looking scared.
“A lot of stuff. Usually we are beaten and then given to a large group of people. They’re told to show us the ropes for a few weeks, but not to do any permanent damage to us physically. Even after they break us we stay in orientation until new girls arrive.” Her face was now very pale. “Mine was three weeks,” she said in a whisper.
There was a pit in Legon’s stomach. He felt for this girl. She had gone through a lot in the last few months and he could see that she was hurting. He wished there were some way to make it better, to take away her pain. He reached out to place his hand sympathetically on her forearm, but as his hand touched her, the feeling in his head shot down his arm. Images, scents, sounds, and feelings flashed in front of his eyes. He was a terrified girl being dragged along. Now he was being whipped. He could feel each lash as it burned across his back, splitting the skin. He gasped as he saw the lash marks heal without a scar. He realized that the whip was enchanted.
The fear was so strong now. He was in a room filled with men, all smiling and calling out. They were on her now, ripping off clothes, hitting and kicking. Then the violation, the humiliation tore through him. The memories of the day he broke, letting them do what they wanted, doing to them what they wanted. Then images of client after client ran through his mind. Each time he felt all the emotions, all the pain—everything. It was too much.
He pulled his hand off her arm, breathing hard. Sara yelped and clapped her hand to her neck. Sasha was up in a heartbeat, scrambling around Sara and lifting her hand from her neck.
“It’s gone,” she said with a gasp.
“What’s gone?” Legon asked.
“The tattoo.” Sasha looked at him. There was an awed and frightened look on her face.
Sara looked at him with new tears in her eyes, but this time they were tears of gratitude. “I felt all of my pain leave me. I felt your compassion and love and now my tattoo is gone.” She looked at him intently, looked into his eyes.
“You’re a Venefica.”
“A wha…” he started.
“Silence,” snapped Arkin. ”Sara, don’t say another word, not here. You know what could happen. You lot clear your minds.”
“But . . .” Kovos said.
“Do it now,” Arkin barked as people from around the tavern looked at them.
“Sara, you cannot go back to your owner. You know as well as I do that they will find out what happened. And we all need to leave now. Sasha, give Sara some clothes so she will look normal walking out of the city, and the rest of you get ready. We’re leaving. Now.”
“Arkin, what about getting…” Keither started.
“We have answers, now go.”
They all stood, but Sara looked apprehensive. She was obviously torn between the possibility of newfound freedom and the fear of her owner. Legon had taken her pain into himself for just a moment, but in that moment he had gained an understanding that would have taken years to learn, if not a lifetime. To feel what someone else was dealing with, how they thought and felt during a situation… He wondered what kind of person he would be if he had this knowledge his whole life.
The sensation in his head was gone now. He should have felt scared about what he’d just done, but he didn’t. After all, he did what he had wanted to do. He wanted to set Sara free and to take away her pain. Was it magic? It had to be, there was no other way to explain it.
Sara moved along slowly with the others and Arkin showed them out the door and down the street. The streets were clogged with people and the going was slow, but Legon wasn’t paying attention to that. He kept rolling the thought of magic around in his head. What had Sara called him? “Venefica,” he thought. What did that mean, and how did she know about it? He also wondered what Arkin had learned that made him want to rush out of town so fast. They reached the stables next to the entrance of Salez.
“Sara, do you have a horse?” Arkin asked. He noticed Sara was now in one of Sasha’s dresses. It fit well, but when did that happen? He needed to get his head in