By the time I step into the main kitchen block, heads turn. Not for the usual reasons. No awe. No hunger.
Pity.
The other slaves look away fast, like I’m cursed. And maybe I am.
I don’t speak. Don’t make eye contact. I grab a scrub brush and drop to the floor like the rest of them.
I don’t cry.
I just scrub.
Let the anger boil. Let the humiliation burn.
Because if Petru thinks this breaks me, he’s wrong.
I’m not silk anymore.
I’m steel.
CHAPTER 8
KELLI
The kitchen heat slams into me like a punch every morning.
Hot, greasy, foul. Sweat clings to every inch of me before I even reach the first station. The steam from the vats rises in wet waves, curling against my skin, soaking into the ratty gray uniform clinging to my back.
The work isn’t complicated.
Scrub the vats. Chop the vegetables. Stir the slop. Haul the crates.
Repeat.
All day. No breaks unless you want a baton across the ribs.
At first, I keep up. Barely. Pride pushes me through. Rage too. I make myself scrub harder, lift faster, move quicker. I don’t look at the guards. Don’t look at the other slaves. Don’t let them see the cracks.
But the days blur, one bleeding into the next, and the cracks start splitting wide.
The blisters on my hands pop. Raw skin screams every time I grip a scrub brush. My knees are a mess of bruises. My back’s a knot of pain that no stretch or breath can fix.
And now?
Now there’s something worse.
A cold that started in my bones and hasn’t left.
It creeps deeper every day, stealing my strength little by little. My arms shake lifting even the smallest crates. My legs go rubbery after an hour on my feet. My head pounds so bad sometimes I can’t see straight.
I’m getting sick.
Really sick.
And there’s no one here who’ll care enough to notice until I’m a body to drag off.
It hits hardest three days after the summons.
I’m hauling a bucket of greasy water across the kitchen floor when my knees buckle without warning.
