She meant well. Of course she did, everyone did when they came here to the Temple. But she wasn’t sure why she was suddenly surrounded by the priests. She hadn’t realized that they ‘answered’ almost all girls prayers this way, at least once.

Was it wrong of them to convince her that the best way to help get her family out of the mire of debt and loss they’d had, was to become their prostitute? Perhaps, but she only knew that the men with their tall hats and beautiful robes had fed her before they asked her to perform any ‘duties’ for them. She had not eaten in days, properly anyway. Dirt doesn’t count, when you’re trying to remember what you’ve had on a plate.

She was beautiful, Arytase had a lovely name to go with her round, soulful brown eyes. Her hair needed cleaning, but was worn in the typical style of young girls, long and braided. And they said she’d need to be fattened up a little, which suited her just fine.

After a week, she’d almost forgotten why she came at all. She was kept busy, and trained by one of the older women in the Temple for her duties. She knew that there was legal prostitution in the city, and illegal elsewhere, but here in the Temple she was promised that her family would be tended to.

Had they gotten any of the money? Perhaps. After two months Arytase didn’t even flinch when she wondered. She didn’t even worry. Because the silken gowns she was wearing felt so good, the food in her belly warmed her, and the wine put joy in her heart and face.

The men were never rough – to harm a Temple prostitute would be to doom your soul after all. They were often experienced men, sometimes even quite handsome. Their gold supplied the Temple, it was always prosperous where others were struggling. In times of poor harvest or drought, the Temple gave out grains and water, they were always there in some way to help.

Of course, they also bartered in flesh – Arytase’s second year of work with them found her on her way to another city. But she took that in stride! After all, her wiles had become known and she was wanted by one of the other Temples!

Soon enough, of course, she found joy in just doing her job. She was given a special pass to the Castles, which allowed her to get closer to the leaders of their lands. It took almost no convincing that she could sway one or another of them with pillow talk and sweetly whispered hints, while pushing her body over a weak-willed middle-aged man.

Arytase knew that she had to be careful, she was only nineteen by the time she was sent to ‘convince’ a foreign lord of the Temple’s requirements for improvement in their land. She knew that this man had a harem already – what could she give him that they could not?

She was far more beautiful than any in his stable of women, that was certain. So … when she was bought from the Temple by his half-crate of gold, it was not really surprising to Arytase. What did surprise her was how arrogant the women in his harem acted toward her.

She was merely new, they said, she was only going to be pretty for so long.

She laughed at them, and proclaimed that she would always be far more beautiful than any of them, even in the grave. And she knew that they didn’t dare harm her – because she had become the wily lord’s favorite.

When the new kings of invading lands came, destroying the lord and his men, they split the women up, ‘setting free’ many they thought were best off on their own. Arytase was among those. She quickly formulated a plan to keep herself free. She gathered up the younger and prettier of the women from the harem and formed a whorehouse.

The city they lived in had new laws – but plenty of laws could be broken with the right amount of pressure. Especially on a particular nerve, while on top…

doll palace | some stock guy at DA