I slept curled tightly into a ball, my knees drawn to my chest in a futile attempt to hold onto warmth. The thin, threadbare blanket I had been given was barely more than a piece of cloth, but I clung to it, covering my head so the biting cold couldn't reach my nose. Every breath I exhaled fogged the air beneath it, a tiny cloud that disappeared into the still, frozen atmosphere. My toes, though—they were impossible. No matter how hard I pressed them into my thighs or buried them under the blanket, they refused to hold any heat. It felt as though they were siphoning warmth from the rest of me, little shards of ice attached to my body.One might think sleeping in such conditions would be impossible, but it was the opposite. Exhaustion weighed me down like a boulder, dragging me into unconsciousness. I had never slept as deeply in my life as I did in that freezing, barren shed, with my frozen toes and trembling body.So when I woke at the break of dawn, confusion prickled my groggy mind. For a moment, I didn't know what had stirred me. The air was still cold, the shed was still dark, and the sound of girls stirring quietly in their bunks remained as subdued as ever.Then, the noise came—a piercing, guttural cry that made my stomach lurch.I shot up, my body shivering under the blanket. The other girls were already awake, sitting up on their bunks with wide, anxious eyes. The sound grew louder, angrier. A woman was screaming.I turned my head instinctively toward the source. Two guards loomed at the far end of the shed, dragging one of the girls across the concrete floor. She clawed at the ground with desperate, trembling hands, her screams echoing off the shed's walls."What is happening?" I whispered, my voice barely audible over the pounding of my heart. My throat felt tight, and my stomach churned.Thika, who was sitting on the bunk next to mine, spoke softly. "Poor Ukzra. They must have found out.""Found out what?" I asked, my pulse racing faster with every passing second."That she is pregnant," Thika murmured, her tone distant, her expression blank.The words hit me like a slap. "Why is that a problem?" I asked, though ice crept up my spine."You can't work if you're pregnant," she replied simply, as though it were an undeniable law of nature. Her lack of emotion made it all the more chilling.I looked back at the girl—Ukzra, now sobbing uncontrollably, her nails scraping uselessly against the rough ground as the guards dragged her closer to the shed's exit. My mouth went dry. "How did she become pregnant? Was it one of the guards?"Thika shook her head. "No. It has to be one of the male slaves. She won't tell us who it is, but we've seen her sneaking off to the male sheds at night."My chest tightened. Ukzra had risked so much for love, or maybe just for a fleeting moment of solace in this merciless world. Now she was being torn away for it."What will they do to her?" I asked, though dread already coiled in my stomach."She'll be kept captive until the judgment day," Thika replied, her voice flat, devoid of hope or anger.I frowned. "What is judgment day?"Thika's nose scrunched up, and she turned her gaze away. "She'll be punished for breaking the rules," she said curtly, as if the answer should have been obvious."But she's pregnant!" I exclaimed, unable to keep my voice down. Heads turned sharply toward me, and someone hissed a warning from across the shed. I froze, realizing my mistake too late."In Ashudhar," Thika said softly, "you have to develop thick skin, or you won't survive."Her words were a slap to my soul, but she didn't seem to notice. She lay back down on her bunk, pulling her blanket over her head. The quiet returned to the shed, save for the distant wailing of Ukzra as the guards dragged her into the shadows beyond.The next morning, the cold was the least of my concerns. Auri stormed into the shed, her voice cutting through the silence like a blade. She was dressed in the same shapeless, ugly pink uniform that all the overseers wore—a hideous reflection of our own uniforms, somehow even worse on her lumpy frame.She yelled commands in Ashubol, her words harsh and grating, though I couldn't understand them. Her face was twisted into a permanent scowl, her eyes scanning the room until they landed on me.For a moment, her gaze lingered, and I felt the weight of her scrutiny. Then she sneered, her lips curling with disgust, and barked another command.I had no idea what she was saying, but the warning in her eyes was clear. She didn't want me here.Then, as abruptly as she had arrived, she turned on her heels and marched out of the shed, leaving us in stunned silence.Thika told me later that we were required to attend judgment day because one of our own was being punished. "You're supposed to learn from her mistakes," she said bluntly, her eyes avoiding mine. "To see what happens when you break the rules."The days following Ukzra's removal felt heavier than ever, the air in the shed suffocating with unspoken fears. They shoved us into our routines with a cruel urgency, harsher than any other day I had endured. I scrubbed floors until my knees ached and my fingers burned from the cold water, hauled baskets of supplies that felt like they would crush my spine, and followed every order without hesitation. But no matter how much they pushed me, one thought remained—Ukzra.I couldn't shake her screams, the terror etched into her face as they dragged her across the concrete. Every night after the incident, I lay awake on my bunk, my body trembling under the thin blanket. The thought of something like that happening to me dangled over my head like a sword suspended by a single thread. I couldn't even let myself imagine what they had done to my mother. The more time I spent here, the slimmer the probability of escape seemed."Many people commit suicide in this place," Thika told me one evening, her voice unnervingly calm as we sat side by side on our bunks. "Death is mercy here."Her words chilled me to my core. I stared at her, unable to speak."If someone commits suicide," she continued, her tone now bitter, "their family must send two more members to the palace as compensation for the loss. That's the Hurims' way of ensuring despair is contagious."The cruelty of it made my stomach turn. Even in death, there was no freedom—only more suffering, passed down like a curse.A few days later, I saw the male slaves for the first time. The sight of them