Merlot's Eyes

Prologue

The saying went, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Be grateful for what you have. Some have it worse. Those words grated at my brain and made me want to cut off my ears. Of course some people had it worse. Hundreds of people were rotting beneath the white-brick walls of Calanthe Castle. Some murderers, some rapists, some thieves. Hells, perhaps even a few assassins and traitors of the crown. Rumor had it that Calanthe Castle had many torture rooms beneath the floors of the cathedral inside. What was more holy than stripping the skin off the bones of a thief while choirs drowned the screams with songs to the Threefold daemons? Gods of justice and pride, slaves to their own religion and resting the soles of their feet atop their devout followers.
     I shook my head in the solitude of my bedroom, flipping to another page of tales of woe from long ago. In the lands of Scorn, there were three gods and one religion—theirs. Lest anyone else worship forgotten deities, the morn following will shine upon their heads spiked upon the gates barring Calanthe City from the wastelands beyond. Of course there were ones who worshipped other gods in secret. I knew of someone who attended a secret gathering in the sewer systems. There, they worshipped the numa of Köd Kunta. Or better known in the common tongue: the Night Realm, Lightless Land, the shadowland and the godless country. Köd Kunta was inescapable and unmapped. Near the end of the Threefold Kingdoms lay a land of darkness and magic, of gangly and winged creatures, women with the poisoned tongues of asps and men with an insatiable amount of lust. I grew up reading about the land in story books and as bedtime stories meant to scare children from wandering about at night.
     Thankfully, all were safe within the Threefold Realm—the three kingdoms were laid on the earth as a triangle, Calanthe City being the capital of Calanthe itself: the tip of the shape and closest kingdom to the shadowland. Calanthe City was the poorest counties of the kingdoms because many of its occupants chose to bend the knee to other deities and numas which was an offense punishable by death.
     I lived in a hobble with my uncle Azzaro above the only tavern nearest to the gates of the city and the only one known to have "guardless entertainment". I had no schooling and was at the ripe age of two decades on this truly godforsaken mound of dirt. For a continent that revolved solely around the worship of three big men in the sky, it was anything but holy.
     Each evening I was to accompany Azzaro downstairs in the tavern and bribe men for the Threefold's currency, hekte. Dressed in scandalous clothing, men had been putting their grimy hands on me since I was only fourteen years of age. "Everyone gives to the community," Azzaro would say every time I brought up my feelings to him. "There's plenty of hekte to go around but not enough people to distribute it." Then he would slap my ass and tell me to get over myself, that we all do things we do not like. During the light hours, I would stay hidden in my room, dreading the hours until the little bell above the tavern's door would jingle, alerting me that people had entered. One day, I had used a blade to open my inner wrist, hoping that it would all end. Azzaro came and patched me up, but not before rendering me senseless with his fists. As I said: a truly godless land.
     "Merlot." Azzaro's voice echoed from up the rickety staircase. "We open in five."
     I closed my book, my nose wriggling as dust tickled it. Right. I had duties. Just like everyone else in Calanthe City. After placing the worn book onto the small shelf made of boots and leftover remnants of a broken table, I began to remove my articles of clothing. One by one, stifling tears at the inevitable. My hand shook as I kept it from smacking myself across the cheek. Many other girls and even boys did the same thing as I, all across the continent. Azzaro was right when he said there was plenty of hekte to go around, and all the better go to the poorer community than sit beneath the asses of the rich.
     Rearranging the cloth bracelets on my left wrist to hide the deep scar, I combed through my hair with my gnarled fingernails. The bell rang. And so my night shift began. I tramped down the stairs in a faked manner, pulling my thin skirts past my mid-thigh and swaying my hips. A grateful and hearty uproar met me, men with dirt-covered faces and hands raising their mugs of craft beer towards me.
     "Come over here, won't you, love?" an iron miner whispered, grabbing my boney ass. "Make me warm. Gods sent flurries in today."
     "Have they now?" I goaded, playing sultrily with the man's beard. "Last miner I knew that came in here during the flurries..." I put my lips to his ear. "...his fingers snapped off clean inside me they were so cold." The man hooted, grabbing my waist and lifting me onto his lap. "Nah, girlie. Your bush is a furnace, I can feel it. T'was your heat that melted the man's fingers!"
     I feinted a petty laugh and shook my head daintily as the man offered me a swag from his cup. "I'm not allowed to drink on the job, you beast."
