The Protected Man

My eyes opened to the clink of a spoon hitting the side of a cup. Lady Primavere sat across from me with a dead-neutral expression, stirring her drink in perfect circles. She operated a pair of tongs to pick up a cube of sugar from a plate and dropped it in the center of the tea. On the small table spread a feast of sweets, too much for two people to eat.

I wanted to stand up, but I couldn’t. I wanted to raise my hands, but I couldn’t. My body was glued to the chair, and the chair seemed to be stuck to the floor. The only part I could move was my head, bringing to mind the memories of my recovery after the sewer fight.

“Where is Hallie?” I asked.

“Good morning to you too. Is there something else you should say to a lady?” She tapped the spoon against the rim to shake off the residual liquid, then held the cup to her lips for a sip.

“Where is Hallie?”

Lady Primavere placed down her drink. “I would advise you to be a little politer if you want answers to your questions.”

“Good morning. Could you please tell me where Hallie is?”

“Better. After you ruined yesterday’s ritual, we had to wait for tonight to ascend her.” She looked to the side, at the glass windows that I had just noticed were embedded in one side of the wall. Cupboards lined the other three walls, with a door secluded in the corner.

For the outside view, I could look down at the whole gradient of the city. The ramparts at the edge now seemed easily scalable. The slums felt more like ancient ruins. And the Golem Centers, if I used a little imagination, appeared to be prostrating at the monument I resided in—the majestic towers jutting out of the central mountain that encapsulated the pinnacle of human engineering.

“What is wrong with this place?” I muttered.

“How harsh. Contrary to what you said, everything is right.”

I turned my gaze to her, looking at her dress that showed as much cleavage as the one she wore before. But unlike previously, my cheeks remained normal, and in my heart lay only a hollow shell of apathy. “You said that you had no need for golems. So, let Hallie go. I’ll stay here. As for Minerva, she seems happy to live here too.”

“I did say that. That is why we are ascending her. We will turn her into a human.” She stood briefly to reach for the pot. The discipline in her graceful movements almost distracted me from the incomprehensible statement that had just left her lips. Almost.

“That’s not funny at all. Golems are golems, and humans are humans. It’s like turning a hand into a head.”

Lady Primavere repeated her methodical addition of cubes. “We thought so too. Actually, we were not able to think before our-”

No. No. No. Whatever she was saying, I had no reason to listen. My mind scrambled for something to talk about, anything to shut her up. “Heeey! Sorry to interrupt, my lady. You mentioned that you didn’t have a suitable marriage partner. So, what if we get married? And you do your newlywed spouse a favor by letting one golem go?”

She responded with a sweet smile. Too sweet. “We can get married. You will be Duke Lindsley and I will be your wife. And your golem can be the new Lady Primavere, daughter of Count Primavere. And the demon… we can give her a role later.”

I replied with an awkward chuckle, my arms struggling to break free again to no avail. “Your jokes aren’t getting better. I’m Enos. You are Lady Primavere. There is no changing that.”

“Of course you do not understand. That is not your fault. You are a human who has not been educated yet, like an infant.”

“I’m trying. I want to learn how this place works. That starts with learning the manners at a tea party. Without being tied up.”

Lady Primavere finished dropping in the sugar, set the spoon aside, and stood up again. She almost floated to my side—I didn’t see her legs move. My heart thumped as wildly as the roar of yesterday’s monster, and I sincerely wished that this response was due to the emotion of love.

The moment her dainty hand touched my shoulder, I imagined the sensation of slime splattering against my skin. Yes, that must have been my imagination. Her face leaned down towards my ear, but no breath had hit me. Nothing. Only pure sound. “Everything starts with listening. Interrupt me again and I will be forced to terminate my engagement with you. You might even be tried for disrespecting me. Remember, you are not a noble yet.”

My mouth hung open, but my voice wouldn’t obey me.

Even without looking at her, I could feel Lady Primavere smile as she straightened her posture. After two pats on my shoulder, each almost driving me to vomit, she drifted back to her seat and sat down with the same elegance as always, but I couldn’t ignore the subtle shaking in her body that suddenly became obvious to me.

She took another casual sip of her tea. “The human nobles used to admire the city from here too. They were the governing class. The golems were the working class. And the peasants, they were the consuming class. Meselaris thrived and stayed unscathed no matter what happened outside the city walls.”

She emphasized her point by raising her cup towards the windows, pointing at the unchanging sky. “But then, something happened. The world fell into silence. None of us knew why, but the important part was that the nobles stopped caring about anything outside their towers. They wanted to become the consuming class while keeping this top-floor view. The golems were abandoned and the central fortress left undefended.”

Setting her drink back on her plate, she stepped to the window until she could press her accusatory finger against the glass. Even from my seat, I could understand that she was pointing at the outskirts. “More and more golems malfunctioned, and the original consuming class became envious of the luxury of the nobles, even though they had been provided houses and food without needing to contribute labor.”

With that, she smiled at me, and following suit came a pause that lasted too long. It was only until I forced a smile back that she continued. “Then came the cycle of humans fighting for this exact spot. Eventually, the population had dwindled enough that everyone died out. That is why we need to stick to our roles and keep the city alive. We could not ever be ignorant again.”

She sat back down and resumed enjoying her drink. I waited and waited, but she merely refilled her cup after draining the previous one. No way her story would end there. What about the current humans living here? What about her?

My patience ran dry after two cups of tea. “There’s no way everyone died. Some of you survived. You’re here. Some humans must have stayed alive.”

Her smile twisted into a deep frown for the first time, an ugly expression that looked alien on her pretty face. “You are wasting our precious date time. How are we getting married if we do not get to know each other? I have told you enough for you to appreciate our roles.”

“No, admit you’re lying. Some of them survived! Some of them did!” I wriggled more violently than I should have. Too much investment for just a story. All the while the truth sat firmly in my mind. Someone must have survived.

“Mr. Enos. This will be your last warning. Or you will be tossed into the dungeons, never to see the light again.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care what liars say. Not you! Not Hallie! You’re just trying to scare me into accepting your stupid rules!”

Now La… Now the corner of Primavere’s lips drooped so low that I thought for a moment that her face could fall off. “Excuse me! I would not tolerate such an insult to the social system constructed by our human predecessors. Not from a human who spoke with a demon accent.”

Demon accent? At this point, she had resorted to hurling meaningless insults at me. And yet she still called herself a lady.

“Tell the truth and I’ll stop insulting you. Tell the truth that humans survived!” My throat started to sore from the yelling, but each strain of my vocal cords was more than worth it to force her to… do something. The truth? What did I believe was the truth? I couldn’t embody anything because I didn’t understand what I thought about this.

While my own uncertainty distracted me, Primavere crushed me with a single sentence, delivered in a casual tone as if making small talk. “Nope, we were the golems that had remained, gained souls, and ascended to humans.”

I swore that when she spoke, behind her fleshy tongue, traces of awful wriggling filled in the gaps. What happened next? What could happen anymore? Reality and time shattered as I felt my mind fragmenting. I could hear myself screaming, unclear whether I had really produced those sounds. My thoughts had been overridden by simple repetition:

Everyone is dead. And it’s all your fault. Everyone is dead. And you should have joined them.