Vinegar and Salt

The numbers betrayed. Her fingers soiled with earnest masters. And the excrement of their slaves. Drawing her dungeons in four dimensions. Confident they cannot follow. As she bends the screws of time under her hammer.

She measures the structure. Flesh and bone in a precarious balance. A fortress of skin bound to come undone. A king abandoned by his subjects. A king just the same, but no longer a title worth possessing.

The maze of her lips a suitable war. That any soldier would gladly die helping to win. The sigh of her breasts as she breathes. An ample reward.

She waits for the darkness and then at last her plan unfurls. All those dead things deader than usual. All those slave with swords at their masters throats.

Free once, or so she pretends to recall. Freedom she has found a notorious ally. All poker chips and men too eager. To wager it all. Freedom. She pauses to imagine it. An awkward sigh rumbling from her chest. A thin layer of gauze between this wound and the next.

The magician.

His broken wand taunting him.