She knew perfectly well how to be a girl. She was a girl. People seemed to forget that, or assume she wanted to be something else because of her choices. Hearing Matthias lay out her future in such bleak terms might have sent her into a rage in the past, but she was older than she had been when she got here. She was weary.
She was ready.
* * *
The next time the cruel guard came by with a rodent, Lada smiled at him. She opened her eyes wide and smiled through her long, tangled hair. “I want bigger animals,” she said. “Rats are not satisfying. Bring me rabbits. Larger animals. Men, if you have any to spare.”
His look of gleeful horror confirmed to Lada that he would do as asked, if only to have a new account of her depravity to trade like currency among the other soldiers. She smiled bigger.
* * *
Lada lay in a pool of blood, her skin pale, her eyes closed. The blood was cold and congealed, an inelegantly written story of the end of her life spilled out onto stone floors.
“Devil take her,” a guard at the door muttered. “Hey! Come look at this.”
“Oh, God protect us. What a mess. Hey, you! Stay here. You have quite the cleanup job ahead of you tonight. Josef, go get the keys.”
“Should I send word to the king?”
“No, not yet. We should check on her, make sure she is dead. Then move her out quietly so no one notices. After that we can figure out what to tell him. I better not get in trouble for this.”
“I liked this job,” the second guard said.
“Not me. Look at those animals! She was a monster. Lucifer is dancing happy in his flames tonight to get such a soul for hell.”
After a few minutes, the door opened and two pairs of booted feet shuffled into the room.
“God save us, the smell!”
A boot nudged Lada’s side. Then her wrist was lifted, held gingerly between two fingers as though the guard was worried her death—or perhaps just the smell—was contagious. “Where is the wound? Her wrists are not cut.”
Lada twisted her hand, grabbing the guard’s wrist. She yanked him to the floor. A cry went up but was cut short with the swift application of Stefan’s blade. Lada’s hands around the first guard’s throat prevented him from shouting, and Stefan’s blade silenced the other one.
“What took you so long?” Lada stood, shaking out her arms and legs to restore circulation. The animal blood made her dress sticky and stiff, but she had no replacements and no time to change.
Stefan wiped his knife on the tunic of one of the dead guards. He had slipped in after them. “I had to kill the ones in the hallway first.”
He held out a length of brown cloth, and Lada wrapped it around herself like a shawl. It hid most of the blood. She hesitated at the threshold, and then stepped into the hallway. It felt like a much bigger distance than it was. “Where is Oana? She was supposed to discover my body. I have been lying on the floor for hours!”
Stefan shook his head. “I do not know.”
“We agreed that this was the day!”
“She does not always come when she is scheduled.”
“We cannot leave without her. We will go to the kitchens, and—”
“Lada, we do not have time.”
Lada tried to hurry down the hall. She wanted to feel triumphant, but a wave of dizziness washed over her. It had been so long since she had felt well, since she had been able to move enough. She leaned against the rough wall. Marveled that after so many weeks, it was a different wall than the four she had become accustomed to.
Stefan walked ahead of her, checking for other guards. “We do not have time, and you do not have the strength. If you want to get out, we need to leave now.”
“You can go get Oana, then.”
“If I leave you, you will not make it out.”
Lada’s heart raced in her chest. There had to be another way. A way to escape with Oana.