One week passed. Sally was doing better. Danika helped her do everything, no
matter how much Sally protested she shouldn’t.
Danika became Sally’s arms and legs-mostly legs. She walked with Sally
everywhere, with Sally leaning into her as they traveled. Danika wrapped her arms
around her waist to support her fully while her legs healed properly, and the sexual
wounds the kings inflicted healed too.
Uyah spread the rumor well. Everyone in the palace knew that Danika had been
introduced, but the kings hurt Sally worse because she tried to interfere to save her
princess. What surprised the maids, slaves, and servants was the bond between
Danika and Sally-the love Danika had for her former personal maid, who had
become her best friend. They never expected it.
They never expected the slave princess to take care of a low peasant like Sally, and
the sight of them taking a walk with Danika fully supporting her-the sight of Danika
reading to her and brushing Sally’s hair, always robbed them of speech. Not only in
the palace. They’d gone to the library three days in the last week, and the people of
Salem found it hard to believe what they saw. They stared at Danika and Sally.
Danika never seemed to notice it. Her focus was always on Sally, making sure she
didn’t fall and that she healed correctly. Danika had taken her to the medicine man’s
house twice in a week.
Now, a month later, Sally was doing so much better. She could walk properly, and
most of her wounds had healed; the bruises had faded. Just a few scars remained, and
Madam Baski was doing everything she could to make them disappear like the scars
that would’ve formed on Danika’s back.
Sally did better during the day and was almost back to her old self. But at night-
most nights-her subconscious replayed the royal court to her, and she screamed in
her sleep, crying and pleading.
Danika had fallen into the habit of waking her and soothing her while doing her
best to keep the guilt at bay. She hoped Sally would be alright again-even in her
mind-even while she slept.
Danika had heard less from the king in the past month. He’d summoned her three
times only, and those times he made her sit on the floor beside him, and he gave her a
brand-new scroll and a well-written parchment. He ordered Danika to rewrite
everything in the parchment to the scroll as a way of duplicate.
At the very core of her being, Danika nursed the fluttering feeling and peace in her
heart whenever she sat beside the king in silence and transcribed. It had been a
favorite activity when she was still a princess. And now she had fallen into a routine
with the king. No words. No noise. No slavery. No tasks. Just both sitting and
writing.
It also gave her a deep sense of satisfaction because it was the one thing his
mistress could never do with him. It was the one thing he could do with her alone.
He’d summoned her one day and announced that they were going to the Kingdom
of Ijipt for a court meeting among the kings. They rode in the royal carriage, which
surprised Danika-and still surprised her whenever she remembered it. The king had
let her ride the carriage with him.
Slaves did not ride the royal carriage; it was impossible. Slaves walked on foot
while their master rode in the carriage, and the guards rode the horses. An excellent
master might allow the slave to ride on a horse.
Not the carriage-unless he wanted to take pleasures from her body in there. Never
the carriage.
But the king had let Danika stay in the carriage, and even though she sat in that
space on the floor of the carriage, it didn’t matter. It beat walking and riding on a
horse.
Also, thankfully, the meeting in Ijipt went well.
When they first arrived, the kings had taken one look at Danika and their lips
thinned in displeasure.
“You survived,” King Moreh had snarled.
Fear had Danika inching behind the king’s back, even before she knew she had
taken a step.
King Moreh and King Philip’s look of disapproval was blatant on their faces, but
the other kings just stared at her thoughtfully. The two king’s anger came from the
oldest of the laws.
*Any slave that escapes death in a certain tradition shall never again be subjected
to it as a demand or an order, unless as a punishment from her master.*
All the kings knew they could never subject the daughter of King Cone to another
introduction, just as an order or a demand. She could only endure another introduction
by these kings if it was an order or a punishment coming from her master.
King Lucien and all the kings knew this, which was why he had brought her along.
The kings had no right where she was concerned anymore.
“I’ll have to say, I admire her strength,” King Pesih finally said dismissively while
they walked into the royal court and took their seats and positions.
Danika was glad that it was all over. They wouldn’t try to force her to go through
another introduction. King Lucien had told her coldly during the journey that the
kings didn’t have the right to do so.
As the kings shrugged and started into the royal court, dismissing her presence, she
finally realised that he was right. It made her happy. Danika didn’t have to hide from
them for the rest of her life.
She’d sat in her usual position beside the king during the meeting, trying to pretend
that she didn’t know that the meeting was about the petition for slaves, which King
Lucien was fighting for. Danika was a slave, and a slave was supposed to be an
object. She wasn’t supposed to know that.
But in the past month, she found out things about the king she never knew-things
that disturbed her.
The king wanted to create a better life for the lowborn. He petitioned to abolish
some terrible laws on slaves and enforce some new ones that would help the lives of
the lowborn. That knowledge had only strengthened the forbidden thought in
Danika’s mind that the king was really a good man. He was hard on her because of
what her father did to him, but that wasn’t his nature-especially with other slaves.