Rise of a Fallen Man (A Look in the Mirror #2)

Chapter 3

Salas

T he year I turned seventeen, Lady Lana fell ill. The healing witch she hired to treat her determined that the cause for her illness was a spotted mite’s bite.

This type of mite lived exclusively around the water caves, where Lady Lana had regularly sent her husband for calming treatments. Eventually, she had him committed to the caves permanently, on the basis of his untreatable high temper that she claimed put her and her son in danger if they continued to live under the same roof with Lord Ciric.

As a devoted husband, however, the lord sent his wife flowers every year for her birthday. Most of the flowers were the sweet-smelling water lilies that grew around the caves and just happened to be the preferred habitat of the spotted mites.

Some said it was an unfortunate accident that even after a thorough inspection, a mite had sneaked into a flower and bit Lady Lana when she received the bouquet. I chose to believe that Lord Ciric got his revenge in the end. It made me feel better to think that there still was some justice left in this world.

The lord died shortly after Lady Lana fell ill, and she didn’t have it in her to shed even a single tear for her husband.

Just as calmly, she had informed me about the death of my father a year prior. She said he’d worked himself to death, then gave me a night off from her visits to mourn him. Just one night was supposed to be enough, in her opinion, before she snuck into my room the following night again.

As she slept in my bed that night, I thought about how easy it’d be to place a pillow over her face and end it all, both for her and me. No one would even miss her. Not her son, whom she terrorized more and more the older he got. Not her older daughter, who’d moved out of her mother’s house the first chance she got.

Yet I let Lady Lana live that night and every night thereafter. It wasn’t the fear of prosecution that stopped me, not even my innate disgust for cruelty and murder, but the dread of complete and utter loneliness. My father was gone. And now, by some perverted, disturbed twist of fate, my tormentor was the only person in the world who cared whether I lived or died. Without her, I’d have no one.

Only after she got sick and her condition deteriorated did she stop visiting my room. Instead, she ordered me to visit hers daily. The nature of our encounters had also changed. Instead of her lover, I became her caregiver. I brought her food, read books to her, and helped with her baths.

“You’re a good boy, Salas,” she said one afternoon, lying in her bed, as I was reading her a fun, lighthearted novel. “But you’re a wicked boy too. No woman will ever want you but me. You have to take good care of me because without me, you have no future.”

Until the day she died, Lady Lana believed she would recover. I shed no tears when she died, but on the day of her funeral, I felt irritable and upset. Against my every intention, Lady Lana had become a part of my life. A dark, rotten part that I should be glad to get rid of. Yet her death left a gaping hole in my existence with nothing to fill it in.

She was the only woman I knew intimately, and I missed the intimacy. Not just the sex, but also the touch, the company, the falling asleep next to someone. Ours had been a twisted relationship, but it was the only relationship I’d had.

The moment the dirt covered her casket, her daughter informed me I was no longer welcomed at the manor. Apparently, the word about “my wicked ways” had spread, and the heiress worried that my tarnished reputation would cast a stain on her brother, Lord Emil, and ruin his marriage prospects.

I was shown the door.

By now, I’d gained several skills, some more useful than others. I could read and write, fence, dance the waltz, and take care of the sick from feeding to bathing them. My math skills were far superior to those of a common man. And I still remembered how to fire up the forge and assist a blacksmith.

At seventeen, my strength rivaled that of a grown man. I’d heard there was plenty of physical work available for a pay. I didn’t shun from hard labor. What I didn’t take into account was how far the word of my reputation would spread.

The daughter of Lady Lana refused to give me a character recommendation, and without her good word, every door I’d knocked on in search of work closed in my face.

In the middle of the bitter winter that year, I realized quickly that if I didn’t get out of the cold soon, I’d simply freeze to death on the side of the road somewhere.

“Get off my property. You’re a loose man,” the woman behind the last door I knocked on growled at me like a dog, protecting her house from me as if I were the sin reincarnate. “The place for the likes of you is in the fun house.”

At that point, “fun house” sounded better than “dying from cold and hunger,” so I found out where it was, then walked for an hour to get to that town.

By the time I reached the high fence of the fun house, I couldn’t feel my feet inside my boots or my fingers inside my gloves.

A man of about forty opened the gate. He huddled into a thick scarf, the wind blowing a few long hairs over his otherwise bald skull.

