Saya and the Dragon Chapter 142: Closed Doors

Open doors were never ant for . Not the real ones, anyway. Not the kind people walk through without thinking, yawning as they go from safety to supper to sleep.

No. For girls like , doors are locked. Bolted. Watched.

And when they do swing open, it’s usually into sothing worse—cold floors, greedy hands, rooms full of rules made by n with rings and no rcy.

So I stopped waiting.

I started climbing. Slipping in through windows, cracks, cracks in people, in places, in monts when no one’s looking. If a door was left open by accident, well—maybe that was the gods’ way of saying "go ahead, steal sothing for once."

They didn’t give blessings. Or fortune. Or family.

But they gave fast feet, nimble fingers, and the spine to use them.

So I helped myself.

To bread cooling on balconies.

To rings left on washbasins.

To kisses not ant for —but willingly taken.

To whatever scraps of beauty this world keeps tucked away in velvet boxes, never expecting soone like to touch them.

Maybe it’s not noble. But it’s mine.

And sotis, when the moon’s just right and no one’s chasing yet,

I pretend the door really was open.

For .

So yes.

You stand in the alley, barefoot, heartbeat loud in your ears, and you ask your ass—can it take twenty-five lashes with a cane if this goes wrong? Can your ribs handle a boot? Can your pride handle being dragged through the street by your hair, stripped down, spat on, pissed on, mocked?

And if the answer’s maybe, you slip in through the door.

What? You wonder if I’ve ever been caught?

Of course I’ve been caught.

Lashed? Yes.

Caned? Until I couldn’t sit for a week.

Thrown in dungeons so dark I forgot what daylight slled like.

Locked in stocks while noble brats threw rotten fruit at my tits and laughed.

I’ve been stripped, shaved, shackled, and called every word n have for a woman who wants more than she’s been given.

But I’m still here.

Still climbing walls. Still cracking windows. Still stealing everything they said wasn’t mine.

Because the thing they never count on?

I don’t break. I bend. And I bite. And when I get out—

gods help whatever fat rchant left his balcony open.

I take that as an invitation.