was jarring. They worked in the fields, tending to the vegetation on the slopes surrounding the palace. Their sheds were outside the palace property, far enough to keep them isolated from us.From behind the cover of a tree, I observed them. Their condition was worse than ours. They were emaciated, their movements stiff with exhaustion. Each of them carried a sharpness in their eyes that the women lacked—a suppressed rage that flickered like a dying flame.Guards patrolled the fields with relentless vigilance. They were larger, more intimidating than the ones who watched over us, their faces hidden behind helmet-like shields. Each carried a short, heavy metal rod in their hand. I flinched when I saw one of them strike a male slave who dared to look up for too long. The slave crumpled to the ground, clutching his side, and the guard didn't even pause before moving on to the next."They're treated so harshly," I said to Thika that night as we lay in our bunks. The distant sound of a whip cracking in the men's fields still echoed in my ears. "Why?"Thika shifted under her blanket. "Because they're more likely to rebel," she said matter-of-factly. "Many have tried to kill the guards in the past—and some succeeded. The Hurims fear them. Men are stronger than us. And..." She hesitated, glancing at me before continuing. "They think some of them might still know marzak.""Marzak?" I frowned. "You mean magic?"Thika turned her head to face me, her expression softening. "You can call it that, but it's much more complicated."My heart skipped a beat. "So only men can do magic?" I asked, remembering faint whispers of the word from my father's stories long ago."No," she said with a wry smile. "Anyone can perform marzak. But back when civilians were still allowed to study it, only men were taught how to control it. The elders—" her voice dripped with contempt, "—decided sons were worth the knowledge, but daughters weren't."Her words stirred a quiet anger in me. "Did you ever want to learn it?" I asked.Thika's gaze grew distant, her face illuminated faintly by the weak light of a distant lamp. "As a child, I dreamed of it," she admitted. "I wanted to know marzak more than anything. But now?" She let out a bitter laugh. "I'm glad no one taught me. Anyone who possesses even a speck of marzak knowledge is executed. Unless, of course," her voice turned mocking, "they belong to the Hurim family."A heavy silence hung between us after that. Thika turned over, pulling her blanket tighter around herself. I stared up at the dark ceiling of the shed, the word "marzak" echoing in my mind.Magic—no, marzak—had always seemed like a thing of fantasy, a glimmer of hope in the bleak tales of my childhood. But here, in Ashudhar, even something as wondrous as that had become twisted, corrupted into another tool of oppression.This palace was home to nothing but murderers—men and women parading around with an air of untouchable power, as if they weren't the cause of countless innocent lives lost. I couldn't fathom how people still managed to survive under such brutal rules. How did a society thrive with pregnancies banned, punishments delivered for the smallest infractions, and suicides so commonplace they had a system to replace the dead? It was all beyond me.The night stretched on in oppressive silence, save for the faint snores and shifting of the other women in the shed. Thika and I lay on our bunks, a thin space between us, talking in hushed whispers to avoid attracting attention."Do you know any of the men?" I asked absently, my thoughts drifting to the faces I had seen earlier in the fields—hard, hollowed faces, but familiar in some way, like they belonged to people I might've passed on the street in another life."Many," Thika replied softly. "Many of them were my friends. We were called here at the same time."Her words hung heavily between us. I imagined her arriving here alongside those men, bonded by fear and despair, only to be separated by the brutal system of this place. I couldn't bring myself to ask what had happened to those friendships.We both fell quiet, teetering on the edge of sleep, when a question clawed its way to my lips. I spoke in the lowest voice I could manage, barely more than a breath. "Do you know about the Shadows?"Beside me, I felt Thika's body stiffen, her breath hitching in the dark. For a moment, I thought she wouldn't answer."No one talks about them," she finally whispered, leaning closer to me through the narrow gap between our beds. Her voice was trembling, but her tone was firm, like she was warning me against something dangerous. "Not since the Great War."My chest tightened. The Shadows—the very name felt heavy, like it carried the weight of something dark and unspoken. "They abducted my mother," I whispered back, the words catching in my throat. "And then they sent me here.""What?" Thika's voice was sharper this time, and she sat up abruptly. "Are you sure it was them?""Yes." I hesitated before adding, "My father is a Dhu—""Shh!" Thika's hand shot out, gripping my arm tightly. Her eyes darted around the shed, her face pale even in the dim light. "Are you crazy?" she hissed, her voice trembling with panic. "Never—never speak about that again."Her reaction startled me. Thika, who always spoke with a tone of detached cynicism, was terrified. It was the first time since my arrival that I saw her composure falter. Her fear was contagious."Why?" I asked, my voice barely audible.Thika shook her head, her grip still firm on my arm. "You don't understand," she whispered. "Even mentioning them could get you killed. The Shadows, the Dhu—anything connected to that... You have to forget it. Forget you said it, forget you even thought it."The urgency in her voice sent a chill down my spine. I wanted to press her for answers, to ask what she knew about the Shadows and why they had taken my mother. But the fear in her eyes silenced me."Promise me," Thika said, her tone desperate now. "Promise me you'll never bring it up again."I nodded, though my heart was pounding in my chest.Thika let go of my arm and lay back down, pulling the blanket tightly around her. I watched her for a moment, her face turned away from me, her shoulders tense.In that moment, I realized something important—whatever the Shadows were, it was something that terrified the people at the throone. And if it terrified Thika, it was something I had to bury deep inside myself for now.