Page 15 of Traitor Wolf (Bonded by Fate Duet #1)

I cleared my throat, grabbing a glass of water from the kitchen, and chugging it down. I brushed my teeth in the kitchen sink quietly and then munched on some fresh fruit, not because I was hungry, but because I was trying to awaken. I still felt sluggish and half asleep.

I spent the next hour pacing the apartment. I went from the front door, past the kitchen, to the living room, and then back again, over and over until my feet hurt.

Finally, I sat in front of the couch and faced the giant glass window that looked out onto the city.

The city lights were a steady hum of magical electricity, but beyond, in the Dregs, you could see the flicker of lamp and candlelight.

I knew it represented those who were working night shifts to keep food on the table.

How many times had I come out to see my mother at the kitchen table doing night shift work?

From sewing, to sorting, to cleaning, she and my father always had a night job here and there.

“What’s a little loss of sleep three nights a week for extra pay?” she told my father one night when I was seven and listening in.

And she did it all while pregnant with my siblings. My mother was my hero, the hardest-working woman I’d ever met, who still managed to stay kind and loving despite life constantly throwing curveballs at her.

I would never forget when we’d been in Aerlyn shopping for some fabric for her to sew us new clothes. A highborn woman had looked at my mother and the six of my siblings that were with her at the time, like we were an abomination.

“You know, you can stop having children, dear,” the woman had spat at my sweet mama. “Then you’d have money for new clothes.”

I was ten years old, and I still remember my mother’s sneer. “Oh, what good is money when your heart is as ugly as your face?” she’d shot back.

The woman nearly fainted at being talked to that way, and we rushed out of there with no new fabric.

But I remember that day was the day I learned my mother wasn’t some sweet pushover.

She could be feisty when she needed to be.

She told me later that money could never make her as happy as we kids did.

Two years later, I left school and got my first job.

Not because my mother and father had more kids than they could afford.

But because the Elites raised the taxes on the residents of the Dregs, inflation went up, too, and everything changed.

Overnight, we went from poor, but getting by, to destitute.

I peered at the flickering lamps and felt emotion clog my throat. Here I was in a glass castle, eating until I was stuffed, with electricity that went on with the flick of a switch… all while the people in my hometown caught rats for dinner if they were lucky.

I wondered then what would happen if we stopped paying the Elite taxes. If we stopped going to work, their sewers would overflow, their trash would begin to rot in their streets, their dead would pile up…

What would they do? Kick us out of our already barely functioning homes?

So what?

We’d camp in the woodlands. We’d drink by the stream, and fish, and?—

These thoughts were treasonous. The magistrate was rumored to have Elites who could hear your thoughts. If there was one in the building now…

I calmed my mind, taking in three deep breaths as I stared at the swollen moon.

Best not to think wild things about situations you cannot change , I told myself.

‘Who says you cannot change it?’ Valkaryn whispered into my mind, and to my credit, I didn’t scream in surprise, though I did jump six inches off the couch.

‘Trust me, this I cannot change. Like death, taxes don’t change.’

‘You pay how much?’ she asked, as if I were having a normal conversation with a friend.

‘Thirty-five percent,’ I told her. It used to be ten.

‘Thirty-five percent of your meager wages, and what do you get?’

I felt like she was judging me.

‘Rights to our land, running water, flushing toilets,’ I told her. I felt like I was reciting the Aerlyn Gildex to one of my little siblings.

‘Water that’s more brown than it is clear, sewers you have to clean, and land that’s flooded half the time and teeming with rats? Sounds like you are getting scammed.’

I scowled.

‘What do you know? You’re a sword.’ Or a soul trapped inside of one.

She was right, though, embarrassingly so. How did she know all that?

‘When I chose you, and you chose me, we bonded in a way that allows me access to some of your memories and information.’

I nearly leapt off the couch. ‘That’s invasive.’

Was I seriously having a full-on conversation with a sword!

‘Do you want my advice?’ she asked, ignoring my outburst. How had we gone from not speaking yesterday to not shutting up now?

‘Fine,’ I told her.

‘Tell your people to pay five percent tax, no more. If the Elites want thirty-five, then your wages must be tripled, electricity needs to be brought to the Dregs, and water sanitation increased.’

I laughed softly to myself. ‘You’re dreaming. It will never happen.’

‘If you form a coalition and stop going to work until it does, it will happen. I can promise you that. You run this city. The Elite aren’t going to be disposing of their own trash any time soon.

You won’t find them on their hands and knees inside the sewers either.

Your people may not have magic, but they have power. ’

Chills raced up my arms at her words.

Your people may not have magic, but they have power.

I sat back on the couch for a long time thinking about what she’d said. I sat for so long in the darkness of the room that my mind began to wander off, and sleep pulled at my limbs. I knew I should have gotten up and made some tea, but things felt too heavy, and before I knew it, I was fast asleep.