The first thing I remember—before sound, before thought, before even the blessed hope that maybe I'd died in my sleep and escaped this circus—was pain.
Not the sharp sting of a wound, but the deeper ache of a soul ripped from the warm haze of oblivion and slammed back into the unforgiving realm of responsibility.
Something slammed against the door with the force of a divine smiting, and I swear my spirit tried to crawl out of my body and flee through the nearest crack in the marble.
It was a violent, cosmic bang, the kind of noise that announces, without apology, that somebody important and irritating is about to ruin your morning.
I groaned loud enough to rouse the dead in distant halls, rolled over—and tumbled straight off Brutus's chest
My body hit the marble floor like a sack of overripe fruit, limbs splaying in every direction, dignity evaporating on impact. My face stayed mushed into the floor for a moment because I needed time to process my life choices. Specifically the one where I decided snuggling a giant man-mountain was a reasonable sleeping arrangement.
Before I could reassemble my bones, Iskanda's voice thundered through the door like a battle horn. "Up! All of you! You have thirty seconds to look presentable!"
I felt anything but presentable. I felt like a flattened pastry.
Brutus sat upright on his bunk with the calm composure of man who didn't just spend all night as the unfortunate foundation to my emotional meltdown.
He blinked once, then looked down at me sprawled on the floor like discarded laundry. Without a word, without judgment, he gave my head a slow, fond pat—like I was some small woodland creature he was checking for survival. He stood with a yawn big enough to alter the room's weather before and stepping over me.
I, meanwhile, was still coaxing my skeleton into cooperation.
I pushed myself onto my knees, rubbing sleep from my eyes with the enthusiasm of a corpse trying to revive itself through sheer willpower. My hair felt like it had been styled by a tornado. My limbs protested the very concept of movement. And as I scratched the back of my head, trying to blink myself awake, the chorus rose behind me.
Giggling.
The wicked, knowing kind that only girls with ammunition can muster.
I turned sharply, ready to hiss like a feral cat.
And there she was.
Elvina, perched on her bunk with all the smugness of a noble who'd just discovered peasants existed only for her amusement. Her flock of admirers crowded around her like she was about to perform miracles, their eyes gleaming with malicious curiosity.
"Morning, sweetheart," she crooned, voice sweet enough to rot teeth. "Tell me, did you have fun last night? Sounded positively athletic from up here."
A ripple of giggles swept her flock. My ears burned before the words fully registered.
I flicked a dismissive hand, aiming for breezy. "If by 'fun' you mean using Brutus as a human mattress because someone's snoring could wake the dead—sure. Loads."
Her smile sharpened to a scalpel. "Oh, come now. The snoring wasn't the part that kept me up. It was the whimpering. Very… tender."
I swallowed hard, forcing a shrug. "Jealousy's ugly. Try a mirror."
She leaned forward, eyes glittering. "You think I'm jealous? Of what—your ability to cry yourself to sleep on a man who could bench-press a horse? Please. I'm merely fascinated. Say now, do you always cry like that when being pounded into, or was that a special performance?"
My blush deepened. Fantastic. Now I was the color of a ripe tomato. Exactly the look I wanted for my first morning as an official Drudgewhore—mortified and glowing like a lantern fish.
I spun on my heel and stormed out before she could twist the dagger again. Behind me, her laugh rolled through the room like a pompous foghorn. I was going to haunt her someday. I decided that right then and there.
Brutus was waiting in the hallway, leaning casually against the wall while Iskanda took headcount with the expression of someone ranking her favorite sins.
I slunk over to him, well, more like I slithered, because my dignity was dead and dragging its corpse wasn't worth the effort. I clutched onto his arm—not out of affection—but because if I didn't have something stable to hold onto, the humiliation might make me faint.
I couldn't meet his eyes. Not after last night. Not after the crying. Not after the—
Nope. Nope. Not thinking about that.
Instead, frustration bubbled in my throat like boiling water. I leaned in and whispered harshly, "Gods, I look so stupid. What the fuck is wrong with me? I can't even handle a bitchy remark without turning into a sobbing mess and then—ugh. Saints. Why do I fall apart over the dumbest things?"
