18
If Sabíana had thought that lying half-dead in a filthy turret room in the third reach was the low point in her life, she did so no longer. Once again she was lying half-dead in a filthy room. But it was not in a turret of a palace. It was in a whorehouse.
These past few weeks had been the worst of her life by any measure. As the dog-men had carried her through the double wall separating the first reach from the rest of Vasyllia, they had called out to the denizens of that shut-in place: “Vasyllia, receive your Darina. She has risen from the dead! Behold the miracle.”
Or some such nonsense.
Sabíana didn’t know what the dog-men expected would come of it; what did happen would have been unpleasant whether or not she had been announced as Darina. The people waiting at the double door t
