She turned to the council. “I’m no Teller Witch, but I can see more than any of you. And what I see is not good, no, not good at all. Not for you, me, or the village. If you keep on the path you’ve chosen, then we’re all doomed. Doomed, I tell you. Lurida Lumo may still be alive, but what you’ve all thought was Lurida Lumo is completely wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! And when he seeks his vengeance, as he will, oh, will he! You won’t be able to stand up to him. No sir. Not a one of you able bodied or not so able bodied men.” She fairly spat out the word men. “The only one who might be able to is her.”
This time, the cane pointed at me.
“Instead of chaining her up, you should be treating her like a queen. A queen!” Yazel continued. “Because she may be your last hope. You mark my words, hear me? Mark them!”
And with that, the old woman turned and stomped out of the council hut.
There was a moment of silence, then Sixle cleared his throat and said, “Amelia, you will go back to your home and remain there until we have reached a decision. Do not try to leave Cartwangle. If you do, your family will bear whatever punishment we decide for you.”
“You bastards,” Amelia said, her eyes brimming.
“Remember your place, girl!” another elder roared. He was a big man, simultaneously scruffy, bejeweled, and mean-looking.
“Why, S’Grun?” Amelia said to this new speaker. “Everyone knows how you beat Connell, but nobody has the courage to call you on it. Well, I do. You’re a monster and a hypocrite, and you deserve whatever bad things happen to you.” Then she turned and stomped out, pushing past the men in the door without even a glance at me.
“Go with her,” Sixle said.
“I know the way!” Amelia yelled back over her shoulder.
“Hmph,” S'Grun muttered. “Stupid whore.”
So this was Connell’s father. There were more layers to this little village than I thought. Did S’Grun hate Amelia because she loved Connell or because it simply made plain what he so desperately wanted to deny: that his son preferred the love of other boys? Seems to me if the man had any sense at all, he’d want to keep Amelia around as a diversion if nothing else.
Still, S’Grun didn’t bat an eye. He raised one hand and gestured. “Bring this alleged Reaper before us now.”
“Are you telling me my job, S’Grun?” Sixle asked.
S’Grun clearly wanted to make an issue of this power struggle, but he just as clearly knew it wasn’t the time. “I beg your pardon,” he choked out. “If you feel it is the right thing to do, can we please talk to this girl who claims she’s a Reaper?”
Damato gently nudged my shoulder. I may have nudged back. And then I shuffled into the same spot Amelia had occupied.
“This is no Reaper,” S’Grun said. “This is some child. Look at her!”
Boy, was I tired of hearing that.
“You have my assurance,” Damato said. “She’s a Reaper.”
“And I have observed her strength firsthand,” Sixle said.
“Well, there’s one way to tell,” S’Grun said smugly. “Strip her. Expose her spine. And whatever else she might be hiding under that dress.”
My eyes grew wide at this. I couldn’t help clenching my fists and straining against my chains. Memories of humiliation and worse at the hands of the Demons roared back to vivid life. My eyes searched the room to see who would dare. I would rip that human apart with my teeth if I had to. Who? Damato? So be it! I could not imagine a greater torture than being forced to stand nude before a crowd for inspection. I’d rather be stabbed repeatedly with Reaper steel than go through that again.
“I’m not doing that,” Damato said. “If you don’t trust my word, then I shouldn’t be working for you. And if you just want to see a naked girl in chains, S’Grun, I’m sure a man of your incredible power can arrange that without my help.”
S’Grun glared at Damato. “You will show us the proper respect, young man.”
“I am,” he shot back.
“You have sent word to Raggenborg about her presence here?” Sixle said, trying to regain control.
Damato nodded. “I expect an answer sometime tomorrow. Likely, they’ll send other Reapers to retrieve her.”
“Then we won’t worry about her disposition. Return her to Heod’s home.”
S’Grun continued to glare at me. I returned the favor, relishing in the only revenge I could take.
