Chapter 14 — The Rustle of Scars
Lucia was still asleep.
Stretched out on the modest bed they now shared, her soft breathing barely lifted the rough sheet that covered her.
Morning had not yet arrived, and already, the brothel had begun to murmur.
No screams. No clients.
Not yet.
But sighs. Bodies rising. Stretching. Repeating.
Like a sacrilegious rite.
A liturgy of surrender.
Vaën, sitting cross-legged on the floor, watched the bluish light slide between the warped boards of the walls.
A fine dust floated in the air, peaceful. Deceptive.
Beneath his fingers, he still felt the worn fabric of the sheet.
Beneath his skin, the silent scars of years spent staying quiet.
He didn't know how to name what he'd felt the night before.
It wasn't power. It wasn't strength.
It was like a fracture. An echo in his chest.
Something had formed inside him. Slowly. Inevitably.
Not a glorious birth.
But an acceptance.
Of what he was.
Of what he would become.
He had felt the brothel call to him.
Not as a place.
Not as a building.
But as a living being.
A twisted entity made of lust and sighs, of moans, regrets, and sweet perfumes.
An ancient womb one never truly leaves.
Not really.
The brothel held the scars of every prostitute.
Not just those etched into flesh.
But in their gazes. Their steps. Their silences.
The ones you could only hear if you listened to the sounds after love.
A slap no one dares to mention anymore.
A client who once promised love.
A first bleeding.
A last smile.
Vaën didn't want to run from this world.
Not because he loved it.
But because only he understood it.
And in seeing it, he saw himself.
Warped. Dirty. Real.
He thought of Lucia.
Her trembling hands when she served a drink.
Her eyes searching for a way out where there were only walls.
She heard it too.
That rustling.
That whisper of scars.
That muffled song in every closed room.
He rose slowly. His legs felt heavy.
But not as heavy as the new truth blooming within him:
He was no longer neutral.
He had changed.
This world belonged to him, in a way.
Not like a king.
But like a child of misery who, growing up, chose to wear his chain with pride.
---
A rough voice interrupted him, emerging from a shadowed corner of the hallway.
— You're up early, Vaën.
It was Reke, one of the brothel's old guards. The one who had warned him and Lucia.
He had never said why.
But Vaën understood.
Reke hadn't always been a watchdog. He had been a soldier. Then a husband. Then a widower.
Then a father.
And his daughter had vanished at twelve.
Since then, he looked at some of the girls in the brothel the way one looks at ghosts never found.
— Be careful, he said, meeting his gaze. Everything changes. And those who change too fast end up nailed to the walls like trophies.
He didn't ask what Vaën had felt. He didn't need to.
He knew.
Vaën nodded.
— I'm not in a hurry.
— Good, Reke whispered. This world loves slow folk. The ones who crawl. The ones who bleed long. You're not ready to run yet.
Reke hobbled away, his limp marked by the creak of floorboards.
He vanished into the lower hallway, where the first clients were already starting to lurk.
Vaën stood there a while.
Arms crossed.
Heart beating.
Eyes lifted to the ceiling.
Something was growing inside him. Slowly.
Like black ivy wrapped around his bones.
Like a breath.
Like a scream held back for far too many years.