“Are you deaf? Peel faster!”
Ruth’s voice snapped from across the long table, making Arwen jolt.
“I–I’m trying,” Arwen whispered, her knife trembling in her hand as she peeled the tough root vegetable.
“Trying isn’t enough here,” said a skinny male slave beside her without looking up. “If you’re slow, it’s your back that gets cut, not the vegetables.”
Arwen swallowed hard. The sting of onions and smoke burned her eyes, mixing with the heat of the stoves that blistered skin.
The Nightshade kitchen was noisy—shouts, clattering pans—but the slaves all worked with the same silence.
A silence born of fear.
“I don’t want to die over vegetables,” Arwen muttered to herself.
“Then hurry.” The male slave whispered, handing her a sharper knife. “Use this. That one’s too dull.”
Arwen nodded s
