Steel Maiden

by Kim Richardson

  The high priest circled around me, inspecting every inch of me. I saw his brows furrow when he examined my singed cloak, but then his brows rose when he inspected my hands and face.

  “Fascinating,” said the high priest. “Not even a single burnt mark on her at all. It’s quite remarkable.”

  He smiled. There was something ominous about the way he watched me, and I felt a chill in my bones. His long hooked nose gave him the appearance of a bird. My heart raced as I stood helplessly while he examined me like I was his new prize. I recognized the hunger and lust in his eyes.

  My world was crumbling around me. The floor appeared to shift, and I struggled to keep it together. I didn’t want to show him fear.

  “I won’t be your concubine,” I blurted.

  My voice trembled with fear and rage. I pulled at my restraints. “I’d rather die than become a priest’s love toy. You should kill me. I promise I’ll find a way to kill myself if you don’t.”

  Baul and Garth fought back smiles, but I saw their shoulders move up and down. I glowered at them.

  The high priest smiled casually.

  “If I want you to become one of my—as you put it—love toys, then you will, my dear woman. And there is nothing you can do about it. It is a great honor to share the high priest’s bed.”

  He moved towards me, and I grimaced.

  “You have a pretty face, high cheekbones and unusual almond-shaped eyes, very pleasing.” His eyes didn’t leave my face. “Yes. Very pretty. But you are incredibly skinny and sickly looking. Your skin has none of the qualities and softness of my other concubines.”

  “Try starving for most of your life. It does wonders to the skin.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “How old are you.”

  I didn’t feel like answering, but I didn’t feel like getting another beating. “Nineteen.”

  “Hmm. The signs of aging have already plagued you. And there’s no shine to your hair. I prefer my women with curves, no doubt something that time and food can repair.”

  He leaned forward, and the next thing I knew he began licking my face with his wet gray tongue. I whimpered in disgust and fear. I held my breath as I smelled his hot, putrid breath. He licked my cheeks, the corner of my mouth, and down my jaw.

  I trembled and stifled a scream.

  This is it. He’s going to rape me right here while the other two watch. My spirit was shattered, but then he stepped back.

  “You smell like you’ve slept with the pigs.”

  My face burned with shame. I probably did smell. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a real bath. It seemed my unsavory smell had saved me. I almost smiled.

  “No,” the priest shook his head, but his smile returned. “Definitely, not a concubine.”

  The guards shared a look, and then Garth said, “Your Grace, do you wish us to dispose of the witch for you? We’d thought we could—”

  The high priest whirled on Garth.

  “She’s not just a witch, you idiots. Don’t you know what she is? Can’t you recognize it?”

  The high priest paused briefly to give the guards a chance to reply.

  “No? No, of course you wouldn’t. An ordinary witch would have burned in the sorcerer’s fire. But she’s no ordinary witch. What you have here before you is something extremely rare. Something extraordinary.”

  My stomach tightened into a giant knot.

  “I’m not a witch,” I said quietly.

  I braced myself as beads of sweat trickled down my temples. My heart was beating so fast I could barely hear. What was this priest talking about?

  Baul frowned. He was clearly as confused as I was, and he looked from me to the priest.

  “I don’t understand, Your Grace? What is she then? A demon? Djinni?”

  The high priest chuckled at that. But before I had time to react, before I even knew what was happening, in a blur of white, the high priest reached out and grabbed Garth’s sword.

  With an ugly smile and eagerness in his eyes, he rammed the sword through my stomach.

  CHAPTER 7

  I STUMBLED FORWARD, and blood gushed from my throat and spilled down my front. I looked down and saw the pommel of Garth’s sword sticking out just below my left ribcage. My breath came in rapid wheezes, and there didn’t seem to be enough air in the chamber. I was cold, and I couldn’t stop trembling.

