The pungent smell of piss and shit assaulted me as Vekrem and I were shoved down a circular coordinator. My feet hit wet stone, and a bit of the moisture seeped into my uncomfortable shoes…

  Oh, how I missed proper footwear.

  Eventually, we were both shoved inside the cell, and the bars were slammed closed behind us. There was the pounding of steps, and then an eerie silence followed.

  “Overly dramatic?” Vekrem asked. “Don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, wincing at the pain in my leg. “Just as dramatic as that showing upstairs. What was that supposed to prove? That lady scared the piss out of me without any of the showmanship.”

  Vekrem chuckled. “… Same.”

  Surprisingly, something sprang into life, and light filtered through the cell. Unsurprisingly, it turned out to be some sort of golden mushroom, which Vekrem had just pulled from underneath his clothes.

  “You hide that one up your ass?”

  “Are you always so crude?” Vekrem asked. “And what if I had? You know, desperate times…”

  I held up my hands. “Hey, no need to to defend your prison stash to me—we are in a type of prison, after all.”

  “There you go with those foreign words again… I did not ‘hide it up my ass.’ If you must know, I simply hid it in my pants. They weren’t very thorough in their search of my person.”

  “So that touched your…”

  Vekrem gave him a baleful side-eye.

  I shifted away from the mushroom that had touched his mushroom.

  “By the first ones, sit down,” Vekrem demanded.

  As I sat on the cold ground, Vekrem knelt in front of me as he slowly wrapped some sort of linen around my leg that our captors had provided. Likely annoyed with me, he tied the bindings so tight that pain shot through my body.

  “Cease!” Dragon boomed. “I feel this fool’s pain.”

  Vekrem whispered apologies.

  It was at that time that I heard the rattling of chains.

  “Are you two quite done?” Asema asked from across the way and down a few cells. “It looks like the meeting didn’t quite go as you planned?”

  “Nonsense,” Vekrem replied. “I am exactly where I wish to be.” He coughed. “Sort of.”

  “Oh, really,” Saise said, chains rattling. “Well then, would you mind telling them to take these damn things off? They are matting my fur.”

  “No can do,” Vekrem explained. “I told them you are a dangerous mercenary. Wouldn’t want them to know about your true occupation now, would we? Saise, Second Crownsguard.”

  There was a deafening silence.

  “So how fucked are we exactly?” Asema asked.

  Before anyone could answer, the door that led down to the cellblock rang open again. Vekrem quickly hid the mushroom back in his pants, and then shot me a glare before I could even say anything at all.

  I let it slide.

  Soon, the footsteps rested just outside our cell. I heard the soft rumbling of breath as someone said, “Here.”

  Through the bars, they had thrust some sort of clothing at us. Feeling them, they felt as soft as silk.

  What are these—” Vekrem began to ask, but whoever it was simply walked away, going to each cell and pushing through what I presumed were more clothes. Then, at Saise’s cell, they grumbled something under their breath, opened the cell, stepped inside, and then closed it not long after.

  “What are these for?” Vekrem asked as the figure stepped by.

  “Change,” they replied. “Wanted upstairs… soon.”

  Without another word, they shifted away until I heard the loud clang indicating they had gone back upstairs.

  “What the hell was that about?” I asked.

  Vekrem pulled out the glowing mushroom again to reveal that the clothes they had given us were, for lack of a better word… fancy! Fancier than anything I had ever worn before. Mine was a long coat, sweeping and elegant, with a dark gray charcoal color. The trimmings were silver with silver tassels, and the pants matched the charcoal color.

  Vekrem’s were of a deep red, and it reminded me of blood. Gold trimmings and tassels on his; it seemed they had a particular style.

  “What did they give to you?” I called out.

  “... A dress,” Asema replied, and her voice sounded… embarrassed?

  “Same,” Saise said. “It’s purple… talk about a clash of colors. Can these oversized mongrels even see colors?”

