Sara

We got back to our rooms without being troubled by anyone else. Sybil closed the door as we filed into the room, fatigued from our busy day. We would surely have many more days like today before our training was complete.

Rayall was tired, having drained his mana many times that day, it had taken a physical toll on him. He excused himself and vanished into his room for the night. Sybil didn’t say anything and simply disappeared, presumably to her room though it would take a particularly brave or foolish individual to check. I had thought that Korin may have been foolish enough, he had seemed to have taken a liking to Sybil, finding reasons to spend time with her much as he had done with Bella. He either relished in the challenge or in the rejection, he was a strange creature. However, tonight he had comforted Cleo after her attack at the hands of Zarin.

Something rattled in my mind from that encounter. The look that Sara had given to Zarin, it was pure hatred. Had something happened between the two of them before? I couldn’t see anyway it could have, they never lived in the same place before we reached the capital. I still couldn’t get the image of her gaze out of my mind, it was the kind of look that I was giving him, why did she hate him so much?

I glanced over at Cleo, smiling as Korin told her one of his stories. I sighed, I had to talk to her, I had to know. I walked over to Sara who was eating some of the food on one of the tables, “Hey Sara, is everything okay?” I asked cautiously as I sat down in front of her.

She looked up at me, still chewing on a piece of unidentifiable meat. “Yeah, why?” she said, food still in her mouth as she spoke.

“It’s just, I saw the look that you were giving Zarin before. You looked angry, like really angry. I thought you might have tried to kill him” I said, realising after I had finished speaking that I probably should have been gentler in my wording. “Did he do something to hurt you?”

She finished chewing her food, taking the moment to gather her thoughts as red blazed in her cheeks. I thought she looked a bit happy for a moment before she began speaking, “No, he didn’t do anything to me” she said at last, fidgeting in her seat. “It’s just… I hate nobles like him” she emphasised the word as she clutched a fork in her hand.

I wanted to know more about what made her hate them so much, “Why? Did one of them do something to you?” I asked. She had forgotten her food as she spoke and was blushing, clearly uncomfortable with the subject.

She looked around the room, seeing Korin and Cleo talking on one of the sofas. “Not here” she said at last, standing up from the table. “It’s not something I want everyone to know, come on” she said as she walked to her room.

I rose and followed behind her, Korin gave me a strange look as I went into Sara’s room with her and let the door close behind us. Her room was almost identical to mine, though it seemed a bit homelier, with mementos placed on the desk and a fur sprayed across the floor. She sat on her bed and still looked hesitant. I walked over and lowered myself besides her, sitting a little apart from her, “So, do you want to talk about it?” I asked at last.

She nodded her head, her mouth moving without any words coming out for a moment. She spoke at last, “I grew up in a village like yours. It was a bit bigger and the people were different, but it was still a village, they don’t really change much. Our Lord was called Lord Rothurk, he didn’t visit often, just for the events that he was obligated to attend, annual festivals, tax collections, those kind of things” I nodded my head in understanding. Lord Beckront hadn’t been anything like that, but the little I had seen of Lord Motten made me think that he was like her Lord in that regard. “Lord Rothurk was young for a lord, he was handsome and there was a lot of gossip about hm from the other girls in the village, most of them wanted to marry him.”

I nodded my head and made a humming sound, feeling like I had to do something to fill the silence.

“They all wanted to be with him, but I was who caught his eye.” She looked down, at the bed between her legs, almost ashamed, I hadn’t seen her like that before. “He was visiting the village for the harvest festival, and he invited my family back to his manor for a feast that he would be having. He was our lord, and we were flattered by the offer, of course we accepted, me, my mother, my brother, and my father, all of us.” She looked up at me and I could see tears welling in her eyes, it was a difficult story for her to tell.

“When we got there, he changed. He was polite and friendly with us in the village, but I don’t know… he became different. He took me and my mother to one of the rooms in the manor so that we could clean up for the dinner, he wouldn’t leave whilst we did so. We were both really uncomfortable with it, but he was the lord, so we got ready and put on the outfits he had chosen for us.” She sighed, “then we went to dinner”

I put my hand on her back and she looked up to me with a smile on her face. I nodded my head and she continued.

“At the dinner he would touch us; me, and my mother I mean. Things like putting his hands on our thighs, stroking our hands, feeling our hair. It was weird and my father tried to excuse us, to get us out of there but he wouldn’t have it. He would brush off my father’s requests for us to leave, when he got angry my father stopped asking. When the meal ended, me and my mother were feeling drowsy. I still don’t know what it was, the food, the wine, or something else, but he had drugged us. He told my father that he would take us to lie down where we could recover, I think he knew what was going to happen, but he couldn’t do anything”

I was horrified at what I was hearing, “Sara, you don’t have to…” I trailed off, not wanting her to relive what happened to her.

She shook her head, “No Aucus, I think I need to” she said, “He took us to a bedchamber and he… he raped us. The drug made it so that we could barely move but we were still awake, we could feel everything that he was doing but we couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t fight.” She said, the tears began to overflow and spill from her eyes. “My brother tried to stop him. He went into the bedchamber with my father and when he saw what was happening, he tried to stop him and pull him off of us. He... He… He killed him. He stabbed my brother with a knife and killed him.”

“I’m sorry” I croaked, realising that maybe my grievance with Zarin and his family wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

She nodded her head. “I tried to scream but my voice wouldn’t work. My father just watched, he watched as that bastard raped his wife and his daughter. When he finished, he gave him two copper coins, for the whores, he said. He thanked him, you know, my father thanked him for raping me. After that he had a dose of moon tea brought to us in case we got pregnant, he only brought one dose though, since we liked sharing so much” tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she continued onwards. “My mother insisted that I drink it all. She got pregnant in the end, with his bastard. My father killed himself a few months later. Apparently, he couldn’t live with having done nothing to protect us and thought abandoning us would satisfy his guilt” she sounded angry as she spoke about her father.

“He tried to get us to move into the manor with him, he claimed it was so that he could properly care for his child. But he just wanted to rape us some more. My mother helped me escape the village and I left for the test.” She sighed as she looked up to me. I put my arm around her to comfort her, I couldn’t imagine having lived through something like that, “And then I met Rayall, and you, and Korin and we came here and became adventurers. And when I’ve learned everything I can, I’m going to go back to my village, and I’m going to kill him” she said the last part calmly, firm in her resolve.

I hugged her closely, “Hey, I’m here for you” I said as I felt the dampness of her tears on my shirt. “It’s going to be okay; he can’t hurt you here” I stroked her hair as I held her close, her arms wrapped around me.

“Thanks Aucus” she said as she lifted her face up to look at me, “Let’s make a deal, we’re going to help each other kill any of this kingdom’s Lords whenever we need to”

I smiled at her, “it’s a deal, I’ve got a few on my list already” I said, receiving a strange sound that was something of a mix between a sob and a laugh.

She rested her head in my lap and I could feel tears streaming down her face silently, it had been a terrible moment in her life and had cut a wound that still hadn’t healed. I rested my hand on her and muttered comforting platitudes to her.

After a while she quietened down and I realised she had fallen asleep. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t want to leave her alone after what she had just relived. If she woke up, I wanted to be there for her, to be able to comfort her. I moved her onto her bed properly and laid down beside her, still clothed as I wrapped my arms around her in a hug and fell asleep.