I have a new friend.

She’s a demon healer. She came with her older brother, the highest demon healer in Relaklonos, to assist him with what happened to me.

She’ll be twenty-five tomorrow (age of adulthood for demon females, apparently) and is so sweet. She reminds me of Julea. But very naïve.

She needs protected here. People are very nervous about demons in their midst. But Pin (that’s her name) is so naïve and open that I am uncertain she would even see a threat coming for her until it was far too late.

She and Jayi have hit it off very well, along with the Lycurgus Equan and Jayi’s sister-in-law, Tennig. They are all so very young…

Someone needs to watch out for them. Help them navigate the world here at Hotel Dread, even though they are all young, wealthy, and well-protected by their older brothers.

Still, the things male warriors would think to teach such young females differs from what a female would actually need to know. There are places in this hotel no young female should dare to venture. I made certain to tell Jayi of those places, too.

We are going to my home today. I have Tol with me. He is now the head guard assigned to me exclusively.

He demanded it so, after that other guard betrayed me.

He, I do not know what happened to him. Nor do I care. He… what he did to me is far worse than what Boldek and his brothers did. I had counted on him to protect me. He had chosen not to.

Derrol Jareth abandoned me when I needed him most. That is hard to forget.

Kellis found him, though. I think they have known each other for a long time. From what I heard from Tol, the things my sister said to that guard are enough to burn the male’s ears for a very long time.

I just hope Kellis hasn’t made trouble for herself at work.

She, as the only female on the force, already faces so many obstacles just to be there. They make her deal with the humans, mostly.

I have four strong guards now, all of them Thurgis and Trianu House, who will accompany me back to my home.

They were volunteers. Tol told me that what happened to me has been shared within the ranks of Kierce’s warriors.

Many support what those males did to me—up to a point, Tol said. Others are furious that someone who had been assigned to protect me betrayed my trust like that. Protecting a female is an honor in our society, after all.

Warriors now know my name.

This is not exactly how I wanted to become visible, you know.

I found out what was hurting Jayi and I have to admit, I am very surprised at it. Young Jayi has found her male; unfortunately, he is one of the warriors who abducted me. The healer.

Boldek.

Yet Jayi is denying him.

Because of what he did to me.

That is the last thing I want for my friend. Finding one’s male should be a beautiful, glorious thing. She deserves to have her male.

I told her that.

But she is very young, younger than Julea, and she is so certain her convictions are more important than having the male the goddess has chosen for her. I told her to go to him and grab him with both arms and hold him tight.

A mate is a gift from the goddess, after all. (If one believes, that is.)

I cannot say that I have forgiven Boldek and his brothers for what they did to me. But they greatly love their sisters. They thought they were doing what they had to in order to protect Meyka and her sister Nima.

How can I, with six sisters I would die to protect, blame them for that?

They did not know their actions would change me.

They admitted as much during the hearing.

I forgot to tell you about the hearing!

I was so certain that it was going to be an arduous ordeal, but Boldek and his brothers admitted their actions and submitted to the court’s ruling, contesting nothing.

I was the one who got to decide their punishment!

Four strong male warriors whose construction company has built half the houses in this city and were wealthy enough to provide the funds Riv needed to fix the house—well, maybe they were the gift from the goddess, after all?

My family is getting a new roof today. Because of what happened to me. But I have something else to worry about now. Jayi is hurting; and it is within my power to fix it.

It’s getting easier. My shields are building. I was able to walk through the hotel last night with Jayi and not be overwhelmed—and I didn’t need her to wrap her healing gift around my soul to keep me from losing it. We didn’t go too far, just the dining room. But at least I am not stuck inside my cell—or the healer’s hall. 

It gave me hope I will eventually be able to have a normal life again. If what I have been living could be called normal.

Something is bothering Jayi. I can feel it, though I know she tries to shield herself from me, so that she doesn’t overwhelm. She is a wonderful healer. A strong one. 

And she has a sweet soul. 

I can feel that about others now. I can look into someone’s eyes and know whether they have malice in their heart, in their secret places, or if they are kind and good. 

I’m ready to give that little gift back to the goddess, thank you very much. 

I don’t want to know that the Urusus has evil in his soul that he doesn’t even know is there, that is growing. I just don’t want that. 

There are so many of our Kind that are selfish now. 

It is terrifying. I never realized how dark some of the Dardaptoans have become.

It explains why my work for Theo has felt so… dark and dim for the last several decades. All those emotions—I was subconsciously feeling them, too.

I wonder if Rydere, our Dhar, knows? Maybe that is why he no longer seems to have time for the lesser Houses? He’s too busy keeping wars from breaking out in the larger, more difficult Houses? But what wars could he have when the largest Houses only number in the two to three thousand population and a good portion of those are females and babes?