  Tears spilled down my face from the pain. I’d never been stabbed before, especially not with a giant sword. The blood didn’t stop pouring out of my mouth, out of me. I knew what that meant. I blinked the black spots from my eyes, barely aware that a crowd had gathered around me. I grimaced at the throng of priests and their apprentices. I was dying, and I had an audience.

  “And now for the great revelation.”

  I looked up. The high priest looked as if he were crazed. His hot breath tickled my face. He smiled wickedly, and then with one great heave he pulled out the sword.

  I staggered from the force of the pull and immediately felt the wetness gush from my left side.

  I stood in a pool of my own blood. I wished I’d left Rose on better terms, and I cursed Mad Jack as I felt myself slip away.

  The high priest raised his voice. “And now, my brothers, watch as a miracle appears before your eyes.”

  I recoiled as the high priest put his hands on my body. Was he going to stab me a second time?

  He drew my cloak to the side and lifted my tunic, exposing my chest. I wanted to protest. I wanted to hit him, but my hands were still tied behind my back. The loss of blood had made me so dizzy that I could barely keep standing. I felt myself drifting away. Soon I wouldn’t care anymore. Soon I would be dead.

  I heard a gasp from the crowd. The high priest’s smile widened.

  And I wasn’t dying.

  It felt like a hundred needles pricking my skin, and then my body was blanketed in warmth. My vision cleared, and my dizzy spell all but vanished. I felt better. But that was impossible. I should be dying. I didn’t understand what was happening. I followed the high priest’s stare down to my exposed chest, to my wound.

  A golden light glowed from inside my body and spilled through the bloody gash. I blinked. The blood stopped spilling as though the light from inside me had cauterized the wound and stopped the bleeding. I felt a pull, and then a tug, inside. I stared as the pink flesh and damaged organs deep inside the gash sewed themselves up again. Slowly, the skin around the cut gathered and sealed itself. In seconds nothing of the ghastly wound was left but a thin scar.

  I was still standing. How was this even possible? Maybe the guards were right. Maybe I was a witch.

  “Spectacular!” The high priest’s voice was full of praise. “Utterly spellbinding.”

  “But…how can this be?” asked a voice behind me, as though he were reading my thoughts.

  “She healed herself? Is this magic? Is this witchcraft?”

  The high priest pulled down my tunic and I felt easier. I felt my strength returning, like I was slowly waking up. He turned to face the gathered crowd of priests.

  “Brothers, this woman is not a mere witch, but something far more valuable,” he paused, capitalizing on the moment. “She’s a creature who will never get sick or catch a cold. She is immune to sorcerer’s fire and has a natural resistance to magic. And as you can see, she even has the ability to heal herself from a fatal wound.”

  I met the high priest’s eyes. He held my gaze for a long moment and sneered at my confusion. He looked satisfied. He had known I wouldn’t die before he ran me through with the sword. It had all been just for show. He knew I could heal myself. Apparently he knew more about me than I did.

  The wicked gleam in his eyes sent a chill cascading down my spine. And then it hit me. I remembered what Rose had said to me.

  They must never find you. Never. Do you understand? They must never ever know of your existence.

  What if Rose hadn’t simply been hiding me from the priests’ search for concubines? What if she had known w
hat I was all along? Did she know I could heal myself? Had my mother known? Had she protected me for an entirely different reason? Rose had always spoken of the oath she’d sworn to my mother. It was her duty to keep me safe. But now, seeing how I had healed myself, I wasn’t sure what she had been trying to protect me from.

  The high priest watched me curiously. He knew I was struggling with the truth of what had happened. His lazy, vicious grin all but confirmed my suspicions. He had other plans for me.

  “Her kind were undefeated once,” he proclaimed. “I thought they had been wiped out in all the worlds…until know. She is a gift. A thing of myth and legend, a real treasure.”

  Baul and Garth stared at me intently, but I refused to look at them.

  I braced myself. If I had magic in me, was I a witch or something else? If I could heal myself from a fatal wound, what else could I do?