  “Why, yes,” Vekrem answered. “In fact, it is said that hybrids, unlike many of their animal ancestors, can see colors with a wider spectrum of—”

  “She was joking,” I explained.

  Vekrem shut his mouth and then whispered, “... Ah.”

  “Well, I’m not wearing this shit,” Asema complained. “I’d rather they just kill me instead of parading me around like some sort of peacock first before they chop off my head.”

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  My hand instinctively went to my own neck.

  “Nobody's head is going to be chopped off,” Vekrem replied. “This is a good thing, trust me. I’ve seen clothing like this before, and I know exactly where it is leading.”

  Saise seemed to grumble in agreement.

  “And?” I asked. “What does it mean?”

  Vekrem smiled widely. “It means we’re going to a ball.”

  ***

  Vekrem and I dressed, and the others presumably did as well. Asema complained the entire time about how ‘uncomfortable’ fancy clothes are. She… wasn’t wrong. While the clothes felt soft on the outside, like most things, it was for show. The insides were rough and itchy against my skin. That, or I was allergic to fancy things; given my life up to that point, and how much white-trash blood flowed through me, I wouldn’t doubt it.

  Vekrem, surprisingly, seemed comfortable. A little too comfortable, really. Why did this hermit alchemist seem so at home in the halls of this place? A question I would need to ask another time as I heard the doors swing open, guards saunter down, the clinking of cells opening, and finally rough hands shoving me relentlessly back upstairs.

  I hadn’t clocked how long we had been down there, but when we arrived back in the hall with the marble floor, the sight stunned me silent. Where before it had been mostly empty, now it was a bustling paradise of food, drink, and all manner of entertainment ranging from some sort of jester, juggling and then failing purposefully, the heavy-looking balls hitting the man in the head. Given the way the man laughed at himself, I was quite certain he had performed that little trick far too many times. Brain damage is a hell of a thing. In addition, there was a fire juggler as well. And at least twenty or thirty lycan hybrids, all dressed just as fancy as he was. Perhaps more so. The servants were, unsurprisingly, of the human variety. Yet what was surprising was the way the festivities died as we were paraded into the hallway.

  With myself at the head of the group, I turned to find Vekrem in his red and gold coat; he wore it well, and I felt a pang of jealousy at his slender form. Asema was next, and Vekrem’s jaw hung low as she appeared in a bright red dress that seemed to complement his own attire. It shimmered like the first light across a silent lake, and that reflected out across the floor. As for herself… the rot scar seemed to flow and ripple as well, changing to different shades of red in waves. She wore a frown so deep and disgusted that if I didn’t know any better, I’d have sworn that she had just stepped in a pile of shit.

  Next was Saise, and what I saw shocked me to the core.

  Dressed fancily, like themselves, in purple, as she had described, it was more for the humiliation as the dress had been violently ripped to shreds and what remained barely covered her body. In her mouth, she wore a sort of gag, which wrapped around her head and under her ears, which hung low, showing either deep sadness or rage…

  Perhaps both.

  “Finally!” Lucretia’s voice rang out, and all went silent. “Our honored guests have arrived.”

  There was a small sound that rang out as these “noble” lycans clapped. They did their best as civilized beings, somehow completely ignoring the elephant in the room, which was the treatment of Saise.

  Lucretia held up her hands, demanding the room’s attention once more. “I’m sure you are all wondering as to why I would call you here tonight. The truth? Because I deemed it necessary, and nothing else truly matters. Yet I have a reason beyond; more than once, each of you has come to me with complaints about Grimstead. Complaints that you wish to force your human slaves into the mines, despite the dangers… and each of you I have rebuked. We are not savages. We carry pride as is our place as the strongest among the hybrids and thus the strongest in the world.”

  Another round of clapping resounded, louder this time.

  “And yet,” she continued, “there are still problems that even we cannot overcome. And so that brings me back to our guests. First, we have the human man with the yellowish hair and the funny name… Ike!”