Still, who needs infighting right now? A divided tribe is a dead tribe. Every one should understand that.

But I have more pressing matters to deal with now.

Jayi is worrying me. The hurt in her soul—it is a deep one. No young female deserves to hurt like this.

I’m going to have to help her if I can.

That… was one of the darkest weeks of my life. I am still not sure I am ready to talk about it. It’s been two weeks to the day. A lot has happened since then.

Theo took my side, and those Jareth buttheads (as Alleah has said) admitted to their actions and accepted restitution.

It fixed our problem at least.

The money they had to pay me covered the cost of the roof, and the forced labor they owed me… well…

They were experienced in construction. And were robust males capable of anything.

That… if I was a firm believer in the goddess, or the Fates, I would say the Fates were benefiting us now. But I am not so foolish.

I will admit, I’ve lost my faith in the goddess. And the Fates.

I started losing it eight years ago when I screamed for her to help my mother.

She hadn’t.

The goddess doesn’t hear our cries—at least she isn’t hearing those of the Woald—any longer.

She hasn’t in a long, long time.

I feel… stronger… than I did a month ago. I’m sorry I stopped blogging for so long. I just… spent most of the time in the healer’s hall just sleeping. Jayi, my healer and a new friend, said that was what I would need to do until the shields formed.

Apparently, I have always been an Empath. It was why I always just felt what those around me were thinking.

The change those buttheads (I really like that word) forced on me destroyed whatever natural checks I had on the gift (Apparently that is not uncommon in those with a little something extra. It is a way to protect us as we age—protect us from ourselves.)

Something happened that unlocked this gift inside of me.

I’m not sure I think of it as a gift at all.

Being able to feel what others feel?

It’s a constant bombardment of feelings. Of everything.

Sometimes I’m not even certain if it’s my feelings now, or the people near me.

Or the people in the next room, or one floor down, or one floor up, or the guards, or Coty and her sisters down the hall…

I’m still building those shields.

Maybe… maybe being at the hotel in my little suite on the sixth floor is a good thing.

If I was around people all day, I don’t know that I could stay sane at all…

I won’t be blogging for a while. I just… can’t. I’ll let you know when I can…

I’m still in the healer’s hall, recovering.

—Jume

Ambrea was the one who told me. Lead settled in my stomach as I imagined it. “How bad is the damage?”

“Bad,” Riv said. “We’ve got tarps over my room and yours. We moved all of your stuff into the den. And…it’s going to cost over seventeen thousand dollars to fix it.”

Money we definitely didn’t have.

Even with Alaun’s book sales, that was a lot of money.

Dardaptoans didn’t do insurance. Dardaptoans took care of themselves. It was hard to explain why the name on the policies wouldn’t change for centuries, right?

“Can we borrow?” None of us were high earners. And even Alaun… well, in a city of only fourteen thousand, her audience and market were very limited. She was just now starting to sell to some of the other tribes through online portals. And she had to write fast, to keep putting out more and more books, so the income just kept coming.

She did well, but it was still just getting by, according to most standards.

“Not really. We don’t make enough individually, and no one will consider us all together. Now, if one of us had found a mate, or had been born with male equipment down south, we’d apparently be better prospects,” Riv said, bitterly. She handled the finances for all of us, including Alaun’s publishing business. She was good at it. “Less likely to die before we pay it off, apparently.”

But now… she was scared.

I could feel it. More than I have ever felt anything before.

I could feel every emotion my sisters were experiencing right now. I couldn’t shield myself from it. I couldn’t.

Any more than I could shield myself from those Jareths earlier.

I must have whimpered. My hands went to my head.

Riv jumped up and came to me. “It’s ok, Jume. We’ll figure it out. You have enough to deal with right now.”

I just rocked. “No. It’s what they did to me. They changed me. I feel everything. I feel everything you’re feeling, all of you. And the female next door. And the Boltier sisters down the hall. I can’t push the feelings away.”

After that, I don’t remember what happened.

Not until powerful arms were lifting me. One guard was there. I didn’t know his name. He was from the Trianu House; I think.

He was worried for me. He just wanted to make me better.

I could feel that, too.

My hands went to my head and I cried. But I let him lift me. He wouldn’t hurt me. I could feel that. He was good in his soul. I could feel that, too.

“It’s ok, female. It’s ok. Just imagine your mind wrapped in your favorite blanket. It’ll hold until we can get to the healers. It’s ok,” he whispered in my ear. Then he made a bunch of nonsense sounds I couldn’t identify. “Focus on my voice, my tone. Push everything else out.”

I listened to the crooning sounds he made until I collapsed in a strange male’s arms once again.