     The man roared as I slipped off his lap with a quick rub of the bulge between his slacks. Azzaro handed me a tray and stuffed a satchel of hekte down the front of my untied blouse. "Change for the dark fellow in the corner. Serve him his ale." I looked over to where my uncle had pointed and began walking and weaving my way through the crowd to the almost-empty booth in the corner.
     "Your ale, sir," I sighed, setting the wooden mug down in front of the man. Glimpsing, I noticed the fine material of his clothing, the silver pendant clasped between the folds of the black velvet cloak, signaling exactly what he was. My heart skipped a beat. "Your change," I murmured as I fished the satchel out of my chest, putting it next to the mug. I kept my eyes downward as I walked back to the throng of drunken miners, merchants and dockworkers. All kinds of people enter Calanthe City but few stay in the slums, especially where Azzaro's tavern was located. Either that man was wearing stolen clothes or he was truly one of the Silver Sentinels of Safety—the king's appointed holy guards. If it were true, why was that man here? Perhaps to strike a deal with a dark handler or blackwork merchant. Even so, it was also rare to get such company in the tavern.
     As if I had predicted it, a man in a worn green cloak scurried into the tavern, barely making the golden bell ding his arrival. Peering over the hullabaloo of drunken males and females, I watched curiously as the man handed something to the Sentinel and left in a hurry, as if he didn't want to be seen. I hadn't realized I was still staring at the Sentinel until his dark eyes met mine and I froze, blinked and he was gone.
     My night continued per usual but the strange exchange never left my mind, no matter how many hands were on my quivering body, no matter how exhausted I was of cocooning my trauma inside my translucent soul. Azzaro closed up the tavern a few hours later as the moon rose in the sky. It was peculiarly early for him to close up, but I didn't dare question it. "Good day," he mumbled to himself, counting the hekte in the register and pocketing more than half of it. Walking over to him, I protruded my hand. "Where's my share."
     Uncle Azzaro glared at me. "Why do we have to do this every evening, Merlot—"
     "If you had to shake your ass for strangers you would want some compensation for it as well," I snarled, snatching the remaining hekte in the register. "I'm going to find something to eat."
     "Spoiled brats get rats to eat," Azzaro hissed. "I have a special client coming over. You are to give him what he wants."
     My body froze. "What the hells are you talking about. I don't lend my body to strangers to penetrate, uncle. Like hells I will let that man do that to me. Even if I don't agree with where I stand today, I still have my boundaries."
     "You're living under my roof and will do what I say."
     "Fuck you! How would you like it if our roles were reversed? But of course, gods forbid a man do such unholy, salacious acts with someone other than his lover."
     "You're a child but you're no child of mine." Azzaro walked closer to me. "I didn't ask for you so you will earn your stay."
     "I didn't ask to be roofed by you. It's what your brother wanted. I can leave any time I want. And you know quite well if I leave you, you'll be making less and less hekte a day because I'm gone. I'm your only asset here." I turned on my heel to walk up the stairs to change but was suddenly met with an excruciating ache on the back of my head. I fell forward, my jaw clamoring with the bottom step, blood blossoming on my tongue.
     Uncle Azzaro stood above me holding a broken bottle of his homemade beer. "I'd be just fine without you, bitch. Keep your tongue where it belongs, obey me and don't fucking talk over me! You know nothing about me or my business. Remember your stance in this world before I make you remember it."
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
     Fire sparked in my throbbing head, blood flowing from my bitten tongue as I stood. Years of rage and hatred bubbled in my lungs making my chest feel like a dudded firework. This wasn't the first time Azzaro had become physical with me and it certainly wouldn't be the last as long as I could help it. Leaning against the banister, I wiped the blood on the back of my hand and refocused my eyes on my uncle.
     "Say you understand."
     "Fuck you," I spat. "I do so much for you. The least you could give me in return is an ounce of respect."
     "Bitches don't earn respect. They earn dicks and hekte if their mouth is soft enough. Go sit down and get yourself ready to service royalty."
     Tears stung my eyes as I slumped into a barstool, heaving for air as my chest caved in on itself. I picked at the scar inside my wrist, aching to reopen it. No use. There was no use in killing myself because I certainly wouldn't go to the holy lands flowing with milk and honey.
     "I'm not giving myself to a man I don't love."
     "The fuck did you just say?"
     I stood. "I'm not letting a man rape me just so you can have that petty coin in your pocket. I have my standards and I have my limits. You can't take away the one thing that is mine. It's too much, uncle."
