Lives.

  Mia didn’t remember how she returned to the medic tent.

  Senric sat, a cup of tea in his hands, watching her with curious eyes. She knew he was curious. She wanted someone to talk to. But if she told him her debt, he’d know her ledger. The very thing he’d warned her not to do.

  She touched the teacup, unwilling to drink, unwilling to return to camp. She wasn’t ready to return to silence.

  “Did you close the book?”

  Mia looked up. “I…” She didn’t remember. Her heart rate picked up. “Yes,” she lied. But he didn’t look convinced. His stare was calm. “What would happen if I didn’t?”

  “Hmm. It depends,” he said, his voice quiet, but weighted.

  “Depends.” She hated that word. Everything in her life depended on something or someone. “On what?” she asked, preferring the answer to not having it.

  “On who entered the tent after you...”

  Mia sipped the tea, camomile mixed with raha. “Did I close the book?” she asked.

  Gaze weighted with restrained amusement. Everything was a test, a series of events carefully curated. They wanted confirmation, but she doubted they’d let anyone enter that tent after her. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  Mia didn’t press; she didn’t expect an answer.

  Her mind drifted to the concern at hand. Lives. Vague phrasing. Its meaning was open to interpretation. Hope sparked in her chest, easing the stuffy feeling that made every breath difficult.

  She couldn’t do it here. There were too many eyes watching. She needed to return to camp. They’d be ending the morning march soon. It was the perfect time to slip into the woods and find something to ki…sacrifice.

  Mia wasn’t a killer.

  She wasn’t a murderer.

  That’s it.

  Mia laughed.

  Elbow on the table, Senric rested his head on his hand. “Returning to camp?” He asked.

  Her spine stiffened. Mia felt exposed, her arms crossed over her belly. “I think it’s time I go back. Nessa is probably worried.”

  He nodded. “Yes, Nessa is worried.” He cleared the cups. “We need to set a time for me to meet her. Mox mentioned she was skilled at identifying herbs.”

  That wasn’t the only skill she had.

  Mia bit her lip. Too much had happened. She had little to no time to assess the implications, flooded with so much information. It didn’t help that she’d violated Nessa’s privacy and trust.

  It didn’t matter, not really. She had to focus on staying alive.

  Five to start.

  “Mia!”

  Her head snapped up. His posture hadn’t changed. Arm in hand, he watched and waited. “I’m sure you will overcome any challenge placed in your way,” he said with more confidence than she felt.

  She opened her mouth.

  Mox had guessed her ledger.

  If she left the book open, it would only be confirmation.

  Her jaw snapped closed.

  He placed her with the scavengers—Mox, with his analytical interest and smug curiosity. Mox’s vague plans guided her to a predetermined outcome.

  A field full of bodies, not dead yet.

  A mercy killing.

  Five to start.

  No.

  She had to try.

  Mia’s nails bit into the palm of her skin. She wasn’t a murderer. It was a line she’d never cross.

  It asked for lives, but didn’t say they had to be… human.

  This is Cinderwild, her traitorous mind reminded. This was the wild continent where the cheapest commodity was lives.

  No.

  Her plan would work. She would return to camp, check on Nessa, and then enter the forest to find her first sacrifice.

  A bird or a hare.

  You’ve never hunted.

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  A worm.

  Her eyes stung, but she refused to cry.

  A tithe of five after that.

  Tithe. Ten percent of a person's income, produce, or resources. She remembered them, old, long-robed, long-winded men who explained why they had to give to the church; why they had to contribute; why her mother, who didn’t make enough to eat a decent meal, must give ten percent of the money she made on her back. Mia remembered the reasons. She remembered their outstretched hands as they asked for money to support the clergy, to feed the poor, and heal the sick.

  She didn’t remember the food or the healing, but their long, clean robes woven with magic threads shouted of how well supported they were.

  “It’s time to go back.” She pushed her cup away, tea sloshing over the side. “I need to go back.”

  “Can you manage?” he asked, tapping at his ear.

  Her hand came up, fingers ghosting her face as they crawled towards her ears. Useless. Sitting on the side of her head, failing to do their only job.

  Anger.

  Rage.

  Red hot burning through her body, leaving devastation in place of rationality.

  Her laugh was a terrible, barked, cackle. No humor or joy tainted the sound. “I’ll manage.”

  Senric nodded. “Tenacity. The only thing you need to thrive in Cinderwild.”

  Thrive. A dirty word when the cost of it was so high. Fifty lives each month. Fifty, so she didn’t go blind and deaf before death.