  My fears were gradually replaced by self-assurance. If swords couldn’t stop me, then maybe I could still find a way to escape. I needed food. But I felt stronger and more confident.

  I tightened my hands into fists behind my back and felt the rope tear into the flesh of my wrists. The skin around my wrists was warm. Was I healing? The high priest had guessed correctly that I’d never been sick. The sword in my chest had been painful, but I had survived. I could do it again.

  I’d promised Rose that we could get out of the Pit. It was a promise that I wanted to keep. I was filled with hope that we might escape.

  Healing magic certainly seemed to brew inside me. And by the way the high priest was watching me, something told me there was much, much more he wasn’t telling me.

  He raised his hands. “Brothers of the Temple of the Sun. I believe the Creator has handed us a unique gift.”

  He smiled. “Is she a witch? Perhaps, but she is much more than a mere witch. This woman is a—”

  “Demon spawn,” called a voice behind me.

  Even before I turned around, I recognized the voice. Where had I heard it before? The voice belonged to a middle-aged priest. He must have been handsome once, but the years had not been good to him. With his head held high he stared down at his brethren with a scowl. He had my dark eyes.

  I knew that face. I knew him.

  The high priest didn’t hide his surprise. “Brother Edgar, do you know this young woman?”

  The priest, Brother Edgar, stared at me. “This unholy monstrosity is my daughter.”

  I flinched. Blood pounded in my ears as the pain of recognition overwhelmed me. I thought I had managed to forget his face, to forget what he had done. My mouth opened, but I just stood there stiffly. This wasn’t how I had envisioned my reunion with my father.

  In my head I had killed him—many, many times over.

  The high priest raised his hand for silence.

  “I will not pass judgment on our fellow brother here for having had a past before he joined the Temple of the Sun. Many of you here have had a life before the temple.”

  His pale eyes moved across the many guilty faces in the crowd of priests and came to rest upon Brother Edgar.

  “Thank you, Your Eminence.” Brother Edgar bowed from the middle, but his eyes never left mine.

  The high priest smiled briefly. “Interesting.”

  He looked back at me before he continued. “Although, I don’t quite see the resemblance. She must take after her mother.”

  He paused for a moment. “Her mother must have been very beautiful. Where is she?”

  The high priest asked the question with some urgency, even though his face was expressionless.

  “Where is her mother?”

  I suddenly felt cold.

  Brother Edgar’s mouth curled into an ugly snarl. “I killed her, Your Eminence.”

  CHAPTER 8

  I TREMBLED AS I fought the tears. I bit down on my tongue to keep from screaming.

  It was as though it was happening all over again. I had long ago suppressed the memories of my mother’s execution at the hands of her own husband, and now they came back to me like a blow to the stomach. My mother’s neck, her stomach, even her hands had been pierced by swords, arrows, and daggers. I remembered my mother on her knees shouting for me to run. And I remembered my father lifting a great axe and bringing it down brutally against the back of her neck. Nine years later and the memory of my mother’s head thudding to the floor still haunted me.

  I hated this man more than anything. He had robbed me of my childhood. He had destroyed any chance of my understanding the powers that I had just discovered I possessed when he had killed my mother. When I thought of the Devil, it was his face that danced before my eyes.

  I fought against my restraints, but they wouldn’t break. I glared at him with as much hatred and malice as I could muster. He was not my father. He was a murderer. I would avenge my mother. I would kill him.

  Brother Edgar only smiled. He appeared to enjoy the pain that I was suffering. His black eyes bored into mine and burned with a fury and hatred that matched my own. I raised my chin and stared at him. I wouldn’t look away.

  The high priest looked disappointed that my mother had been killed. “Pity. I could have used her. Two would have been better, but one is still all I need.”

  My eyes fell on the high priest. “Need me for what, exactly?” I snapped.

  Before the high priest could answer me, Brother Edgar cut in.

  “She got was she deserved. She wasn’t a woman. She wasn’t natural. I found out what she was when I saw her using magic to heal. I was appalled. The creature had tricked me into thinking she was a natural woman when she was really a demon.”