  More clapping.

  “Next… the rodrant; an esteemed alchemist, or so he says.”

  Less clapping this time, and I could have sworn I heard some boos.

  “Then there is the rotted one… her name is Asema. Rotted yet strong, I’ve been told. A caged animal will do its best to survive, after all.”

  Asema glowered with all the contempt in the world.

  “And finally,” Lucretia said, her voice lowering into a deep growl, “the one named Saise… a chitik mercenary who dared show her face here.”

  There was a procession of disapproval, jeers, and snide remarks.

  “Filthy whore,” one lycan noblewoman cried out.

  “Fox-spawn,” a man yelled in reply.

  To her credit, Saise stood tall amongst the rabble.

  “The chitik will remain at my side, bound; only fit to serve me wine.”

  There was a gasp from the crowd.

  “Not to worry,” Lucretia explained. “She has been searched for poison. Thoroughly. I know all too well her type resort to the lower ways of killing.”

  The guards forced Saise past us, and as I reached out for her, she shot me a look of pure fear… she did not wish to be saved. She would bear the humiliation herself.

  I ground my teeth, and Dragon smoldered with rage within me.

  Lucretia raised both hands high, staring up at the ceiling. “Now enough talk, let the revelry begin!”

  A wave of festivities washed through the hall as music began to play; lively dance music. Sure enough, those who weren’t busy stuffing their faces with food or drinking found themselves dancing to that rapturous beat.

  I glanced over and saw Lucretia staring at me. Somehow, I found I could read her lips as she whispered, “Come to me.”

  I swallowed hard.

  Vekrem leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “Just get through it. They will not hurt Saise, just humiliate her. But if we don’t play by their rules…”

  I spun on Vekrem. “Did you know?” I asked, “that she would be treated this way?”

  Vekrem went tight-lipped.

  I held back some of the nastier of the remarks I was thinking and said simply, “You disappoint me.”

  I turned and stalked off to the sound of Vekrem pleading with Asema not to cause a scene.

  As I stalked across the dance floor, more than one noblewoman tried to get me to stop and dance. I ignored them. Each one looked shunned, but when they saw where I was going, none dared to press the issue. None wished to challenge Lucretia. The woman compelled that much fear, even from her own people. I appreciated the danger of the situation I was in. The danger we were all in.

  Yet, as I stood in front of her, one guard bade me kneel. I ignored him, asking, “What the fuck is this about?”

  “Careful…” Lucretia warned, pulling on a chain they had attached to the back of the leather strap that held the ball in Saise’s mouth. “There are forces at work here that you simply cannot understand.” She leaned close—so close that no one was likely to be able to hear over the roar of the music. “Appearances are everything, and we are all slaves to it. This one is a sworn enemy, yet I bear no ill will. Already those have challenged me and have called for her head. This is… a compromise.”

  “A compromise,” I replied. “Where the hell do you get off—”

  “Stay with me and you’ll see that I will treat her the best I dare. You do this for me, and I will make sure you and your friends pass here unharmed.”

  I opened my mouth to protest further, but one look from Saise and I knew in her eyes that she was telling me to accept the offer, as it would likely be the best one we would get.

  With the fight all-but fleeing me, I muttered, “Fine, what is it you need me to do?”

  “Be my pet,” Lucretia replied. “My plaything for the night. This will keep you safe from the other nobles who have taken a keen interest in you.”

  “An interest in me?” I asked. “Why?”

  “Because of your skill in combat, of course. Because of your mysterious powers. Some fear the unknown, and some are drawn to it.”

  “And you?” I asked. “Which side do you fall on?”

  Lucretia smiled wide, and I saw a dangerous glint in her eyes. “Oh, you’ll find out… soon.” She reached on, and ran a single nail down my body, starting from my throat and ending on my…

  Saise, eyes wide with shock, shot me a look of pure pity.

  What the hell had I gotten myself into?