Remembered Read Online Free PDF

said, pointing at Mina. “And tell the cook to feed her soup, bread and some chicken. Nothing too rich, mind. I’ll come down for her later.”
    Mina was led off with nothing more than a glance over her shoulder at Galia. Now Galia was alone with the two women, who were eying her up and down.
    “Well, she’s pretty,” the kind woman said.
    “I didn’t buy her for her looks,” the Oracle said. “She’s got something to her, something quite strong.”
    Galia frowned. She still didn’t understand what was going on.
    “Well, Rhea, I’ll let you get to work,” the Oracle said. “I’ve work to do myself. Don’t let her into my sight until she at least looks like a priestess, yes?”
    Rhea’s eyebrows raised. “Not an acolyte?”
    “You heard me,” the Oracle said.
    Rhea inclined her head. “Of course, Oracle.”
    The woman––the Oracle––swept off with her wolf on her heels, and Rhea and her lemur turned to Galia.
    “Did you just come off the block, then?”
    Did she mean the auction block? “Yes, Lady,” Galia said.
    Rhea nodded. “An end for some, a beginning for others.”
    Panic gripped Galia’s chest. An end? What would happen to Strayke? What had she done to him?
    Rhea nodded down one of the corridors.
    “Come on, then. The Oracle wants you looking like a priestess. We’ll get you sorted.”
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    • • • • •
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    T he first thing that they did was bathe her. Galia would have said that she was clean after being manhandled by the drover. But that wasn’t good enough for the palace of Tenebris. There was an enormous copper tub, and as if by magic, a turn of a lever brought water gushing into it.
    “Forced water through the pipes,” Rhea said, seeing the look on Galia’s face. “It keeps the floors warm too.”
    Galia was plunged into water so hot that at first she thought that her skin would boil right off. Then, just when she had gotten used to it, two girls showed up with brushes and pumice stones. They were brisk but they were kind. They scrubbed every inch of her, removing every trace of dead dull skin with the rough stones and paring her fingernails and toenails down short with a pair of small razors. To Galia’s shock, they pulled out sharp knives as well. For a moment, she thought that they were going to kill her, but then they laughed.
    “It takes a while, but you’ll like it,” one girl promised.
    Galia sat in still wonder as they used the sharp knives to shave off every bit of her hair below her eyes. She whimpered when one girl urged her legs open, but the other girl thumped her companionably on the shoulder.
    “It’s not bad, I promise. Want to see me?”
    Galia shook her head shyly, but she did open her legs. They delicately and deftly shaved her, as though it was something they did all day. For all Galia knew, they did.
    By the time she got out of the tub, she was feeling tired. She could have rolled over right on the floor and slept for a week. The two girls giggled at her drowsiness and dried her off briskly with soft cloths.
    Rhea came back with a small leather envelope and a bottle in her hands. Her little lemur scampered along the ground, following her.
    “Ah, good girls, right on time. All right, pretty one. We have just one more thing to do before you can be taken to the Oracle.”
    Galia started to ask what it was when both girls seized her by the arms. Stretched between them and seated on the bench by the tub, she was immobilized. As Galia watched in terror, Rhea opened the jar, releasing a scent of almost impossibly strong alcohol. Then she removed a thick needle from the leather envelope. The last light of day glinted on the sharp tip.
    Rhea moved quick as a snake. She seized one of Galia’s nipples, pinching it erect before driving the needle straight through the base of it. Galia shrieked in horror as much as in pain. What was happening? Tears coursed down her face, and her heart thudded inside her chest. A few drops of blood spattered her thigh.