  He straightened and looked at the high priest.

  “I should have known, I should have seen the signs, but I was a fool in love. Fooled by her flesh. Fooled by her beauty. But once I discovered her secret, I killed her.”

  He looked at me in disgust. He smiled. “I should have killed this one too.”

  “Maybe you should have because I’m going to kill you,” I said, my voice as cold as ice.

  I knew he was trying to break my spirit just as he had broken my mother’s. But I wouldn’t let him. He wouldn’t break me.

  Brother Edgar’s eyes widened, shocked that I should have the gall to threaten him. He moved towards me, so close I could smell his wretched breath.

  “How dare you speak to me! Demon! You will suffer the same fate as your whore mother. I will send you back to your master. Accursed creature. Whore of hell!”

  My head jerked back as he backhanded me across the face. Blood flew from my lips, and I tasted blood in my mouth again. Whatever healing ability I had, it did nothing to reduce the pain I felt.

  “I should have killed you, demon, just like I killed your mother.”

  I bared my teeth. “I’ll speak to you any way I damn well please, priest. I’m not afraid of you.”

  I barked out a laugh. “You think you can scare me? Break me with your pathetic words? I’m not the one who hides behind a black robe to feel important. You are weak. Not I.”

  I straightened up and spit blood into his face.

  Brother Edgar faltered, and I knew I had struck a nerve. He wiped his hand across his face, and his eyes narrowed.

  “Why you little bitch.”

  He punched me hard, and I crashed onto the ground. I curled up into a protective ball and waited for the next blow. But it never came.

  The high priest held Edgar by the arm and looked as if he were disgusted with him.

  “Enough, Brother Edgar,” he said as he let him go. “You’ve proved your point. But I’m curious. If you had the chance to kill her, as you say, then why didn’t you?”

  I rolled back onto my feet and spit some more blood onto the perfectly clean and polished floors.

  “She escaped. No doubt she used some demon trick, Your Eminence. I looked for her for years after that, but I couldn’t find her. I couldn’t fix my mistake. Someone hid her well.”

  He smiled wickedly, and the thought that Rose mig
ht now be in danger sent a cramp into my chest.

  “But now I see that my patience has rewarded me. I can finally finish what I had started.”

  He turned around and addressed the other priests.

  “Do not be fooled, brothers. Do not be fooled by this creature’s beauty because she is no woman.”

  He pointed a finger at me, and I glowered. “This abomination is a demon, a girl sorceress. And we need to rid the earth of these demon women once and for all!”

  A murmur of agreement ran around the chamber, and my heart began to race, faster than before.

  “The creature should die.” An old priest with a thin wrinkled face pointed his walking stick at me. “She will only poison our minds with her lies. We will go mad if we let her live. I have seen it. I have seen the wicked ways of the magic bearers. Kill the creature. Kill her!”

  “Yes, kill her!”

  “Kill her!”

  “Kill the beast!”

  My mind raced, and I focused on the high priest. I would have welcomed a quick execution over the life of a courtesan, but I could see that Brother Edgar wanted to make me suffer. A chill settled deep into my bones.

  “Perhaps she is destined to die.” The high priest turned to me, his lips pulled back into a sly smile.

  I could barely breathe.

  “But,” he said slowly. I could sense the guards and the priests looming behind me. “Perhaps the Creator has other plans for her.”

  There was something so evil in the look in his eyes that I began to shake.

  “What’s your name?” the high priest asked after a moment.

  I could hardly hear him over the roar in my ears. I hesitated and then raised my chin proudly, “Elena. Elena Milegard from the Pit.”

  One of the guards smashed me in the back with some kind of club, and I stumbled forward…

  “Your Grace,” Baul instructed me. “Show some respect, witch.”

  “Elena Milegard, Your Grace.”

  I was proud to use my mother’s maiden name. Brother Edgar and I stared at each other with equal hatred.