Brutus's hand slid to the back of my neck, warm and steady. "You're exhausted," he murmured. "You've been exhausted for a long time. That doesn't make you weak. It makes you human."
I wanted to argue. I wanted to keep spiraling. But then I leaned into his arm just a little—just enough for the warmth to anchor me—and my brain did that awful thing where it agreed with him. Saints damn it. He was right. I needed to calm down.
While I was busy begrudgingly stabilizing my own emotions, Iskanda paused beside Dunny—poor, jittery, soft-voiced Dunny—then dipped down to whisper something in his ear.
Whatever she said made him let out a tiny, startled squeak, like a mouse caught committing tax fraud. His eyes went wide. Iskanda simply pointed down the hall toward an attendant waiting at the very end.
Dunny nodded before shuffling away, giving one last, lingering glance back at Mia—long enough that anyone with a soul could read exactly what was written on his face.
Before I could sink deeper into my angst, Iskanda clapped her hands sharply.
"All present. Let's move."
She led us down a set of twisting hallways until we reached a massive shower room—steam rising from pipes, marble floors, walls carved with old reliefs, and water flowing from spigots like miniature waterfalls.
Iskanda turned to face us.
"Strip." The word echoed like thunder.
I froze for half a second before sighing theatrically. "At least offer us breakfast first."
Iskanda bit back a snort. A real one. A genuine break in her terrifying façade. I felt honored.
Our group began undressing without hesitation. We'd been through worse. Public shame? Please. We'd exhausted that category ages ago.
But Elvina—oh, sweet fragile Elvina—stopped dead at the threshold, eyes wide as dinner plates, horror splattered across her face like someone had forced her to smell commoner laundry.
"You want me to strip here?" she demanded, voice rising in pitch. "In front of—of—them?"
Iskanda stared at her with such deadpan intensity that even I felt my soul retreat. "Yes," she said. "That's what 'strip' means."
Elvina sputtered. "This is indecent! Uncivilized! Barbaric! I shouldn't be forced to—"
"Then leave," Iskanda snapped. "And enjoy sanitation duty."
Elvina's mouth snapped shut. Hard. Then she plastered on the fakest, most brittle smile ever crafted in the history of false bravado.
"Fine," she said, dripping venom. "But I won't enjoy this."
Nobody cared.
She undressed herself like she was unveiling a sculpture, performing for an audience of men who absolutely did not deserve the satisfaction. A few of them sucked in sharp breaths. She looked thrilled by that. I rolled my eyes hard enough to sprain them.
I stepped under a stream of warm water and let it cascade down my shoulders. Before I could do much else, Brutus appeared behind me and began washing my back with calm, methodical strokes, like I was some muddy dog. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't sensual. It was just Brutus being Brutus—gentle where he didn't need to be, patient where nobody else was.
Elvina strutted past, hair dripping like she'd been posing for an underwater portrait. She gave me a look smugness. "Careful there darling," she chimed sweetly. "If he scrubs any harder, he might wash off whatever dignity you have left."
She winked at me and drifted off, her flock trailing after her like gossip-hungry ducks. One of them rushed over to dab her shoulder with a towel, as if she might evaporate without assistance.
Freya made her way over, her usual dead-eyed glare fixed squarely on Elvina's back. "I swear," she muttered, "if she breathes near me again I'm shoving her head in a drain."
Brutus tried not to laugh. He failed.
The three of us slipped into an easy rhythm—talking, joking, and washing away the last rotten scraps of yesterday's madness. For a brief moment, the world didn't feel like it was actively trying to murder us.
Which is exactly why Freya decided to flick water at me like a mischievous cat.
I gasped. Loudly. Dramatically. Because how dare she. Her smirk said yes, she absolutely did.
"Oh, it's on," I declared.
Chaos erupted.
Freya shrieked as I lunged at her with a double handful of water, splashing her square in the chest. She retaliated instantly, grabbing a bucket from a nearby spigot, scooping water, and dumping the entire thing over my head with the violent enthusiasm of someone baptizing a demon.
