that slobbery slurp-click. What the hell was that? The fear jumped from her stomach all through her whole body like lightning. She almost screamed. No no no. She had to wall that off. It held her vocal cords.

“Just so you know, you’re mine. To do with as I please.”

“I understand,” she said. It was supposed to be defiant. It wasn’t even close. Orholam save her! What was he going to do? “Please. Please…”

Don’t weep, Teia. I forbid. I forbid. She’d been a young girl enslaved, but she’d never been raped. Too boyish, too young, too lucky, maybe even protected by some small scrap of decency of her mistress or by her hope to sell Teia’s virginity. Whatever the reason—or for no reason at all—in that one thing, she’d been spared. She couldn’t breathe past the fear clogging her throat.

He rocked her back and forth, gently, gently. “You understand … here,” he said, tapping her head hard with one finger. “I need you to understand in here.” He rocked her body again. “Like an oft-beaten dog cringes when its master raises his hand even if only to grab a cup, I want your body to know my mastery, because there are only two motivators in this world: fear, and the desire not to fear.”

Suddenly, she was weeping. There was a first, intense spike of self-hatred for her fear like a snakebite, and then there was nothing but the fear itself coiling, curled around her, squeezing out her breath. But it wasn’t crushing her from outside, it was like the serpent was growing from within spiraling outward as if it wanted to escape. There was no room for Teia in her own skin.

“Shh, shh,” he said. “I want to tell you a story, Teia, a true story though five thousand or a thousand thousand years old. Or so widely regarded as true, it doesn’t matter.” He paused. Ssschht. Ssschht. What the hell was that sound? “Wait here,” he said. He stood.

He lit a lantern, then shuttered the windows, one after another. He kissed his roses, told them he wouldn’t be but a minute. He took his time, and slowly, the room filled with shadows.

Murder Sharp came back with the lantern, his handsome features ghoulish in the bobbing, harsh light. He put it down and sat again, cross-legged.

“Pretend this is a campfire. It works better that way. It’s a campfire story.”

Orholam, save me, save me. I’ll never do anything bad ever again, I swear it.

“In the beginning, there was—” He turned down the flame conspiratorially. “God. Shhh.” He turned the flame back up. “And there was nothing. And the nothingness displeased the One. You see, he wasn’t yet called Orholam, for you know what Orholam means, don’t you?”

He spanked her, lightly, and for some reason, that shocked her more deeply than a hard blow would.

“This is the part where you answer, silly!” he urged.

Her mind went blank. She couldn’t remember what he’d been talking about—she arched her back, twisted her shoulder to see his face. He was losing his good mood rapidly.

“The Lord of Light,” some part of her answered for her. Perhaps Orholam himself had reached down and given her those words. Though she wished if he was reaching down and doing miracles, he would go ahead and give Murder Sharp a heart attack.

Oh, Orholam, how stupid am—

“If you draft paryl without my permission,” Murder Sharp said quietly, dangerously, “the first time, I’ll put out one of your eyes. See how you explain that to your commander. The second time you do it, I won’t go so easy. Understood?”

She managed a quick nod.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said suddenly. With both hands, he pulled her underwear and trousers out of her butt crack where he’d pulled it up earlier. Then he patted her butt lightly, as if it were friendly. Like this was something people did for each other. “I don’t mean you to misunderstand. I won’t violate you. Rape is disgusting. Beneath my dignity. There, does that set you at ease? My fault. Now, the story…”

She turned and rested her face on the rough floor, slave again, survivor, silent, and so very, very thankful.

“There was no light yet, yes? So It—‘He,’ if we must, since we are saying ‘Lord’ and one must admit the limitations of language in such cases—He couldn’t be a lord of light, then, right? There was no light. Ssschhtt! Right? Got it? Language can mislead us on all these things. We say there was him or it and nothing. But we don’t mean that he sat there with nothingness. He wasn’t on a porch swing with nothingness in a box on his lap, wondering what he’d do with it. We say Orholam and nothingness, but really it was Orholam and Orholam-not-ness. There was only him, but somehow he was lonely—though how could you be lonely, having never known company? Creation stories are impossibilities packaged in lies. He was, and it wasn’t not good, though he is all good and he was all that was? How can such be? He was, and it was good, but it wasn’t good enough? Perhaps that. I’ve felt that way, when alone. But he is to be perfect, and how could perfection be less good than it ought to be? Would that not be an imperfection? Or how can you add to perfection and still have perfection? Ssschhtt. Maybe that. Maybe in adding a perfection, you can have a new sort of perfection. Hmm …