     Azzaro's veins stood out on his forehead as I lurched forward, flashes of silver and purple popping in my peripherals. I felt something cool slide down the back of my neck and seep into my blouse. Blood. Uncle Azzaro came over to me and lifted my chin with his hand, setting the broken bottle on the bar. "Sweet thing... uncle is sorry. There, there. Let's go get you cleaned up."
     His sweet tone scared me more than his threatening one.
     Panic took over long enough to clear my vision as I watched Azzaro's fist come up and plant itself beneath my chin, throwing me back. Sharp pain exploded in my face like shrapnel as tears detonated behind my closed lids. I heard myself hit the floor, my hands flailing blindly as my uncle's hands fisted in my blouse, tearing it.
     "Do. As. I. Say."
     "Let go—" I gagged, choking on the metallic taste of blood and fighting past the burning tears that melted my skin.
     A fist clamped into my hair and slammed my face down onto the bar. Again, that shrapnel-like agony ripped past my pores and cells, leaving a raking trail of acid in its wake. Oranges and yellows popped in my mind, everything going cold and everything going dull and senseless. Cries emitted from my mouth yet words wouldn't form on my split tongue amidst the rivulets of blood.
     Azzaro leaned down into my line of sight and shook his head. "Do you want uncle to show you how you should behave tonight? I truly think you need a demonstration." I felt his hands clasp my hips and my entire body went underwater. I was drowning in air, grasping for a ladder of oxygen that was out of my reach. Yet, there, at the top of that ladder was the broken bottle next to my head. Gods give me strength, I breathed to myself as I stretched my arm further and further towards the bottle. The glass was smooth and cool against my shaking fingertips, grounding me just enough to grasp the bottle.
     My world was crimson and auburn as I threw my hand behind myself, blindly jabbing the sharp edges of the bottle into my uncle's face. His shriek told me I had hit close to home, but not close enough. He fell back, weight being lifted off my back enough for me to stand upright and find Azzaro lying on the floor, his hands covering his cheek where the bottle had stuck. I grabbed a chair and without hesitation, slammed it down onto Azzaro's face. Again and again and again. Finally, Azzaro was quiet and unmoving. So was the atmosphere.
Ding, ding.
     I looked upright through the veil of red and saw a tall figure standing in the doorway. Wiping my eyes and dropping the chair, my vision cleared enough for me to see it was the Silver Sentinel of Safety. Fuck.
     "He attacked me," I breathed. Cool winds swept over my body from the open door and I realized my nakedness. "Please believe me," I gasped as the Sentinel took two more steps into the tavern, letting the door close behind him. Though a dark cloth covered his mouth and nose, his eyes told emotions and stories his tongue did not. He walked over to the coatrack in the corner and grabbed a black mandelion hanging on one of the pegs.
     "Did he attack you."
     Huffing, I wiped tears from my eyes and gestured to myself. "Of course he did, you bloody fool. Would you assume this is simply my evening attire?" Shut up, I told myself. The man was the highest rank a guard could go and could very easily turn me over to the king. Murder was a sin against the Threefold, therefore punishable by death. And I was not going to die.
     "What is your name."
     "Merlot."
     "Surname."
     "Elfhallow."
     The Sentinel walked closer and closer, stepping in pools of blood unfazed. "Merlot Elfhallow. You killed a man. It is a sin against the Threefold and punishable by death. In most cases, you would be hung by the neck until dead, or chased after by the king's dogs. Yet..." His eyes switched from me to my unmoving uncle. "I see there was foul play here and will let you off with a light punishment and warning."
     "He attacked me!"
     "Run."
     I paused. "What?"
     "Run," he repeated. "Others would not believe what I had witnessed here today and therefore would not be so merciful." From his cloak pocket, he presented the satchel that had gotten stuffed down my shirt by Azzaro. "Take this and find yourself a new pretense. Never return to Calanthe City lest you be killed. Your name will not be tainted in the other kingdoms so you are free to do as you wish there."
     "You can't just tell me to leave my home," I scoffed, not in the least bit grateful, even if I should have been.
     "I ask you this sincerely..." the man whispered. "...was this truly ever your home?"
     My breathing hitched. He was right. Never once had I felt this place was home, nor Azzaro my family. My true family was dead and my home mere dust in the ground. Now was a chance to start a new life—one free from men and their dirty wishes, from my uncle's clutches and the poorness of my wares. I took the satchel from the Sentinel and nodded. "I'll pack and get out of here before midnight." The man nodded back to me and turned to be on his way. "Wait," I called. "What is your name?"
     He stopped. "My name is of no interest to you. Go now." With those words, he left the tavern, the bell dinging for the last time.