Brutus just stood there at first, watching us with the exhausted fondness of a parent whose children had started fighting in a grocery store. Then I splashed him by accident.
The man's eyes narrowed.
I knew I was dead before he even moved.
He scooped me up under one arm like I weighed nothing, marched toward the biggest shower head in the room, and held me under the deluge like I was a stain he was determined to scrub out of existence. I flailed like a drowned rat, shrieking and kicking, while the rest of our crew howled with laughter.
Freya jumped on him from behind, shouting, "Drown him! Drown the little gremlin!"
I wriggled free, tackled her at the waist, and we both went skidding across the wet floor in a tangle of limbs. We weren't graceful. We weren't coordinated. We were barely functional. But we were laughing—real laughter, messy laughter, the kind that bubbles up from the ribs and refuses to stop.
People gathered around us, cheering and jeering. Someone chanted my name. Someone else chanted Freya's. Even Brutus cheered from the sidelines, palms cupped around his mouth.
We wrestled like rowdy children—slipping, sliding, grabbing at arms, shoulders, and whatever leverage we could find—until we crashed into a bucket and ended up sprawled on the floor, groaning and laughing until our stomachs hurt.
Through it all, leaning against the doorframe, was Iskanda.
She glanced at us with a quiet sigh, one that somehow managed to sound both exhausted and amused at once. A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She didn't intervene. She didn't even pretend she would. She simply stood guard, letting us burn off whatever poison we'd dragged with us.
Elvina, meanwhile, perched on a polished stool like a queen surveying her sad little domain. Her flock gathered around her, washing her arms and back like handmaidens. She watched our chaos with a look of utter disgust—as if she were witnessing monkeys flinging feces at each other.
Eventually, after enough chaos to fill a children's book nobody should ever read, Iskanda clapped her hands.
"Dry off. Move out."
We obeyed. Barely.
Towels were thrown. Clothes were wrestled on. Hair was wrung out. And soon enough we were trailing through the halls again, still damp, still breathless, still laughing under our breaths.
The endless marble corridors eventually opened into a massive chamber, its ceiling arched high above like a cathedral built for giants. At the far end, enormous windows stretched from floor to ceiling, revealing the Spire's garden beyond.
Quentin stood at the front, framed by the windows as if he thought himself the final boss of a stage play, his silhouette all dramatic and windswept, even though there wasn't a breeze in the room unless someone was secretly fanning him.
Four attendants flanked him like decorative bookends, each holding a clipboard and wearing the soulless smile of someone who'd seen too ragged trainees to be emotionally alive anymore.
As we shuffled into the room, Quentin turned away from the garden with a flourish so intense I was convinced he practiced in front of mirrors at night.
He dipped into a bow so mocking I half expected Iskanda to punch him. Instead she just stared, arms crossed, the vein on her forehead pulsing in real time.
Quentin straightened before clapping his hands as if summoning an applause only he could hear. "Alright everybody, line up now."
We separated ourselves into two neat piles again before kneeling on cue, the floor cold and polished enough that I could see everyone's reflection—pale, damp, and defiant.
Quentin paced in front of us like a peacock who'd just discovered a new audience and launched into a speech so thick with dramatic flair I felt like we should've been charged admission.
He spoke of destiny, of refinement, of "the sacred art of seduction." I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
"From this day forth," he said with a flourish, "you will be trained, groomed, and cared after until you are assigned a brothel." Gods, the way he said it, like we were some fragile pastries being shipped to market.
Brutus sat up straighter, Freya rolled her eyes, and Elvina looked personally offended by the idea that she might be "assigned" anywhere like the rest of us peasants.
Quentin clapped again to summon the attendants, who descended upon us like vultures wearing silk gloves.
"Posture!" he barked. "Voice! Diction! Expression!" He tried to make us repeat lines after him, all flowery nonsense like, 'My lord, your gaze ensnares me,' which I absolutely sabotaged by saying it in the deepest, most gravelly grunt I could muster.
