Book One – Chapter 15

Yu did not leave the bathroom for another thirty minutes. His skin crawled. His mouth tasted foul, his breath sour with bile and old sickness. His limbs ached and something raw and acid-bitter coiled in his stomach. Humiliation sat heavy in his chest, thick and cloying, pressing against his ribs like deep water drowning a sinking bird. He needed to scrub. To scrape away the sweat and filth clinging to his feathers and skin.

The guild’s communal washroom was nothing like the opulent bathhouses Tria had installed at the estate, but it was a far cry from the piss-stinking, shit-ridden pits he had been forced to use in the villages. It was a luxury of sorts, in the way a prison with a clean floor was still preferable to one swimming in filth. Most of all, it was an unforgivable waste of water—one that no one from the Barnstreams would have ever tolerated.

The washroom had been carved from polished stone that was surprisingly dark, its floors subtly sloped towards a central drain. The toilet was a deep, basin-like structure, hewn from the same rock. It was fitted with a crude but functional flush system; a pipe that was, like everything, hewn right from the stone.  A thin stone slab was inserted right through it to block the flow of water. It could be pulled sideways out of the pipe, which opened the way for the water to rush into the bowl. From there, both water and waste slushed down some unseen channel, disappearing into the gods-knew-where. There was no pipe or reservoir feeding into the sink. Yu suspected that you needed to get water from the barrel, which was basically a chest-high stone square placed left of the toilet. It was filled with water, and a metal dipper lay beside it. On the sink sat a block of coarse, sand-laden soap and a stiff-bristled brush, probably meant for scrubbing the stone, or really tough scales. As disgusting as it was to use cleaning utensils, or even someone else’s toiletries, Yu did not care. He made full use of what lay around here, ever again dipping the brush into the barrel and then dragging it across the soap and himself with his talons.

Eventually done, Yu then dragged himself back to his room, shoving the heavy wooden door shut with what little strength remained. He barely made it two steps before slumping against it, head tipped back, lungs working through shallow, unsteady breaths. His limbs felt carved from lead. Every inch of him ached — his bones, his skull, his muscles, the hollow pit of his stomach. And yet, he had only slept until noon.

Seven hours.

Seven measly fucking hours to sleep off four weeks of exhaustion.

Seven.

A fucking joke.