Chapter Fourteen

After twelve hours, Fier, attending to her as he’d done for weeks, led Delila away from her cubicle. Unlike all the other days however, this time he didn’t take her back to her room and the empty rest her bed would give, but took her instead to Degas who was sitting back in his old chair with his feet up on the desk so that Delila could see the mud caked about his boots.

He sat up and looked at her officially, when he saw her enter, and Fier leave her. She couldn’t remember how many days it had been she’d laid eyes on his face. They had been moving in different circles even as Degas was taking care of his kingdom.

“You’re looking well,” Degas said.

“I am,” she replied.

He smiled, though the nature of his smile was undisclosed; it was a gentle smirk, as if he had some small knowledge that she didn’t have.

“You’re being collared and chained for transport south.”

“What?” Delila queried back to him, all peace and smiles flown away in an instant before the man went on to explain.

“Your first conjugal visit with Armand will last three days,” Degas went on. “There will be a day of travel at either end, so you’ll be gone five days from my Island. I trust you remember the rules, Delila Armand. I’m not certain you’d survive a breach of silence.”

“Is that a threat of death?” Delila inquired.

“That’s whatever you take it to mean,” Degas replied. “Just don’t be getting any ideas that your time here is nearly over.”

“I wouldn’t want it to be,” Delila said. The idea of there being any place but this place, anywhere in the world but this world, astounded her, as if she was blind and deaf, and all of a sudden awakened to the knowledge of something beyond these walls for the first time.

A small, but jubilant smile appeared on Degas’s face, hearing her message.

“Then go now,” he said. “Fier will prepare you.”