2. Lucy

I woke up and stretched. I lived above a tavern, so I could sleep with my window open and not worry about perverts or cats sneaking in. I shouldn't have to worry about perverts since everyone thought I was a boy, but this was Guttertown. The rest of Nestran took offense at same-sex relationships, but Guttertown certainly didn't. I made a very pretty boy, if I did say so myself. It could be a male or female pervert with consent issues that snuck in my window. This was Guttertown.

I stood at the window. Not right at it because people could see me in my nightshirt, but far enough to breathe in the fresh air. Guttertown smelled like mangoes with the faint undercurrent of urine. Sometimes, you could catch a pleasant breeze where it was mostly mangoes and hardly any urine. There was a copse of mango trees just outside my window, so I got lucky a lot.

Yeah, there were all kinds of urban legends about why we had an overabundance of mangoes. We stole this land from the shifters after the war. This was the site of the mass grave during the war when they killed the Tempris.

The shifters were all elementals. They shifted into Earth, Air, or Water animals, and then you had the Tempris. They didn't shift, but they controlled fire. We thought they were the most dangerous during the war and killed most of them. Our ancestors left two of them alive to rule to keep the tribes in line, but we'd been trying to breed them out of existence since.

They were only allowed to have one child, and they had to marry a human. Guttertown wasn't exactly allowed near the palace, but I was told the current king and his daughter didn't even have the signature red hair and violet eyes anymore.

I'm pretty sure the Barons got tired of waiting because the Princess Esylle's daughter got kidnapped out of thin air when I was about five years old. I didn't remember much about it, but nowadays, everyone thought the Princess Lisana was dead and the Tempris line would die with her.

But first things first. I stepped away from my window. I needed to bind my chest. For the first ten years of my life, I actually thought I was a boy named Lance. I'd never seen a naked boy before to know I was different. Then, I hit ten and started my period. Man, was that a mind fuck! I thought I was dying.

Thankfully, it happened when I was at home and I could run to my mom. I loved the shit out of my mom. She was all I had. You pretty much knew if you didn't have a dad in Guttertown and your mom wasn't telling you stories about how he died, then your dad was a Baron. Most everyone was super careful with herbs unless they were being lied to by a stupid sack of shit about how he was going to take care of you.

I'd always known my father was a Baron, but the day I woke up with blood on my sheets was when I found out I definitely wasn't a boy and why my mom disguised me. Sometimes, the bastards of Guttertown would need financial help from their Baron fathers. They were always willing to help, but there was a cost.

They wanted our bodies.

The men got put to work, either as a soldier or guard and the women? It was one thing to work at the brothels because you wanted to or because you landed on shit times. You paid the Madame her cut, and you kept the rest. If you were the daughter of a Baron? The Madame got her cut, the Baron got his cut, and you got the rest. And it was hardly enough to live on unless you never slept or got off your back.

Mom didn't want that for me. She knew I might eventually have to ask my father for help. I was furious about it because my entire life was a lie. That was until she told me who my father was. I might have only been ten, but I knew who Folcard was.

The Tempris king ruled in name only and the Barons ran roughshod all over him, but it was Folcard who really ran the show. He was the worst out of all the Barons. If there was an unfair tax, it was usually his idea. If someone got shafted in a deal, it was Folcard. If someone disappeared? Also Folcard.

Yeah, I got over my shit and agreed to keep up the ruse.

Mom said my name was actually Lucy, not Lance, and taught me how to pretend. I'd learned most of it actually thinking I was a boy, but puberty made it loads harder. For one thing, I grew tits. They weren't massive, but they were a nice size. When I had to start strapping them down with bandages, I couldn't even appreciate them.

And no one prepares you for how gross teenage boys are. Or how gross you'll have to pretend to be to fit in. Honestly, sometimes, I wanted to punch them in the fucking face instead of laughing at what they were saying. They eventually grew out of that for the most part and were mostly tolerable now.

Binding my chest sucked, and I always wondered what I would look like with long hair. I had to use bandages because I couldn't exactly buy anything at the market or seamstress. I had permanent scars from binding my chest, and it was always such a relief to take the bindings off at night.

I just ignored the total mind fuck that I spent the first ten years of my life thinking I was a boy and was still living as one.

Once I had myself presentable as I boy, I went into the kitchen, where my mom was making breakfast. She was one of the few women who had taken up with a Baron and didn't get completely ruined.

That would be because if we didn't live in Guttertown, Mom would have been an alchemist. She didn't completely fall for Folcard's crap. She'd been studying and socking away money. The tavern we lived above was ours. Mom could have been a healer, but she learned to brew ale and make whiskey.

We'd done pretty decent for ourselves, but we had overhead, employees, and taxes to pay. And Mom had been coughing, so we were going to need a healer soon. Mom taught me everything she knew, and I had a concoction going in the basement that should earn us a pretty penny if I ever got it right.

I was trying to make an entirely new spirit that could be made with grains or potatoes and then I was going to infuse it with all the mangoes we had lying around. I just needed to perfect it first, and I wasn't there yet. I was about to go check on my experiments when Mom stopped me.

"Sit and eat. It'll be there after and I'm not having you get scrawny when you're friends with all those boys."

One thing about my mom. When she had that look on her face, you did what she said. She knew me better than anyone alive and she knew damned well I was going to skip breakfast, tinker in the basement, and then probably forget lunch unless she dragged me out.

She was paler than I would have liked and she hunched over the stove for a few minutes to cough. Fuck my experiments. My mom was my world. She was the most important person to me in all of Nestran.

"Nope. You're taking today off. Ollie and me will run the tavern."

"Are you going to be nice to him?" Mom asked with a smile.

Ugh. Mom knew damned well I was in love with Ollie. We grew up together because his parents used to own this tavern. They did Mom a solid, hiring her to make their spirits. They both died unexpectedly and Mom was able to buy the tavern. Ollie was taken in by his uncle and my mom set the expectation that she would hire Ollie when he came of age and eventually, we'd be co-owners.

Which was actually perfect because Mom knew damned well, I wanted to be in the basement experimenting with making new spirits rather than actually running a tavern and Ollie loved everyone and everyone loved Ollie. He was perfect for being the face of the house.

Ollie flirted with me, even though he thought I was a boy, but he could also bat those big green eyes and use that silver tongue to get our stubborn donkey to do its thing when that fucking ass tried to kick me more than once.

And when he flirted with me, I got mad at him because it wasn't fair. I didn't think Ollie gave a shit either way if I was a boy or a girl. If I explained to him why I lied, he'd probably accept it since he was pretty easygoing. It was just that he had a big fucking mouth and I didn't need him blabbing my secret to the entire tavern.

"Probably not," I said.

"You could always tell him you're a girl."

I just grunted. Ten years as a boy and I could definitely grunt and go nonverbal.

"I mean it. Come down for food and to get something to drink, but you aren't working today," I fussed.

Mom just tipped her head at me. She was about to tell me something snarky, but then she started coughing. Mom and I had made several spirits that kept the tavern going, but I knew my experiment in the basement was going to take off if I could figure it out.

I just hoped that happened before her cough got worse.