“What do you want?” He gave me a measuring look, taking in my well-made clothes.

“Work,” I croaked.

His water-blue eyes focused on my face.

“Do you know what we do here?” he asked. “Have you done this kind of work before?”

A gust of wind and snow forced me to hide my face in the raised collar of my coat before I could answer.

The man cursed the weather under his breath, then opened the gate wider.

“Come in, boy. Let’s talk inside.”

We crossed the narrow courtyard, then entered the front room of the house. It was spacious but cozy, with flower-print curtains on the windows, plush armchairs with starched doilies laid out on their high backs, and thick rugs on the floor.

A middle-aged woman sat by the fire, smoking a pipe. Her graying hair was braided into a long plait that circled her head like a crown.

“Another one?” She squinted at me, cuddling into a fuzzy gray shawl. “This weather tends to bring them here in droves.”

“It’s fucking cold out there.” The man rubbed his arms, disappearing through a door into the adjacent room. “I’m Erif,” he shouted out of sight. “And this is Traeh, my wife. She owns this place.”

The woman put her pipe down and smoothed her brown woolen skirt over her knees.

“Come closer. Warm up a bit.” She gestured at the second armchair by the fire.

I didn’t wait for her to repeat the invitation. Frozen to the bone, I plopped my butt into the chair and shoved my hands and feet as close to the fireplace as I dared without burning my skin or setting my boots on fire.

“What’s your name?” Traeh asked.

“Salas.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“So young.” She clicked her tongue in disbelief, sliding an assessing glance down my body. “You don’t look it.”

“I know. I’ve been told so before.” I nodded, trying and failing to stop my teeth from chattering.

Now that the warmth from the fire had worked its way under my clothes, ice seemed to thaw in my muscles. The parts of me that felt frozen solid before started to move, shaking me with a violent shiver.

Erif returned, bringing a plate with a few wedges of turnip and a thick slice of bread.

“Here. I thought you might be hungry.” He put the plate on the small table next to my chair. “Sorry, we’ve already had dinner, and there are no leftovers. All I have is this. But I put the water for tea on the stove. Should be ready soon.”

Someone’s footsteps sounded on the floor above us, then the furniture creaked. Treah and Erif ignored the noises, so I did too, giving my full attention to the food instead.

“Thanks.” I was too hungry to say much more before stuffing my face with bread while grabbing a piece of turnip with my other hand.

“Do you know what this house is, Salas?” Traeh asked after the tea was ready and I’d taken a few scorching hot sips from the mug Erif had brought for me.

The hot tea slid down my throat like a molten lava. But I welcomed the heat spreading through my body and bringing it back to life.

“Do you know what the men who work here do for a living?” She kept questioning me.

When my parents were alive, I didn’t have the slightest idea what happened in places like this one. They were called “fun houses,” which sounded playful and innocent to a child’s ear. As I grew older, I also learned other words they were known by, such as “brothels” and “bawdy houses”—crude words that many used when cursing.

I’d heard things about the men working in these places too. None of what I’d heard was good. But I also didn’t believe there was much good left in me, either. Lady Lana had taken from me everything that the world deemed of value. And now, the world turned its back on me, leaving me to die in the cold.

In this house, I got shelter and food. And at the moment, that was all that mattered. I was too tired to think far past today.

“I do,” I said. “I know what the men here do for a living.”

“Is that something you want to do?”

I shrugged, quickly polishing away the remaining food. “I don’t have a choice.”

Erif brought a mug of tea for Traeh.

“There is always a choice,” she said. “Even if you don’t like the alternative.”

I took another sip of my tea, washing down the food. Sadly, the tea didn’t get rid of the bitter taste in my mouth caused by her words.

“My alternative is to die in the snow out there. And no, I don’t like it very much. Despite everything, I’m not ready to die yet,” I admitted. “But I have nowhere else to go.”

She nodded, as if expecting it. “No family, I take it?”

“None who’d want me.”

“There are still options out there for you, boy,” she argued. “Go do something else.”

“I tried. No one would hire me.”

“Why not? There is nothing wrong with you.” She tipped her chin at me. “You’re strong and healthy. There is enough work out there. Hard, back-breaking work maybe, but people will respect you for it. There will be no respect if you stay here.”

