I am the rank that I am.” She fiddled with the fabric of her robe. She knew they marked her as being of the highest caste of priestess, save for Sidonia herself. She didn’t know what colors looked like, for obvious reasons, but she had always been fascinated by their existence. She knew she wore “navy blue.” She knew that the higher rank wore “purple.” She knew roses were “red.”
Ever since she was little, she pestered people about colors. They were the only things she wished she really understood. The closest she could get was that colors seemed to mean things to people. They were somehow associated with emotions. Blue was sad or peaceful. Green was the color of nature and growth. Or envy.
Red was the color of fire. Of passion and anger.
Of Nero.
“I didn’t realize you were supposed to be high priestess…did you want to be?” He interrupted her thoughts again.
This was a personal conversation, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about talking of such things with him. But he owned her now. He could ask her what he liked. Such was the way of a slave. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“My entire life has been chosen for me, Nero. Everything I have ever had, anything I have ever been, has been because someone else chose for me. My parents sold me to the temple. The temple decided to raise me to be high priestess. You decided to buy me. I am here because of the actions of others, not my own. What I want counts for nothing.” She pulled her hand from his as she felt resentment boil up to the surface. “It counts for less than nothing.”
She felt him sit up at her side and hover close to her. He did like to be near her at every opportunity. He rested his hand on her opposite shoulder to where his chest was, and she felt his head brush against her hair. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted to get to know you.”
His voice was soft and soothing. It was like a warm bath, trying to calm her down. She believed him, for what it was worth. But to what end? He was a womanizer. There was no doubt what he was after.
But what else?
The more she thought about it, something didn’t add up. But she needed to think it over more before she made any further accusations.
She paused again as she gathered her thoughts. “I’ve come to think that people are defined by their wants. Someone who wants power becomes a tyrant. Someone who wants money becomes a miser. Someone who wants pleasure becomes a hedonist.” She rubbed a tense muscle at the back of her neck. “If I want nothing, what am I? Nothing.”
“That isn’t true.”
“You said yourself you don’t know me.”
“Kema, can you go fetch me a better bottle of wine? Something from the cellars?”
“Sure thing, boss.”
Nero paused as Kema stood to leave. It was clearly a farce. He had sent her away to have a private moment with her. She braced herself, but for what, she didn’t know. She didn’t think Nero was the type of person to be too shy to feel her up in public. He had nearly done that in the damned temple.
What was so personal that he had sent his assistant and clearly close friend away?
“You are not nothing.” He sounded angry with her as he placed his hand on her cheek and tilted her face toward him. “You slapped me. Twice. No, three times now. You played me in the car and faked that you did not know what I was doing. You are intelligent. You are cunning. I have seen people who are nothing. Half the people at this fucking party are nothing. You are anything but.”
“You do not know me, Nero Finch.”
“I am a very good judge of character.”
“Are you?” She tried not to scoff.
“Mine is so terrible, I have had to learn from others.” His voice was close to her. She could feel his breath wash over her.
The sensation made something shiver up her spine and coil dangerously in her body. Something traitorous and wrong. When she spoke, it was barely more than a whisper. “What do you want from me? What do you really want from me?”
“I want you to be my religious advisor.”
“We established that was a lie.”
“Then I want to solve the mystery of how you came to be a slave.”
“Why do I also doubt