Steel Maiden (3 page)

“Then stop acting like one.”

For a sick old woman, her voice was fierce.
“I made a promise to your mother. I promised to keep you safe, to
keep you hidden from the priests. They must never find you. Do you
understand? They must never ever know of your existence. Don’t make
me a liar, Elena.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and I struggled to
keep my own eyes dry. I cupped her gnarled fingers into my own and
knelt beside her.

“I won’t. I promise. They’ll never find me.
I swear it.”

She changed the subject.

“Philip came around earlier looking for
you,” she said, and she gave me that knowing stare that would have
made me blush if I had been a girl of sixteen.

“I could see it in his eyes,” she said.
“He’ll never make a decent woman out of you.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Oh, Rose, not that again. Phil’s just a
friend, nothing more.”

It wasn’t a secret that Phil and I met
regularly in the woods. It wasn’t love. It was just two lonely
people who needed each other’s comfort. To feel a warm body
sometimes made the nightmares go away. Sometimes.

I brushed her off and said, “I’ll talk to
him when I get back from my meeting.”

I looked in her eyes and could see that
there was no judgment in them, only sadness. I didn’t want her
pity.

I could feel the weight of my bag against my
hip. I smiled and said, “I have news, news that will change our
lives.”

Rose looked at me with that worried look she
always gave me when I had been away from our miserable cottage.
“What are you talking about? What is that
smile
all
about?”

“We won’t be hiding from the priests for
much longer. Our luck has changed.”

I pulled open the bag on my waist and placed
the crown on our small wooden table. Her eyes went wide.

“Elena,” she whispered, her mouth a tight
line. “What have you done?”

Her lips trembled. “Where did you get
this?”

“Soul City,” I replied proudly. “The temple
vault.”

“The high priests’ vault?” Rose had gone
even paler. Her gaze traveled over the golden crown and then back
to me. I could see the whites of her eyes.

“You must take it back. Quickly, before they
know it’s missing!”

“No,” I said sharply.

I crossed my arms. I didn’t want to fight
with her today. I was too tired.

“It’s too late for that. If I tried to take
it back now, I’d be caught for sure. I’d be facing the noose. Stop
looking at me like that. You don’t understand, I did it for—”

“How could you, Elena?” Her eyes turned
damp. “How could you jeopardize us like that? The risk…”

I sighed. “Because I did it for
us
.”

She stared at me in shock.

“For you and for me. Don’t you get it? This
is our chance to get out of this hell once and for all—to start a
new life. Aren’t you tired of starving? Don’t you want better
clothes? Shoes without holes?”

My voice came out louder and more angrily
than I’d expected.

“Don’t you want a fire to keep you warm
instead of this black hole?”

I pointed to the useless, cold hearth and
then to the crown. “With this crown we can buy new lives for
ourselves. I’m tired living like this. I’m tired of being hungry
all the time, of living in this filth. We could go east to Romila
or even Girmania—somewhere where there are no more priests, and
where no one knows who we are.”

“The priests are everywhere. Even in
Girmania.”

Rose looked down at her cup of tea. “I know
you mean well, Elena, truly I do. But this is madness. Even if you
wanted to sell that…that gold
crown
…no one would buy it. No
one in the Pit or even in all of Anglia has enough coin for such a
treasure.”

I jerked my chin at the crown, unable to
keep the smugness from my voice as I said, “I already have a
buyer.”

I saw the fear in Rose’s eyes.

“Who?” she said after a while, her eyes
narrowed.

“Mad Jack.”

Rose’s teacup crashed to the ground as she
stood up. “Mad Jack! That murderous, wretched man. Do you know what
he does to young women like you? Do you?”

I had heard the rumors about human
trafficking. People said that his gang stole ten-year-old girls and
forced them into prostitution and slavery. Most of the time, their
parents didn’t even bother to look for them—one less mouth to feed.
But they were just rumors, and I’d never seen any proof of it.

I sighed and shrugged. “I don’t care about
those rumors.”

“Rumors!”

“Yes,
rumors
.” I braced my hands on
the table as Rose shook her head.

“Right now, all I care about is making the
trade so that
we
can get the hell out of here.”

“How can you trust him?” said Rose. “The
man’s vile. Don’t go. I beg you.”

Mad Jack was lord of Bleak Town. He was a
thug, a murderer, and a psychopath. But he was the law in the Pit,
and he was the only one who could pay good coin for the crown. We’d
already made the deal. All I had to do was bring it to him, and
Rose and I were free.

“It’s too late for that,” I said and avoided
her eyes. “I’ve already made the deal. He’s waiting for me. I’m to
bring it to him today.”

Rose was silent for a while. Her brows
narrowed. “I promised your mother I’d look after you. She was like
a sister to me. If something were to happen to you now after
everything we’ve done, after all the years we’ve been so careful to
hide you from them—”

“And you did. Now it’s time for me to take
care of you. I’m not the scared little girl anymore, Rose. Let me
do this. Let me do this for us. For our new home on the beach in
the south of Espan.”

I smiled at her. “A little color and heat
would do us some good, you know. We both look dreadful.”

“Elena,” she said, and I could see the
darkness in her eyes shift as she shook her head. “This is crazy.
Even if you do manage to sell it, I won’t go with you.”

“I won’t,” she added stubbornly, as though
that would stop me.

“I’ll carry you if I have to, old
woman.”

Just for a second I saw a smile on her face.
“It’s too dangerous, Elena. I can’t let you risk your life.”

“It’s done. There’s nothing left to
say.”

“They will come for you now,” Rose
whispered. “They’ll take you away. They will trace this crown back
to you, back here, back to us. Everything we’ve done, everything
we’ve sacrificed for will be destroyed by this foolishness.”