Brutus snorted so loud Quentin twitched. Then came the walking drills, where we were supposed to "glide," whatever that meant. I tried to follow his movements but ended up drifting like a confused duckling while Elvina shrieked about someone touching her shoulder.
The attendants attempted to adjust Elvina's posture once more before she nearly bit someone, snapping her fingers in haste. "Do not handle me like some common stone-street runt!" which, for the record, she absolutely was.
Another exercise was "expressive knee bends," which made absolutely no sense no matter how many times Quentin demonstrated them. I spent the entire time going dramatically limp every time the attendant tried to lift my chin.
I even whispered "Oh no… my tragic demise…" and collapsed sideways into Brutus, who ended up laughing so hard Iskanda had to cough to hide her own smile.
Eventually Quentin's voice devolved into a shrill, exhausted rasp, his hair sticking up in small furious tufts. By the time one of the attendants timidly informed him that the training session was over, he looked ready to fling himself out the window.
Quentin slouched—slouched, the man who never bent his spine—right past Iskanda with a groan so theatrical it echoed off the walls. He didn't even give a farewell speech, which meant I had deeply, profoundly succeeded in ruining his day.
I let out a mischievous giggle, the kind that always gets me into trouble, and Brutus nudged me with his elbow in that "I'm proud of your chaos but also please behave so we don't die" kind of way.
Iskanda rubbed her forehead and muttered something about spirits testing her patience before waving us onward. My legs were jelly from kneeling and doing that useless "gliding" bullshit. I wanted death. Preferably Quentin's.
Lunch break, however, came as a surprise. I had expected a dingy hall with maybe a table and a bucket of questionable slop. Instead we walked into what looked like a noble lounge stuffed into a building that absolutely shouldn't be hosting one.
Plush burgundy couches lounged around the room like they owned the place. Ornate pillars spiraled upward, carved with dancers who looked far too pleased with themselves. Silks draped from the ceiling like the ghosts of dramatic divas who refused to move on.
I plopped onto the nearest couch and immediately regretted my choices as it swallowed me whole, cushions devouring me like some luxurious carnivore.
"This is disgusting," I announced to Brutus with a groan, letting my limbs melt dramatically over the cushions.
Brutus nodded thoughtfully, scanning the room the way he always did when he was trying to hide his real thoughts behind that calm façade.
"Pretty," he murmured, "but fake. Too clean. Too soft. Places like this… they're meant to distract. Make you forget what's waiting beyond its walls."
I tilted my head back and stared up at the ceiling. "Right, once we leave this place, we'll be scraping for scraps again, fighting for our next rank. Everything here is an illusion to keep us compliant."
Saying it aloud made me aware that even the couch swallowing me was only temporary comfort.
Then came the food and all forms of higher thought dissolved almost instantly.
Attendants began filing in with trays of food that smelled like the gods themselves were on cooking duty.
Appetizers, soups, little plates arranged like artwork, trays stacked with pastries and fruits glistening with honey—it was overwhelming in a way that made my brain forget misery entirely and activate primitive food-goblin mode.
I bounced in my seat like a child who'd consumed three cups of sugar, my eyes wild, my mouth basically watering into a puddle. Brutus laughed under his breath as I practically vibrated.
An attendant stepped up behind me with a silver tray and bowed, offering me a delicate porcelain cup and a small plate of biscuits arranged like little edible soldiers awaiting orders.
"Tea, sir?" she asked politely.
I accepted them with both hands before straightening my posture into something absurdly noble-like, dramatic pinky raised, chin lifted.
I sipped the tea with the air of someone who deserved luxury, never mind that five minutes ago I fell on my face during posture training. "Mmm, yes, quite pleasing," I said in a fake aristocratic accent. "A subtle herbal bouquet with notes of… suffering and exploitation."
The attendant blinked. "Sir… what?"
"Never mind," I said, waving dismissively like a spoiled prince. It was very satisfying.
"Ah yes, I nearly forgot," he said before leaning in slightly, lowering his voice so only I could hear. "After lunch… Iskanda would like to speak with you in private."