There was a carcass rotting behind rusted iron bars. The sharp tang of blood spiked through the air, wafting over the decrepit musky scent of dirt and grime. Her eyes tore hungrily at the room before her, fear and repulsion ruminating under her skin like a simmering oil. The man she’d come to know as Ryden Harlow was seated before her. His legs were sprawled wide and his arm hung haphazardly over the back of his chair. “Mr. Marai, you certainly have a lot of nerve coming around here,”
Her father only nodded at the man, his gaze sheepish and timorous. “I’m aware that I’ve caused you and your establishment a great loss–” But Ryden sniggered before straightening in his seat.
“You’ve brought shame to my judgement, Ezhilan. I lent you the money I did because I am good friends with your wife,” He sighed, “It’s been years and you’ve only just paid your debts to me. And that too by nefarious methods that even I do not approve of. That was your son and yet you— ”
“I am very sorry, sir.” But Vaakiya frowned. Ethiraan had run away. What had her father to do with anything?
Ryden’s stare levelled on her, his lips quirking in amusement. His russet hair coruscated in the golden lashes of flame from the simmering hearth and from the strands of muted vermillion emerged the two sharp points of his fey ears. She stared back.
They were in the deep underbelly of Harlow’s mansion, the air within stagnant and unbearably warm. Indeed, sweat pricked at her brow and back, her throat bobbing as she swallowed down her lurching odium at the putrid reek defiling the place. They had followed two of Ryden’s guards down the winding stairwell and through the intricate twists and turns of narrow hallways— until, they eventually stepped into a circular room hewn of cracking stone. The walls were lined with barred cells, within which lay corpses or pallid and sickly looking people. She could not look at them.
“And who are you?” The man grinned at her but she merely blinked, willing the tears welling in her eyes to dry.
“She’s my daughter—”
“I did not ask you.” Ryden frowned at her father.
“I’m…” She had to pause and divert her attention elsewhere. “I’m Vaakiya.”
“This is your nine-year-old daughter, yes?” Ryden, at last, turned to her father, who gave the man a shallow nod.
“Why bring her here, Ezhilan?”
“I’ve paid you what you’re owed— with money gained through… poor choices, yes. But, now, no one in this city is willing to hire me for work,”
“That is your own fault. I went five years without the hefty amount of coins I lent you.” The fey man just picked at his nails, the very epitome of apathy.
“You threatened the people of Duvrion with death should they offer me work.” Ezhilan snarled but rectified his hostility with a glare from Harlow.
“I will not apologise for having influence.”
“I do not wish for you to apologise. I’ve brought you my daughter upon learning of your pursuit for workers… for your establishment,”
“You want for me to have your child work here?” Ryden’s brows furrowed when Ezhilan nodded. “Why not work for me yourself? Why offer me your daughter?”
“I—” Ezhilan Marai could not look at his child. He could not look at anything but his own two feet. Put to rout by his own shame, he lowered his head, “Please, just take her.”
“Cowardly man,” Ryden Harlow derided, “You know the business I run is no place for a child… and still, you would much rather offer me her instead of working for me yourself?”
“This would not be the first instance of you picking children off the street and embedding in them the harsh ways of your craft.”
“Certainly not, but I would think you would be more apprehensive when giving me your progeny. Though I suppose you have proven your ruthlessness before.” The man snorted. Vaakiya, for the life of her, could not understand. But there surely was an uncertainty that cleaved her insides apart, thrumming in her very bones as she looked up at Ezhilan. His starkly tan skin was utterly bleached of its usual colour and in his eyes was a dolour she could not fathom. He stood straight but somehow, still, he appeared small… shrunken.
“Very well, I will take her and offer her work. She will be paid and in turn, you will be paid. However, you are not to ever, under any circumstance, ask her of the things I teach her or of the things she does in the name of my ‘guild’. She will, for the initial few years, be trained and only then will she begin working,” A short pause with which she gained the opportunity to baulk at him, “Fear not, for you will be paid even during the years of her training as well.”
Ryden stood, stalking to kneel before her. His fingers were calloused and coarse as he pinched her cheek. “You and I will do great things, sweetheart.”
Vaakiya did not know then, but her father’s love, along with all the love the world had to offer her, was a thin and fickle thing— it was like the tattered blanket her mother had stitched her when she was but a babe; it certainly was real, but was, unfortunately, not tangible or substantial enough to actually cover her, or even keep her warm. It only existed. And that was all it truly ever was— a bald truth that shivered like the flame of a candle. And Vaakiya learned, that very day, that love was almost never enough.
Love did not save her.