I shifted in my seat uneasily. “No one will hire me. I’ve tried.”

Erif squinted at me, leaning with his shoulder against the mantle of the fireplace. Recognition spread across his face.

“You’re Lady Lana’s kept boy, aren’t you?” He pointed at me. “I heard on the market that her daughter yapped in church to anyone who cared to listen about how you deceived and seduced her poor mother to gain the lady’s favor.”

I managed to control the reflection . But my cheeks flared with heat that didn’t come from the tea or the fire.

“That’s not how it happened,” I said, staring into the flames.

“Maybe it isn’t.” Traeh reached for her pipe again. “But truth doesn’t matter as long as people believe the lie. No one will let you in their house now, boy. In their eyes, you’re tainted, ruined, and soiled. Wicked. The town folks think that wickedness is like a disease that can spread on their pure, innocent sons.” Her voice gained intensity as she leaned closer. “But working here will make it worse. You’ll never wash off the stain of being a whore for hire. Never. If there is anywhere else you can go, any place at all, go there and stay away from houses like ours.”

Fear clawed at my chest that they would send me away. Now that they had warmed me up and fed me, going out into the dark, freezing night felt worse than death. The chances of me surviving another night in the open were slim as the storm moved in.

“That’s the problem, madam. I have nowhere else to go,” I said.

“Right.” She leaned back in her chair, puffing on her pipe again. “You’re too young to even sign a slave contract.”

Erif cleared his throat. “Who is to say that slavery would be a better choice for him than this? Slave work has killed many strong men.”

Traeh gazed at me with undisguised pity. “Your freedom or your body, Salas. Either way, you’ll have to give up one. It’s not an easy choice to make, is it?”

“It wouldn’t be an easy choice,” I agreed, “if I had it. But I don’t even have that one. You said it yourself, I’m too young for the slave contract.” Now I knew exactly what Lady Lana meant when she said I’d have no future. She truly left me with nothing. No woman would marry me. The only path I ever knew in life was now closed to me. “All I have is this. If you have me.”

“Well...” Traeh grunted, getting up. “It’s getting late. Erif will take you upstairs. You’ll bunk with the boys in the attic. The second-floor bedrooms are used for work only. It’s slow today. The weather keeps people at home. Tomorrow doesn’t look like it’ll be much better, either. Rest, take a bath. Tomorrow night, you’ll show me what you know about pleasuring a woman. Then I’ll teach you the things you might not know yet.”

THE FOLLOWING NIGHT , Traeh took me to one of the neatly furnished bedrooms on the second floor of the house. After closing the door, she turned to me and heaved a sigh, looking me over.

I avoided meeting her eyes. I wasn’t worried about failing her test, or whatever this was supposed to be. But ever since Lady Lana had first laid her hands on me, I’d had to brace myself for the touch of another being. I was not looking forward to taking my clothes off for yet another stranger, another woman more than twice my age.

I swallowed the knot of nerves and apprehension in my throat before bringing a hand to the buttons of my shirt.

Traeh stopped me by covering my hand with hers.

“Keep your clothes on for now, boy. Let me just tell you something first.”

I looked up, finally meeting her dark-eyed gaze.

“You have three things that make you what you are, Salas. Your body.” She pressed a hand to my lower belly, just below my belt. “Your heart.” She touched my chest next. “And your mind.” She tapped with her finger against my forehead. “Don’t give all of yourself to this work, and you’ll survive. You’ll have to use your body to give the clients what they pay for. But keep in mind the things you need to get out of it—things like food, shelter, money, and whatever pleasure you may get from being with a client. Most importantly, however, leave your heart out of it completely. Your heart is yours and only yours. Keep it that way.”

I nodded, not entirely understanding the full meaning behind her words yet, but grateful for them anyway. There was more to me than Lady Lana had taken. She ruined me but didn’t destroy me. I survived her. I would survive this too.

Watching my face, Traeh nodded with satisfaction.

“And don’t let the judgment of others get to you,” she said. “This is a job, like any other. It just occasionally requires you to wear less clothes than most.” She pulled her blouse off over her head. “Keep your pants on for now. Your work will be mostly about the women you’re with. Not all of them will ask you to undress. They’ll pay you to touch them, not the other way around. Now, kick your boots off and hop in the bed. You may end up having fun still.”