Free Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) by Nicole Luiken Page B

How far do we travel today?”
    “Captain Marcus wants to push on to Jessary tonight. It’s about another five hours travel,” Felicia said.
    Lady Sara let out a small sigh, but didn’t complain. “That will give us plenty of time to get acquainted.” She smiled at him, and Lance felt as if he were staring into the sun. She’d been beautiful in the moonlight. By day she was almost blinding: luscious golden-brown skin and full pink lips that tempted—
    “Tell me about Slaveland,” she invited.
    Her words struck his temper. “It’s a corrupt cesspool. But why ask me? You’re the one who lives here.”
    Lady Sara looked bewildered for an instant, before returning to the artificial manners typical of nobles that he found so infuriating. “I was referring to your homeland, not the Republic of Temboria. What do you call it, if not Slaveland?”
    “Since there are no slaves in my country, it would be stupid to call it Slaveland. Your country is the true land of slaves.” He spoke rudely, trying to pick a quarrel. Once she revealed her shallow nature, his desire for that perfect face and bewitching body would cool.
    “I beg your pardon, I meant no offense.” She looked sincere, but Lance held tightly to his irritation. “Slaveland is all I have ever heard your homeland called.”
    “It’s called Kandrith.”
    “It means Freedom,” Felicia volunteered.
    Lance looked at her in chagrin. In the heat of his argument, he’d inadvertently left Felicia out of the conversation. “Yes. Freedom or Key.”
    “How did you know that?” Lady Sara seemed perplexed that her slave knew something she didn’t.
    Felicia’s face became guileless. “I heard it somewhere.”
    Lance snorted. “You can chain a slave, but not fetter their thoughts.” He tried to catch Felicia’s gaze, to let her know he would help her if he could, but her eyes slid away.
    “Felicia’s not a slave. She’s a cuorelle.”
    “Cuorelle means Heart Slave. There’s no difference.”
    “You’re wrong. Slaves are slaves for life, and all their children, too, with no hope of ever redeeming themselves,” Lady Sara said with distaste. “Barbarians take slaves. Felicia has only two years left on her slavechain and then her grandfather will have served his forty years and she and all her brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins and her father will be free citizens of the Republic, equitains.”
    Lance stared at her, unable to believe the tripe falling from her lips. “You speak of forty years of starvation and hard labor as if it were nothing. Most slaves never live to earn off their slavechain.”
    “Only someone who is cruel and stupid starves his workers. I admit most nobles believe that hard labor is necessary to keep their osseons—first-generation Bone Slaves—too tired to revolt. However, we were speaking of cuorelles. Felicia has never done a day’s labor in the field.”
    Lance could have told her that most Republicans were cruel, stupid bastards, but he concentrated on smashing down the second part of her argument. “And has Felicia also never been beaten? Never seen a loved one whipped or murdered?”
    Lady’s Sara spine straightened. “Never.”
    He had his doubts, but they weren’t worth arguing over. “And can you say the same for every cuorelle?” He watched her face, expecting her—daring her—to lie.
    “It is illegal to torture or murder a slave,” Lady Sara said instead.
    A law that was never enforced. She couldn’t be that blind. She had to know; she just didn’t care. “And rape, is that illegal too?”
    He used the word as a verbal slap. As expected, it created a silence and then—
    A soft, bitter laugh escaped Lady Sara’s lips. “I’m afraid rape is a crime that holds little hope of justice for any woman, slave or noble.” Her gaze met his, and he recalled the lordling chasing her through the mud.
    Yes, that was probably true in this miserable excuse for a country. Things were different in