Chapter 5 The View from the Cage
1258 Words
They named the high tower the “Aerie.”
As if I were some rare, rescued bird.
The irony was a bitter pill.
Birds in gilded cages are still prisoners.
They just die prettier, their songs fading in a vacuum of polished bars.
Two stone-faced Beta escorts—their silence louder than any command—led me up the endless, spiraling staircase. “For your safety and dignity, Saint Healer,” one had uttered.
With each step upward, the world I knew faded.
The thick stench of the lower levels—sweat, iron, fear—gave way to a curated hollowness. Lemon polish. Beeswax candles.
The dust of dried herbs.
Then, the sounds vanished too.
The distant clash of steel from the training yards, the shouts of warriors—all swallowed by a profound, watchful silence.
This was the silence of a display case, of wealth that demanded stillness.
My new quarters were not a room; they were a stage set for a captive prize.
Plush, alien furniture lay in wait to ambush my shins.
A bedroom was dominated by a bed so vast and yielding it felt less like a place to rest than a maw to be swallowed by.
In the bathing chamber, the miracle of steaming water at the turn of the knob felt not like luxury, but like a mockery.
And the balcony—a true, honest-to-the-Moon balcony—opened onto a void of wind and dizzying space.
I went there first.
My hands found the railing: stone still holding the day’s trapped warmth, its surface scoured cool by the relentless wind.
This high up, the air was a different beast—clean, sharp, merciless, stripped of all but the scent of distant pine and ice.
It smelled of leagues, of freedom.
The sheer, sucking drop beneath my feet.
The muted, hive-like hum of the fortress far below—a life I had been surgically excised from.
I stood above it all, more isolated than any spire.
The door to my suite was a masterpiece of thick, carved oak.
It was also, I learned within hours, a permanent pretense.
On that first evening, I tried to leave.
Not to escape—that was a dream for later—but simply to walk, to map the dimensions of my new prison with my own feet.
I took two precise steps into the hallway.
“Saint Healer.” The voice materialized from my right, polite as a drawn blade.
“Do you require something? I can fetch it for you.”
I turned my face toward the sound, my empty gaze aimed just below where I guessed his eyes would be.
“I require a walk. To learn my surroundings.”
“I’m afraid that’s not advisable.” The reply was rehearsed.
“The tower stairs are treacherous. Your… condition… makes it unsafe. For your protection.”
“My ‘condition’,” I repeated.
“Your sight impairment, Healer. And your immense value to the pack.” Not a flicker of apology, only immutable fact.
“Please, return to your quarters. Your dinner will be brought shortly.”
I stood, a statue of defiance in silk, feeling the weight of his stare and the mirrored presence of another guard to my left.
Their breathing was synchronized.
I retreated.
The door did not click shut.
It remained deliberately, insultingly ajar.
The servants were the next layer of the cage.
A woman named Elara tended to me.
Her footsteps were whispers, and she carried the scent of soap with a faint, sharp edge of anxiety underneath.
She laid out meals I didn’t touch, ran baths whose steam never reached my bones, and brought clothes “befitting my station.”
Silks that felt cold and slippery.
Wools too soft to trust.
Dresses that lay against my skin like a stranger’s touch—all wrong after the honest scrape of linen and blood-stiffened leather.
Every stitch felt like a lie.
“The elders thought you might… appreciate finer things,” Elara murmured one day, arranging a tray of fruit.
“What I’d appreciate,” I said from my usual spot by the dead fireplace, “is a knife. A sharp one.”
A quick intake of breath. I heard the quiet, hurried clatter of the tray as she finished and left, her steps faster now.
They weren’t just guarding me.
They were polishing me.
Like a tool kept ready for use.
The summons came on the fifth day, cutting through the heavy, blank boredom.
It didn’t come through the elders or a servant.
The heavy oak door swung open, and a scent I knew too well flooded in, wiping away the careful smells of herbs and polish: cold air, sharp steel, and the overwhelming, electric dominance of Victor.
Every muscle in me was locked.
I was sitting by the empty hearth.
“Out.” The word cracked.
Elara, fiddling with a vase, gasped softly and scurried out, a wake of fear trailing behind her.
I heard the guards outside snap to attention.
The door was almost pulled shut, leaving a charged, false privacy.
His footsteps were heavy on the stone, circling.
I kept my face toward the fireplace, hands folded in my lap, playing the part of the docile blind girl.
“Comfortable?” he asked finally, sarcasm dripping.
“The rooms are more than I’m used to, Your Majesty.” I kept my voice neutral.
“They should be. We’ve invested enough.”
He stopped right in front of me, his presence blocking what little warmth existed.
“Reports say you’re adjusting. Eating. Resting. No trouble.”
“I try to be a model prisoner.”
“You are an asset,” he corrected, “One that requires maintenance. I’m here to inspect it.”
“Inspect?”
“The asset.” He moved. I felt the air shift, felt his focus like a weight. Then, his fingers—calloused, surprisingly warm — brushed the side of my neck, tracing my hammering pulse.
I frozed.
“Physically, you’re adequate.”His fingers went to my chin, tilting my face up, turning it like examining an object. “The blindness is a flaw. A defect in the weapon.”
“I am not a weapon.”
The words shot out before I could stop them.
His grip tightened, “You are what I say you are. A weapon. A tool. A saint.”
His thumb brushed over my bottom lip—a gesture that should have been intimate but felt like a brand of pure contempt.
“Your purpose is to serve the pack. To serve me. Your comfort, your sight… they don’t matter. Only your function does.”
He let go of my face.
I heard him step back, but the ghost of his touch clung to my skin.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “Noon. The royal training annex. We’ll assess your abilities. Controlled environment. Test subjects. I’ll be watching.”
So that was it.
Not healing.
A test in a lab.
“And if I refuse?” It was barely a whisper.
A short, harsh laugh. “Then you’ll learn what happens to assets that fail. The lower levels have cells with no balconies, Saint Healer.”
His footsteps retreated.
The door opened and shut firmly, sealing me in a silence that now hummed with threat.
My own hand came up, trembling, to my neck, to my lip.
I scrubbed at the skin, but it was of no use.
The inspection was over.
The message was clear.
- Writer
