Completely flabbergasted, I turned around to stare at him. "Why are you on the floor?"
He looked immediately disappointed. "I shall wait for you in the room."
He moved to leave.
"Wait," I said, taking his arm. "Aren't you hungry? I was told you hadn't eaten."
"I am hungry," he said simply from between his clenched teeth.
"Then sit."
Again he knelt on the floor.
What was he doing? "Acheron, why are you on the floor and not sitting at the table with me?"
His look was empty, unassuming. "Whores don't sit at tables with decent people."
His voice was steady as if he were merely repeating something that had been said so often it no longer had any meaning to him.
But the words cut through me.
"You're not a whore, Acheron."
He didn't argue verbally, but I could see the denial in his pale, swirling eyes.
I reached out to touch his face. He stiffened ever so slightly.
I dropped my hand. "Come," I said softly. "Sit at the table with me."
He did as I told him, but looked terribly uncomfortable, as if he feared someone would wrench him up by his hair at any moment. Over and over, he pulled at the cowl as if to protect himself.
It was then I realized the second way to punish someone when you didn't want any visible marks. The head. How many times had they wrenched his hair?
A servant came to take our orders.
"What would you like, Acheron?"
"My will is your will, Idika."
Idika. An Atlantean word that a slave used for his owner.
"Have you no preference?"
He shook his head.
I ordered our food and watched him. He kept his gaze on the floor, his arms locked around his body.
When he moved to cough, I caught sight of something strange in his mouth.
"What is that?" I asked.
He glanced up at me, then looked down. "What is what, Idika?" he asked, again with his jaw clenched.
"I'm your sister, Acheron, you may call me Ryssa."
He didn't respond.
Sighing, I returned to my original question. "What is in your mouth? Let me see your tongue."