Goda's Slave (Lesbian, Dystopia, LGBT Fantasy)

Chapter 41: The Dance of Kanna and Goda

Her tears dried in seconds. The moment Kanna pulled her face from where she had pressed it to the door jamb, a wave of hot air met her eyes, made her blood boil. She clutched the strap of the satchel around her shoulder as if she were wringing the neck of a snake.

She stared at the figure who reclined on the bed, at the book that now lay on the giant's chest, at the long arms tucked leisurely behind a huge, stupid head.

When Kanna darted from the doorway, she saw nothing else but the giant. She pounded her feet against the creaky wooden floor with her eyes locked on Goda Brahm, her robes dragging behind her in the rush of her movements. She unslung the satchel so fluidly that it felt weightless. She drew it back.

She swung it hard against Goda's startled face.

"You bastard! You stupid bastard! You poison-eating, idol-worshiping, horse-faced, worthless Middlelander!" Kanna struck the giant again and again, but after the first blow, she was only meeting Goda's outstretched palms. "Fuck you! Fuck you! How could you do this to me? How could you lead me through endless bullshit, telling me nothing—nothing—and then making me think I'd never see you again? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Kanna," Goda said. Her voice was so measured and calm as she dodged the frantic swings of the bag that it only enraged Kanna more.

But she was already exhausted. And it still felt strange to hear her own name, especially coming from the giant's lips, with the giant's accent. It threw her off. Even though she gritted her teeth and kept swinging away, the blows lost their momentum, they became taps against Goda's outstretched arms, and before long the bag slipped from Kanna's fingers altogether and landed on the floor.

It fell between Goda's feet. The giant had come to sit up on the edge of the bedside and she had snatched one of Kanna's wrists in a vice-like grip. She turned it over, pulled the sleeve back. She exposed the strip of raw, pale skin that served as the last evidence of the cuff that had once bound them together.

Goda pressed her mouth to the spot—but the moment did not last long because Kanna dug her fingers into the side of the giant's face and pushed her away. She restrained herself; she had wanted to slap her.

That small effort of willpower drained her of her last ounce of energy. She collapsed forward into the giant's chest.

The next breath she took was shaky, but it was filled with the scent of Goda Brahm. Kanna clutched the giant's robes in her hands, allowed herself to feel the first wave of gratitude that she had been resisting, and she did not pull away when she felt Goda's arms wrapping around her.

"You idiot," Kanna whispered into the giant's ribs. "I hate you. I hate you so much. How did you get in here in the first place? We're surrounded by a gateless barrier too tall for even someone like you to climb, and you sure as hell didn't use the front door with all those neighbors watching." When Goda didn't answer, Kanna pulled back to look up into her eyes. "All this time, was there a path to this place that I didn't see?"

"There is no path. There is nothing to see."

"Then how...?" In spite of Goda's words, Kanna turned to look around the dimly-lit room because she suddenly realized that she was uncomfortable, that a bead of sweat had already settled on her neck. "It's warm in here."

It had not just been the seething of her ire. She felt a wave of heat radiating behind her, so she turned towards the only other light source in the room. It was a stove that lay in the corner, just beside the open front door. She could not tell what it was burning, but it made little more than a quiet hiss and the flames in the hearth had almost no color to them. She saw a metal pipe leading up into the ceiling, just as she had seen in Jaya's house, but it was less riddled with rust.