  “Ah, I have something for you.” He stood, disappearing behind another partition that she hadn’t noticed. When he returned, there was a cage in his hand, a white rabbit sat confined behind metal bars, its little black nose twitching as it nibbled on raha.

  The sound that came out of her throat was inhuman.

  Raha…camomile…calming herbs.

  “If you don’t know how to kill and process it, you can ask Dan to help. If you don’t mind the gamey flavor, you can roast it over a fire or ask the cooks to prepare it for you.” Senric lifted the cage, sticking a finger through the bars, stroking their fur.

  Clatter.

  Mia backed away.

  Her steps slow.

  It took all her focus and energy to lift her feet, heavy and weighted, stuck to the floor.

  Her back touched the coarse canvas of the tent, her hand splayed, looking for anything to keep her standing, grounded.

  Her head shook.

  No, she mouthed, but there was no sound.

  Mia slid to the ground.

  “No!”

  “There are inevitabilities in life, Mia; events, people, or places we accept or crumble under the pressure of.” Senric placed the cage on the table and sat.

  “What do you want?”

  “Want?” Senric tasted the word, his gaze going hazy before he focused on her. “Want. That’s an interesting question. But does that matter? What ‘we’ want? Mia, what do you want?”

  He held up his hands.

  “Are you useful?” Senric poked the rabbit. It stomped its foot, charged, and butted its head into the bars. “The worst part about ledgers is that what you give isn’t always equivalent to what you receive. A thousand mana stones exchanged for a single stat point.”

  She bared her teeth.

  “Controlling you means controlling your ledger, but if that’s all we wanted, there are easier ways to go about it. Fight the good fight, Mia. Lie in your tiny little cot, wondering if that’s all your life will amount to. If you can’t pay the price needed to live, then pay it off with your death. I told you, didn’t I? To end it yourself.”

  Her tongue pressed to the roof of her mouth.

  “Is that what you want? Hmm. For us to force you?” He took out a knife and ran it along the bars of the cage.

  There was no sound, but Mia heard it. She heard the clattering. She felt it crawling along her skin and burrowing through her flesh, not stopping until it reached her soul.

  “You want us to force your hand? That way, you can justify it to yourself: We made you do it. You're not a bad person.” Senric walked closer, cage in hand, knife in hand.

  He crouched in front of her.

  Mia shook her head, nails digging into the earth.

  “Take the knife,” he said, voice low and hypnotic.

  Her hand moved on its own accord.

  Senric opened the cage, holding the squirming rabbit by the scruff. He thrust it towards her and onto the knife.

  Mia watched, eyes wide.

  The knife caught on its neck. It rested there for a second… or an hour before the skin gave way. The knife sank in. She imagined a sound. A pop, something as the slow glide continued. The rabbit squirmed. It struggled. The movement drove the knife deeper. Its little mouth was open. She’d heard a pig squeal. The bray of a sheep. What sound did rabbits make? The tremors traveled up her arm. Her other arm came up, gripping her wrist to steady the knife.

  End it fast.

  That would have been kinder. A quick slice across the neck. A bash in the head.

  The knife caught, the tip lodged.

  Bone.

  Senric yanked the rabbit back, dropping it at her feet. It didn’t move so much as twitch, little limbs kicking out.

  Mia flinched. Warm blood bathed her face. It got in her mouth, tangy, tasting as metallic as it smelled. Salty.

  The knife fell. She ignored it.

  “Oh my, it seems I gave you the wrong knife. This one is dull.”

  She saw his feet disappear, but she didn’t track his movements.

  Mia couldn’t hear his movements.

  “Here.” A knife dropped beside the corpse. At her feet, a gift or an offering to soothe the devastation he’d put her through. This was his help. “That’s the one I meant to give you. It has a numbing debuff; you won't even feel the cut. Or they won’t feel the cut. With you it could go either way.”

  She didn’t believe him. He’d been deliberate so far, every word and action painting a larger picture.

  She reached out, touching the still-warm body.

  No heartbeat.

  Dead.

  “So, did it work? Can you hear? Well, a true experiment needs repetition before you reach your conclusion. Unfortunately, I don’t have any more rabbits. Though Cinderwild has a way of providing the opportunities a person needs for growth.”

  It was the laugh that did it.

  A little breathy chuckle.

  A toy to be tossed over the side of a ship when it got too dirty and no longer served its purpose. A toy the owner no longer needed.

  Mia grabbed the knife, lunging at Senric.

  As darkness swallowed her, she heard his laughter.