The Stillness of the Sky by Starla Huchton

and play as long and as often as you like. Wouldn’t that be lovely after enduring so much hardship? I’d say you earned the rest.”
    Her words chilled me as the realization sunk in. I wasn’t merely a prisoner.
    I was a new pet.
    There was no joy in the life Aaron and Oria proceeded to describe for me. She spoke of adding a third cage to the table, allowing me my own little gilded confinement. Talk of soft sheets and downy pillows and custom clothing and endless food did nothing to ease my sorrow from losing the one thing I had for myself. In exchange for pampered living, my freedom was forfeit. Never again would I walk a road, or see the open sky, or know the feel of a warm spring in winter, or hear the words of strangers in a town square. The rest of my days would be contained by gold bars, with only two selfish children for company.
    “Oh dear,” Oria said. “She doesn’t seem happy, Aaron. Or are those tears of joy?”
    He flashed her a reassuring smile as he slid a handkerchief across the table to me. “You mustn’t worry over it, My Lady. I’m certain they’re grateful tears. Who wouldn’t be glad for a life of leisure?”
    Beside myself, I covered my face in my hands, my silent sobs mourning the loss of any good I might ever do in the world, any choices I might ever make, any wonders I might see. To be denied all of those things, I could think of no worse a fate. Even if my end had come with the wolves, it would have been an end in freedom.
    I’d wished for peace that day in the clearing. I never dreamed it would be forced on me behind bars.

    It took me two days before I spoke to either of them. Lady Oria added the third cage as she said she would, but the plush furnishings did nothing to ease the ache in my heart so long as its door remained locked, which was always but when she brought me food. I dressed as she told me on the third day, unable to hold out any longer against the ripe smell of my clothing. The dress I was given was the blue of the sky before dawn, a thing I thought never to see again, and it nearly reduced me to tears for the first time since my initial imprisonment. The food she brought me went mostly uneaten. I ate enough to sustain myself, but little more.
    The only thing I was given that heartened me at all was the silver lute awaiting me the fourth morning. I hadn’t spent much time with a lute even when I was younger, but my fingers itched to touch the strings. Something inside me awoke the evening I sang for them, and it was begging me to take it up again. My voice remained silent, however, words caught on the sorrow I felt every time she turned the key on my cage.
    Most would’ve thought me mad to be so overcome by despair. I was surrounded by finery and plenty of delicious things to eat when so few could say they had even enough to fill their bellies once a day. Some might’ve shouted at me for being ungrateful. Some might’ve lectured me for not taking advantage of the security I’d been blessed with.
    But there was nothing for me but an empty desire to be in the world again. All I wanted, more than anything, was to feel my feet upon a road.
    “You might as well accept it,” Prince Aaron said to me, leaning up against the bars of his cage. “The beanstalk’s been taken down. Even if you could get out, you’ve no way of leaving.”
    I hadn’t thought it possible, but my heart sank even further. Of course Oria would get rid of the beanstalk. She couldn’t have anyone else stumbling upon the place.
    “I had some trouble with it at first, but I got over it well enough.”
    I lifted my eyes from the lute on my lap. “How long did it take you?”
    At the sound of my voice, he perked up, immediately interested. “Oh, about a month, maybe less. I fully came to terms with it being better for everyone this way.”
    My gaze settled back on my instrument. “And now, you have no regrets?”
    “There are some things I miss, but I don’t regret my choice, no.”
    “What is