Hold on.
When the cages close.
When the wings break.
When even the dragons turn away -- hold on.
-Ella the Silvertongued princesss
Raven.
The light beyond the high mosaic windows had dimmed to a sullen bruise when the madame appeared in the doorway.
She didn't knock. She never did.
"Well?" she hissed, voice sharp as a plucked string.
I pushed myself upright, every muscle in my back snapping to attention. "Beaten badly. Flayed. A broken leg," I recited, keeping my voice low, steady. "But... beautiful. Under the blood, the skin is unblemished. Green eyes. White-blonde hair. Full breasts." I swallowed. "She'll be popular."
The madame's eyes glittered in the lamplight, a predator scenting coin. She nodded once, thin lips pulling into a crooked smile that looked more like a wound than a kindness.
"You'll stay with her tonight," she said. "No pleasure garden for you."
Relief bloomed and withered in the same heartbeat. Relief that no man would touch me tonight. Grief that I knew why.
They named her already.
"Dove," the madame murmured, almost to herself, rolling the word across her tongue like a fine wine. "Our little Dove."
I nodded tightly, burying my grimace. Once named, there was no returning. You belonged to the Aviary then. Like a piece of furniture. Like a caged songbird. Somehow I knew that was what she'd pick, a fragile hopeful thing.
The madame crossed the room, dropping a second pot of the precious balm onto the treatment table with a sharp clatter.
"Change her wrappings every six hours. Apply more salve. She is important. If I see permanent scars…" She trailed off, leaving the threat to bloom in the silence.
I inclined my head again — a bow, a submission — and she swept from the room, the iron door clanging shut behind her.
Only when her footsteps faded into the distance did I exhale, slow and shuddering.
From the halls beyond, the Aviary was coming to life: the raw scrape of metal cages. Boots. Laughter. The slapping thud of flesh against flesh. The low animal moans that would grow sharper and more desperate as the night wore on.
I turned away from the door and back to the girl — to Dove — laid out on the table.
So small.
So broken.
And yet, still breathing.
I cracked open the second jar of salve to take a small amount to relieve the aching in my leg.
Moments later I stripped quickly, baring my aching body to the humid air, and lowered myself into the hot spring tucked against the back of the room. The water embraced me, searing first, then soothing. I kept my bad leg propped along the rim outside the soothing embrace of the hot spring, letting the fresh salve work its quiet magic.
The springs were ancient, part of the fortress' bones. Once, perhaps, they had been sacred. Now they only served as a place to clean and bleed and heal — or not.
Steam curled around me, softening the edges of the brutal world outside.
Above, the mosaic ceiling gleamed even in the half-light — dragons caught mid-flight, their wings eternal. But tonight, their frozen images weren't the only ones overhead.
The real dragons circled.
Their massive shadows dragged across the stained glass, darkening the colours to ash with each slow pass. They wheeled closer than I had ever seen, their bodies brushing the very edges of the light.
I shivered, even submerged in the heat.They felt her.Just like I did.
And they waited.
The music started up in the gardens — shrill, garish, like laughter sharpened into a blade. Hours passed. I lost track of time, listening to the sounds of the Aviary devouring another night: cries, whimpers, the low rhythmic violence of forced passion.
But the girl did not wake.
Not until the hour before dawn, when the music faded to ragged silence, and the last gasping sobs died away.
I hauled myself from the water, dried, and limped to her side. My hands were steady as I began unwrapping the slick green leaves. Beneath them, her skin had begun to knit. Scabs crusted over the flayed patches. Red. Angry. Alive.
The balm had done its work.
For now.
I leaned down to refill the basin, pouring in fresh scalding water, herbs crumbling in my fingers.
When I turned back, she was awake.
Two mesmerizing green eyes stared at me from the treatment table, wide and glassy, framed by blood-matted lashes.
No sound.
No struggle.
Only the question in her gaze: Where am I?
I froze. The rag slipped from my hand into the basin with a soft splash.
"You're in the Aviary," I said quietly, unsure if she could even understand me. "You're... safe now."
Lie, lie, lie.
Safe was a word we were taught to use. Like pretty. Like obedient.
Her eyes closed slowly, as if the effort of remaining awake was too much. She drifted back under.
I cleaned her wounds in silence, methodical, respectful. Wrapping her again with reverent hands.
It wasn't until the last bandage was tied that her voice came.
A hoarse whisper, so faint I almost missed it:
"What is the Aviary?"
I froze, the words cutting through the thick, herb-scented air.
Slowly, I reached for a clean cloth, soaked it in the cool basin water, and pressed it gently to her cracked lips. She sucked weakly, desperate for moisture.
When she'd swallowed enough to speak again, I answered:
"A whorehouse."
The word hung between us like the blade it was.
She didn't cry out.She didn't scream.
She only closed her eyes.
Tears slipped free, carving clean trails down her battered cheeks.
I turned away, giving her the only dignity I could offer.
I made my bed by the edge of the spring, where it was warm and the dragons' circling shadows couldn't quite reach. I curled against the stone, aching everywhere, and closed my eyes.
The room filled with the small, broken sounds of grief.
The bubbling of the spring.
The heavy sigh of my own exhausted breathing.
And somewhere high above the stained-glass ceiling, the dragons swept lower still — their massive bodies coiling around the fortress, around us, as if to seal us inside the Aviary's ancient, inescapable jaws.
Hold on, I prayed again, even as sleep claimed me.
Hold on, little dove.
Because the true cage had not even closed yet.
And you will need every shred of strength for when they did.