"I don't know." She didn't look like she came from poverty, which meant her family probably hadn't sold her. While that might have been illegal anyway, that didn't stop people from doing it.
"You have power over that man. You must know something."
"Honestly, I don't even know why he did what I asked," I admitted. "All I know is that you're as stuck here as I am. You can either stay with me, and I'll make sure you get jobs that aren't too bad, or you can take your chances with Charaxos." I didn't like having to threaten her like that. She'd already been through enough, the last thing she needed was me adding to it by being nasty. But at the same time, I did need her to stay around me voluntarily. That way, I could keep her away from warming someone's bed against her will. At least, that was the theory.
She glanced in the direction Charaxos had gone, clearly trying to make up her mind about who to trust.
"Fine. I'll stay with you."
Another sigh of relief escaped me. "Thank you. Do you have a name?" It felt rude of me not to have asked already, but I had so much on my mind that it had slipped my mind.
"Sophia," she responded sharply. She was going to be trouble. I could tell that already.
"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Rhodopis."
She wrinkled her nose. "It's a pleasure to meet me? Really? You're going to try that one on me?"
I rolled my eyes. She really had a lot to learn if she thought I was the bad guy. "Can you cook?" I asked instead of responding to the accusation she made. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel for her. I did. But there was no point fighting this situation, it was her new reality.
"No."
"What can you do?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Normal stuff."
Helpful. Not having lived in the modern world, I had no idea what normal stuff was.
"Fine. I'll take you to the kitchen, and you'll do what the cooks say."
She thrust out her bottom lip. "And if I don't want to?"
"Then you'll find yourself back in Charaxos' care, and I won't be able to do anything to help you out of it."
I knew I'd won even before she said anything. Defeat was an easy emotion to recognise in someone's eyes.
Unfortunately.
CHAPTER FOUR
NERVES FLUTTERED in my stomach as the procession drew closer. This was what all of my planning had been working towards, and a little part of me still couldn't believe that Ra and his priests were actually coming here. I wouldn't have thought he'd want to be seen talking to Seth at all, and yet, here he was. And there was no denying it was him. There was always a chance that Seth was just putting this on as part of his grand plan, but I doubted it. There were too many people and far too many pennants for it to be fake.
"This is what we've been worked to the bone for?" Sophia sneered.
"This is a visiting god," I pointed out, though deep down, I had to agree with her. It was a lot of work to put in for something that I didn't think was worth it. Or that I'd believed might not even happen.
"Gods aren't real," she muttered.
I raised an eyebrow as I looked at her sideways. "You don't believe in the gods?"
"Of course not."
"But you are one," I pointed out.
She laughed bitterly. "You're joking, aren't you?"
"Alright, you're not a god like Ra or Seth, but you're a demi-god, like the rest of us are."
"A demi-god?" Disbelief shone through every word. "And how do demi-gods come into being?"
Had she really just asked that? It was probably the easiest question to answer even if she used common sense. "The child of a human and a god most of the time. Sometimes it's the child of two demi-gods. I have no idea which you are though." For that matter, I had no idea what I was either. I'd been sold so early in my life that I'd never actually gotten a chance to meet my parents. I wasn't sure what I'd say to them if that changed now.
"And you expect me to believe that?" She laughed again, and it was clear that she wasn't believing a word I was saying.
"Think what you want, but in a couple of hundred years, when you haven't aged, and the rest of us are still the same too, you'll realise I'm right."
"A couple of hundred years?"
I shrugged. "That's normally how long it takes for people like you to start believing. I'm not trying to trick you. I'm just telling you how it is."
"I'm going to escape," she announced.
"Then why would you tell me that?" That was beyond stupid. She didn't know me from anyone else. If I were her, I wouldn't be telling me about my plan.
"I don't think you're going to do anything to stop me."
I supposed that was true. "I also won't help you, either. It's pointless trying to run away. They'll catch you every time."
"You sound like you have experience," Sophia said darkly.
"I do. I've tried to run away six times since I was brought here. All of them in the first five hundred years. I haven't tried since." And I didn't want to think about the punishments I'd received as a result. None of them had been pretty, and all of them had left me scarred. It was one of the reasons I'd had tattoos done on most of my upper body. Charaxos enjoyed inflicting pain on others, but Seth hated seeing the results.
"Hmm."
I was saved from responding by the head of Ra's contingent reaching the gate.
"Aren't you going to go down and meet them?" Sophia asked.
I shook my head. "I may have had to plan this, but I'm a nobody. Seth will greet them himself."
"Then where is he?"
I chuckled. "He'll be here in a moment. He's just playing
