Excerpt: The Hakkan

My name is Joshua; I am human, and I am a slave.

My life is boring, and I don’t feel the need to relate it, but I will tell you what little I know or remember. I was born Joshua, to my mother Sara, and never knew my father because he died of dark-sickness before I was born, but she told me his name was David. I grew up with my mother in the household of her master, listening to her stories about the Beginning, and the Sun, and all kinds of other things I never believed. I let her think I did, when I didn’t, and I still have not decided if that was a mercy or a sin.

When I was of an age I can’t recall—if I ever knew it, because telling time is difficult and most people don’t know their exact ages—my mother died of dark-sickness and I was sold to another master. Thus began a long, long line of masters and mistresses. I think I am still young according to most human standards, but I’ve had more owners than many of my peers. I still don’t know why this is, even though Master Feyahn has told me it’s because none of the others card for or could stand my “innate sense of freedom.” Strange, that he would say so, when I have never really known freedom.

At any rate, the blur of masters continued until Master Feyahn bought me from the latest slaver, and has since treated me as his equal, though by all rights and laws I am still only his property.

He calls me his lover. I’m not certain what that means.