Free Sword Sisters by Alex Bledsoe, Tara Cardinal

farther.” And, as good as my word, I was out cold before my knees hit the ground, followed by the rest of me.

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    I awoke on a low bed. It was much bigger than mine and meant, I realized, for two people. Above me stretched bare, wooden rafters and beyond that a thatched roof. Sunlight came from the side, through a window hung with a simple cloth curtain. I smelled flowers and simmering vegetables.
    I didn’t move. No one else was in the room, but it didn’t mean there wasn’t a guard nearby. If I was a prisoner, I needed to let them think I was still unconscious. When you are in the enemy’s power, always play weaker than you are.
    I heard voices not from the room, but definitely close. It took a bit of concentration to sort them out, but I quickly discerned a man and a woman if not exactly arguing were at least disagreeing.
    “…was I supposed to do, kill her myself?” the woman said.
    “No, of course not, but she was spoken for! Linwit said she was chosen to take Kelinda’s place.”
    “Linwit has three perfectly acceptable daughters of his own. He didn’t need ours.”
    “That’s not the point. You let her go confront the elders on her own.”
    “Yes, I did. Because I have to look after the girl that saved her, and I knew that even if you were here, you wouldn’t do it.”
    “I’m not a coward, Sela.”
    “Yes, you are. When it counts, you are. Like this morning, when you held me back from stopping them from taking her.”
    “I was obeying the elders. And Damato was here.”
    “So you are afraid of Damato.”
    “I’m not afraid!”
    “Call it what you will. I saw a man giving up his eldest child to placate a bunch of dried-up old men.”
    “You’re a harsh woman, Sela.”
    “Yes, I am. I have to be since I’m fasted to you. Now, if you want to make yourself useful, go and at least listen to your daughter, and make sure they don’t try to drag her off again. Do you think you can do that?”
    The man muttered something I didn’t catch. Then I heard heavy footsteps followed by a door slamming.
    I moved my arms and legs enough to confirm I wasn’t bound to the bed. Then I took a quick mental inventory of my injuries. Leg, healed. Face, healed. Venom damage…not completely healed but enough to spare the energy for consciousness, which is why I was awake. By this time tomorrow, it would be like nothing had happened.
    Now, I heard movement outside the room: a woman’s voice humming as she busied herself doing…something. Further away was the murmur of community, a sound I heard every night as I lay alone in my tower. But these weren’t the noises of people going about castle business. The rhythms were slower, and I heard things you’d never hear in a castle: people laughing, children running, happy dogs barking. The bustle in the castle was all business all the time.
    Okay, apply logic. I’m in a village. Probably Amelia’s. This is probably Amelia’s house.
    I sat up. The spider hairs, pushed from my body by the healing process, lay on the bed around me. Blood from my thigh and shoulder had soaked into the blankets along with the sweat from my recuperation. I blinked, yawned, and then examined the rest of the room. It was simple, rustic, and clean with only a chair and a small table beside the bed for furniture. My sword was propped in the corner, gleaming where it wasn’t coated with dried spider blood. My clothes—
    I’m naked.
    For the love of all that’s holy, what the hell is it with these humans always trying to take my clothes off? I clutched the sheet, and a rush of shame filled me. The thought of it. The vulnerability. I imagined the disgust as human eyes roamed over my disfigured flesh and protruding bones—the parts Reapers are meant to keep covered. If they’d undressed me, they knew what I was even if they’d never seen one before. No matter how isolated this little village might be, everyone knew about the Reapers and what they looked like. And worse,