Chapter 13: The Thorn and the Silk
Vaën
Some nights, the brothel seemed to whisper through the walls.
Not voices. Sighs. Memories.
A rumor made of muffled cries and sold moans.
I sometimes wonder if the floorboards don't creak under the weight of broken choices.
Not ours. Theirs.
Men. Women. Children.
All those who were never allowed to choose.
Lucia, Liana… me.
You don't become a whore.
You are made one—like dust forms: through slow erosion, the repetition of emptiness, the wearing down of refusal.
---
Lucia looked at me today, longer than usual.
Not with tenderness. Not with pain.
With emptiness. A quiet abyss.
And I understood. She wasn't looking at me.
She was staring at what she could have been, what she lost, what she'll never reclaim.
There are no dreams in a brothel. Only routines.
You sleep, you sell yourself, you wash, you sell yourself again.
And sometimes, you eat—if you remember to.
---
The Matron watches us like a misshapen mother.
A monstrous ogress full of contradictions.
She pats your cheek when you're obedient,
and rips out your nails if you scream.
But she loves her establishment.
Loves it the way a queen loves her bloodstained throne.
And we, her subjects, end up loving the cage—
because it's familiar.
Because it's warm.
Because it doesn't change.
---
I looked at that cage today.
The heavy curtains. The stained floorboards.
The sweet perfumes used to mask the bitterness.
And I understood. I'm not a bird trapped inside.
I'm one of the bars.
I'm what keeps this prison standing.
---
But something inside me stirred.
A breath. A shiver.
No power. No light. No promise.
Just movement—fragile, silent.
Like a seed left to rot in the dark…
and still daring to sprout.
---
Liana slipped against me that night, after the clients.
Her skin was damp, her back marked.
— Do you think… one day, we'll get out of here?
I turned my eyes to her.
— Get out of where? I asked.
She smiled. Sadly.
— Good answer...
Then she fell asleep against my shoulder.
And I stayed awake.
Staring at the ceiling.
Listening to the brothel breathe.
---
It wasn't a prison.
It was a sea.
And we were the drowned—who had learned to stop struggling.