Damato gently tugged on my arm, and S’Grun said, “Why don’t we just kill her? Raggenborg Castle should belong to us, not those damned Reapers. They say they’re preparing it for the new king, but how do we know that? Demon bastards, all of them, and we’re supposed to trust them?”
“That,” Sixle said, “problem is five years away, S’Grun, and if you can’t stop ranting about it, we might have to find someone else to fill your seat. Assuming I can find a big enough ass.”
S’Grun jumped to his feet. “Are you threatening me, Sixle? Do you know what I’ll do to you? I’ll shove that stupid hat right up your bony old—”
Sixle was unbowed. “I am not your son, S’Grun. I will not cower from your abuse. Now sit down and shut up, or I’ll have Damato drag you out of here by your scrotum. Am I clear?”
S’Grun clenched his meaty hands, and for a moment, I thought he was going to make an issue of it. Then he sat back down heavily, glaring at the table top before him.
“Come on,” Damato said softly and nudged me toward the door.
He walked behind me in total silence. I didn’t speak either because what could I really say other than the string of profanities that welled up from my stomach, attacked my heart, and somehow got stuck in my throat and lodged there? I felt terrible for breaking my word to Amelia and for getting her into this mess in the first place. I was humiliated, impotent, and worse, I’d let myself trust a man unworthy of it. A dozen villagers followed at a respectful, or frightened, distance. Public humiliation: is there any better kind?
At the door, Damato unlocked my shackles and removed the collar. I resisted the urge to rip him limb from limb while screaming like a banshee. Barely. He said, “I’m very sorry about this. I have a lot of competing loyalties here.”
I stood stock still. “Touch me again, and you will lose both your hands.” Even though my tone was soft, my resolve was steel.
“I understand. Will you give me your word to sit quietly and wait for your people to come get you?”
“I give you my word that if you ever try to restrain me again, I will finish what Andraste started.” My eyes dared him to retort.
“I see. Well, then we may end up at cross purposes before this is over.”
“You’ve already made sure of that. Pity. I’m your last hope, remember?”
“Perhaps. Yazel is a brilliant healer, but I’d trust her prophecies more if she had her shoes on the right feet. And you remember: I knew the kind of shackles to hold you. I might know more about Reaper vulnerabilities than you think.” Clearly, that was true.
He turned and walked away down the street. The crowd that had followed us parted to let him through. I fought the urge to leap after him and gut him with my bare hands.
Heod appeared at the door. “Get in here before they stare so hard their damn eyeballs fall out,” he said, grabbed my arm, and yanked me inside.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I’ve been confined before. In my tower room, by weather, Adonis’ edicts, in Eldrid’s damned class, and in exercises by Andre testing my ability to be still and silent (not my strong points). But now, confined in this tiny house, I grew angrier and angrier at this village for its insane devotion to its god, at Damato for his betrayal, and at myself for caring. This is why the best warriors remain celibate. You can’t be betrayed when you have no one to care about. And just like that, I resolved to forget Aaron. If this was how human men behaved, I wanted no part of them.
I tried to channel this energy into cleaning my sword. It was still covered in dried spider blood, which wouldn’t hurt it, b
ut no one likes a sticky sword that draws flies. Sela gave me a basin and a cloth, and I scrubbed my frustration into it. I cut my fingers repeatedly, but they healed fairly quickly, and I didn’t get blood on my borrowed dress. If the pink-stained water worried them, they didn’t say anything about it.
Through all this, Heod gave voice to all our frustration as he paced his house. “Who the devil do these people think they are? Sixle hasn’t ever lost a child to Lurida Lumo, and S’Grun hasn’t contributed a damned thing to this village in his worthless life. He just bellows and gets people upset. Why do we listen to them again?”
“Because they’re our elders,” Sela said patiently.
“Why aren’t you an elder, Daddy?” Horva asked.
“Because I’ve got too much damn sense,” Heod muttered.