I clenched my teeth. “It’s not foolish.”

I rubbed my temples as a giant headache
pounded against my skull. I didn’t want to argue with her. Rose was
frightened. She was born and raised in the Pit, and I knew that
leaving it would terrify her.

“I was careful. No one saw me enter or leave
the vault—”

A bell rang in the distance.

Rose’s eyes widened with fear as we looked
at each other. “The priests!”

CHAPTER 3

R
OSE ONLY NEEDED TO give me a look. I
snatched up the crown, hit the table back with my hip, kicked the
carpet over, and pulled open the trap door.

But as I stood there, ready to jump in,
something inside me stirred.

I glanced at Rose. “No.”

I took a step back. “I don’t want to hide
anymore. What’s the point? I’m too old for them to pick anyway.
They’re looking for adolescent girls who won’t fight back. They
want girls who will submit to their perverted desires. They’re not
looking for a grown woman. Let them come.”

Rose’s pale eyes hardened. “In. Think of
your mother’s sacrifice. Stop being so stubborn.”

I frowned. I hated when she played that
card. “This is ridiculous. Besides, you know as well as I do that
they won’t even bother with us. They hardly ever do anymore—”

The gravel just outside our cottage
crunched.

Rose’s face blanched, and she took hold of
my arm and tugged.

“Don’t be foolish, girl,” she hissed. “The
priests mustn’t find you. Ever. Now, get it!”

She pulled, but I yanked my arm out of her
grip. Apparently I was as stubborn as my mother.

Rose’s mouth opened as if she were about to
say something else. I could see it in her eyes for a second, but
then it was gone. Whatever it was, she’d decided not to tell me.
She straightened and said. “Please, Elena. I’m too tired to
argue.”

Deep down I knew she was right. If I had
been followed, I didn’t want Rose to get hurt. Her fragile bones
were no match for the priests’ wrath.

As I settled into my crouched position, I
looked up at Rose one last time before she dropped the heavy door,
and I was submerged in darkness again.

I heard the scraping of our table being
pulled over me, then the chairs. My heart hammered in my ears and
made it difficult to hear. We hadn’t had a priest visit in years,
and I couldn’t help but wonder if somehow I’d been discovered. No.
I knew I had been careful. But there was still that lingering
feeling that maybe someone
did
see me, and that the priests
were coming for me.

I heard Rose sigh heavily, and the light
tapping over my head suggested that she was bouncing her leg up and
down nervously. I was covered in sweat, and I let out a shaky
breath. Minutes passed. My breathing stilled, and I began to relax
a little. Maybe we’d been lucky again. I couldn’t hear Rose’s foot
tapping anymore, so I knew she was feeling calmer now. We were
going to be fine. I opened my mouth to call out to Rose—

A knock came from our front door.

I heard Rose gasp as I hit my head on the
trap door in a panic. I would not give in to it. Despite my heart’s
wild pounding in my ears, I strained to listen. I heard Rose’s feet
patter softly across the floor and then the click of the lock.
Finally the door screeched open.

“Good morning,” said a man’s voice.

It was a deep, emotionless voice and sounded
more like a command than a greeting. My stomach tightened, and I
suppressed the tiny gasp that threatened to escape. My heart
hammered against my chest. I was having a panic attack.

“Priest,” I heard Rose mutter in a near
hiss. I had to quash a nervous giggle.

Heavy footfalls moved around our little
cottage, and I knew the priest had let himself in. I felt a small
sense of ease because it was a priest and not the temple guards.
Perhaps they still didn’t know I had stolen the crown. Still, a
priest showing up at your front door wasn’t much better. What was
he doing here? Would they have sent a priest instead? There was
only one reason why they came around, and I preferred not to think
about it.

I could feel the crown pressed against my
side. I had fixed an appointment with Mad Jack for this morning. If
the priest lingered for much longer, I was going to be late. I knew
Mad Jack didn’t tolerate tardiness. He would see my lateness as an
insult and perhaps as a setup. If I didn’t make it on time I
probably wouldn’t make the trade, and I would lose everything.

“How can I help you, priest,” came Rose’s
voice from above.

“There’s been talk about a beautiful woman,
a beautiful
young
woman, who comes and goes from
this…this…
dwelling
, if you can even call it that.”

The priest’s voice echoed above my head,
full of contempt and arrogance.

“I have come to see if the rumors are true.”
He clicked his tongue. “Obviously it is
not
you.”

“Obviously,” said Rose, and I imagined her
face as she tried to control her fury. She was a master of disguise
when it came to her face.

“I haven’t been a young woman for over forty
years.” Her voice sounded as though she was giving the priest a
slight smile.

“I am sorry you wasted your time, but as you
can see there is no young woman here. Only an old one.”

I had to applaud her. She lied so
effortlessly. I wished I could be as sly as she was.

The floorboards creaked under the weight of
the priest as he crossed the room.

“Mmm. Yes. And yet I have heard these rumors
for three years now. I wonder why that is…if there is
no
other woman than yourself here, why the stories?”

“There isn’t.” Rose’s voice was final.
“Perhaps they meant my clients. I cater to many young women with my
sewing business. Perhaps that’s what
they
saw.” Rose knew
that spies lived in the Pit with us. Too many times we’d seen
temple guards appear at neighbors’ doors and take them away. They
never returned.

“Perhaps,” said the priest, but I heard no
agreement in his voice.

There was a pause.

“We keep accounts on all the females in the
Pit. Our records show that you are barren. There were never any
children born at this address.”

“That’s right. I’m barren. I could never
have children,” said Rose quietly.