I borrowed a whetstone from Heod and began needlessly sharpening my sword. The harsh scraping sound made me smile. I knew the edge hadn’t been dulled by slicing through the spider’s soft innards, but it was something to do, and it gave me a chance to think over my options.
There were really only two—well, three if you count waiting for whichever Reaper they sent to show up and fetch me home. One, I could stay and make sure nothing happened to Amelia for as long as I could, or two, I could leave and return home on my own. The latter would be the smarter option since, if I was lucky, I could pass the whole thing off as just confusion and mistaken identity. How could I have been in some village when I was just out practicing my tracking? But I knew I wouldn’t do that. Amelia and her family deserved better.
And then there was Damato. His kiss still tingled if I paused to think about it, which I would not. Ever. Ever again. He was neither frightened of me nor intimidated by me. He was probably the first. No, second. Aaron. But Damato called me beautiful. Certainly, he was the first in that department, yet he’d also betrayed whatever trust I’d started to feel for him when he shackled me in Demon bonds. Nowhere near the first on the betrayal score board yet still in the lead. Number one with a crossbow bolt.
He couldn’t know what that meant to me of course. How could he understand that when that metal touched my skin, it brought back memories I never, ever wanted to recall: being held helpless and immobile by identical chains while things were done with me and to me that no girl—human, Reaper, or Demon—should ever experience? Everyone loses their innocence, I understood, but not everyone has it torn away in blood, screams, and cruel laughter. Was I making excuses for him? Was this my brain trying to forgive the unforgivable? This is no Reaper device. This must be that frail human heart my mother so generously “gifted” me with: this epic ability to feel the pain of betrayal more keenly than the point of any sword. If I could, I would rip out this fragile heart and never feel anything again.
But that kiss. It was knowing and deliberate, not the tentative peck on the cheek of a boy. It was a man’s kiss. And he saw me not as a girl but as a woman. He didn’t shy away from the ridges on my back or ribs. He even cut his hand on my back while he was caressing me. And, for a moment, I forgot how angry I was.
“What are you doing?” Amelia said as she sat across the table from me.
“Sharpening,” I said, grateful to get out of my very conflicting thoughts.
“It looks pretty sharp already.” All the better to gut him with, my dear.
“It is. The only things that can dull a Reaper’s blade are a Demon’s bones.”
She smiled. “You’re going crazy cooped up here too, aren’t you?”
“A little.”
She was silent for a few moments, watching the whetstone scream down the blade. Then she asked, “How long have you had that sword?”
“My father gave it to me when I came to live with him.”
“Your father? I thought all Reapers were…” She trailed off, leaving unspoken, fathered by Demons.
“He’s my adopted father. He married my mother before she…died.” I didn’t want to have to explain all this, so I tried to look sad.
“I’m sorry,” Amelia said.
Again, she was silent. I finished with the whetstone and held the blade up so the light would catch it. I noticed Hatho staring from across the room and gave him a wink. It was time to let all this go and focus on the task at hand. My job as the protector of all humankind probably required some social skills. Practice, here I come.
Then Amelia said, “May I hold it?”
Oh dear. A Reaper and her sword are not easily parted. I swallowed my reservations. “Have you ever held a sword before?”
“No, but it looks easy.”
I was curious to see how this frail human would fare with a Reaper blade. I reversed it and extended it to her hilt first, the blade resting across my forearm. “It’s heavier than it looks,” I warned.
She took it and grunted at the weight but didn’t drop it as I expected. Reaper swords weighed more than human ones since we were so much stronger. Our weapons were meant to slay Demons; humans only used their weapons on each other. But Amelia managed to hold it. She extended her arm and slowly turned her wrist, sending a reflected bar of light across the ceiling. “It feels…serious.”
“It’s very serious,” I assured her. This particular blade had personally slain many Demons and was centuries old.
“And you stab people with it?”
“I stab Demons.”
“But there are no more Demons.”
She had me there. “Reapers hold human life in the highest regard. We don’t kill humans, not even the bad ones. I am trained to pierce seventy-five non-vital points, but I’ve never actually used my training on a human. I suppose I will one day…” When I’m forced to guard the king, who was hopefully nothing like S’Grun, Sixle, or those other grumpy bags of dust.
“What about other Reapers? Have you ever stabbed them?”
“Yes, but only in practice.”
She lowered it until the blade rested on the table. “I wish I could be a warrior and learn how to use one of these,” she said heavily.
“Girls can’t be warriors,” Horva said.
I looked at her. “I’m a girl, Horva.”
“Yeah, but you’re not a human girl,” Amelia said.
“And you’re not one either if those are your manners to our guest,” Sela warned.
I turned back to Amelia. “Stand up.”
She did. I positioned her arm then showed her how to spread her feet for balance and rock her weight back to change her center of gravity. When she was ready, I handed her the sword. “It should feel like an extension of your body, not like something you’re holding.”
She flexed her wrist slightly. I could see the muscles in her forearm struggling with the weight, but she was a strong girl.
“Put that down,” Heod said gruffly.
I took the sword from Amelia and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
But Heod had returned from the bedroom with something wrapped in a cloth. He put it on the table and, when the corners were drawn back, exposed an old human sword, tarnished but straight. He didn’t lift it or even touch it.
“My grandfather’s sword,” he said. “I’ve had it for all my life ever since my father gave it to me.”
“Then it’s mine,” Hatho said, his eyes lighting up.
“The back of my hand is yours if you touch it,” Heod snapped. “This is no toy. It’s a weapon that’s killed people before. It’s meant for human beings to wield.” He looked at me. “Can you show Amelia how to use it?”
“I can show her some basics,” I said. “The rest only comes with practice.”
“Show her then. She may need to know before all this is over. And I’ll make damn sure she practices.”
“Not in the house,” Sela said. “I don’t want more scratches on my furniture.”
“Go out in the backyard,” Heod said. “Nobody should see you there.”
“What if Damato’s watching?” Sela said.
“He got his one surprise,” I said. “He’s taking his life
in his hands if he tries for another.”
#
Outside, we were sheltered from the rest of the village by the garden’s corn and the great expanse of the field that Heod worked every day. The sun was bright but not blinding, and we had room to practice footwork. I wondered what I should focus on since Amelia didn’t have the months (or years) that I had to learn this stuff. I decided the best thing was to teach her how to kill quickly and efficiently. If there was time, I’d show her self-defense.
She stood with her father’s sword held limply in her hand. “It’s too heavy,” she said.
“No, you’re just afraid of it. And you should be; this is a weapon for taking lives, and it shouldn’t be used lightly. But you should also understand its part of your body when you use it correctly.”
I extended my own sword and arm. There is a special and wonderful bond between a warrior and her sword. The weight of the grip as it rests in my hand, the way it extends my reach. The way it changes me when I hold it. The sword controls me as I control it. I remembered back to my first few training sessions. The sword seemed impossibly heavy in my untrained hand.
“Use both hands,” I told her. She did so, placing one hand over the other, like mine. “Look how I’m standing: shoulders square, knees slightly bent, my feet spread so I won’t tip over like a teapot. Now sit back into your legs, keeping your chest high and back straight, like a princess. See if you can do that.”
“I am a warrior princess!” she exclaimed in full humor as she promptly toppled over.
But she got up, trying again, moving her limbs into approximations of the right position. “How does that feel?” I asked.
“Better,” she said, surprised. “It’s not so heavy. But I don’t know, Aella. This is…”
“If you don’t want to do it, we won’t. You won’t learn anything if I have to make you.”
“No, it’s not that, it’s…I mean, how do you live with yourself knowing you killed someone?”
Since I had never killed anyone, I didn’t have an answer for her. I sounded exactly like Adonis when I said, “You remember that they wanted to kill you and wouldn’t lose any sleep over it if they had.”
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