Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1)

by Olivia Majors

The stories are wrong.

  Kelba is wrong.

  For, before my very eyes, men, women, and children meander around one another in a display of harmony. Dust flies up from the ground as a group of young boys and girls toss a leather ball back and forth. Two women laugh at them from their perch against the oaken wall.

  There is a Wall. Not like the wall dividing Kelba from wasteland. No. A wall made of oaken trees pummeled deep into the ground, stretching thirty feet high with iron gates and two watchtowers in each corner. The gates are open. Through them I can see modest homes of thatch and wood and stone.

  The years of tension, strife, curiosity, and endless research arise from their dark pit and burn a sweet fire in my chest.

  I have found the hidden half of history.

  Chapter XIV

  It takes three seconds – maybe a bit less – for my presence to be noticed. Slowly, like a wind gently killing a candle’s flame, the noise dies around me. I thought I knew silence when I was in the dungeons. I thought I knew tension when I entered a party. I thought I knew hate among the nobility of Kirath. But I know nothing to rival the cool rage of death hanging over my head.

  It is impossible for the people not to notice me – ragged, scarred, bloodied. They watch me as I follow my guards to the iron gates.

  They follow.

  Inside the gates is a large square encompassed between the wall and watchtowers. Men in iron helmets and leather armor patrol the walkways hammered into the top of the wall. All of them turn and look downwards upon my entrance. The square smells of iron, sweat, and hay – familiar smells that burn an ache inside me. Shirtless men, ranging from fourteen to nigh on fifty, turn from their duties.

  The whispers begin. They trickle like a tiny river of water down my spine and raise hairs on my arms. The scars near my neck begin to pulse. Throb. Burn. The ground spins beneath my feet and everything seems too fast, too long, too heavy.

  The calm shatters.

  “It’s a Kelban!” screams a woman’s voice. “Wretches. Get it out of here before you bring a curse upon us! Get it out!”

  “How could you bring her here?” A man’s voice. Frightened.

  “Mama, she looked right at me. Will she curse me?” The child is hidden to my eyes but apparently he can see me.

  Soft, wet slime splatters my torso and neck. I choke on the salty taste of mud and attempt to clear the filth from my face.

  “We have brought her to stand before the council,” Axle says, his voice calm and controlled over the riotous crowd.

  “Fools! You should have left her. Or better yet . . . killed her with your own hands! How could you do this to us? Have we not suffered enough!” The woman’s voice is shrill like a morning bird.

  I am relieved my dagger is hidden. Were I wearing it openly, this outraged mob could become murderous.

  “Yes,” a smooth voice croons from the crowd.

  As if moved by an unseen hand, the crowd parts and makes way for a man. He is not much taller than I and obviously not a warrior like most of the men who surround me. His belly has been left to waste for far too long. But his voice commands the crowd and demands attention with its soft, yet powerful, tone. He reminds me of the Celectate. And his eyes . . . light green . . . I frown at their familiarity.

  Keegan steps forward, brandishing his bow in a twirling motion of expertise that raises a few sounds of awe from the crowd – foolish girls. He steps up beside the man, towering with his height.

  The man looks up at him with piercing eyes. “Do not tell me that my son is involved in this blasphemy?”

  Keegan smirks and makes a theatrical gesture of shock so absurd that a few in the crowd laugh at his features. “Nay, Father, not I. Shade has taken the full weight of responsibility on his shoulders.” He makes a sweeping bow in Shade’s direction. Shade’s features remain impassive.

  “Did he now?” The man folds hands behind his back – a trait so familiar of Celectate Wood that I cringe. “I would have thought we gave him sufficient warning last time.”

  “You know how he is,” Keegan remarks smugly, purposely avoiding eye contact with Shade.

  The man makes a clucking noise with his teeth. “Such a pity. I hate having to repeat a student’s lessons time and again. Endlessly quoting our laws gets rather tedious.”

  “Don’t our laws state that we are to bear no grudges against Kelba, Dirk? That we are to regard them with cool indifference?” Axle asks, voice tight. He is smiling amiably but anyone could see the weapons in his eyes.

  Dirk sweeps a hand at me. “This . . . is cool indifference?”

  “Don’t worry. We ignored her half the time,” Axle says. “So we didn’t break any laws.” A choice few in the crowd chuckle at his wit.

  Not all of the crowd is on Dirk’s side.

  “Charm will get you nowhere,” Keegan sneers.

  Axle grins. “That’s what your mother told me last night.”

  Keegan bolts forward, bow projected like a staff. Axle’s hand casually reaches for the moon blade’s hilt behind his shoulder. He doesn’t even hide the anticipation in his eyes. The crowd’s rage changes to one of sport and men begin to laugh. Shade merely steps off to the sidelines beside Hayden and intentionally ignores Dirk’s piercing gaze.

  “Enough!” The mere blast of the one word stops everyone – Keegan mid-strike, Axle mid-draw, and me mid-breath.

  Another man walks through the crowd. He is gigantic, molded from muscle, tanned from the sun, and possesses thick black hair tied in a tail behind his back. He steps up alongside Dirk and the man shrinks beneath the fiery gaze leveled on him. The newcomer shifts that gaze to Shade.

  “Guardian?” he asks, brows raised and ready for an explanation.

  “I have brought this Kelban for the council,” Shade says.

  “Why?”

  Shade shrugs. “She wanted to live.”

  “I see.” The man looks between the squabbling warriors and finally stares directly at me. The moment his crackling eyes meet mine, I straighten. That gaze – it’s not cruel or heartless or hateful. Just curious. He frowns. “Bring her.”

  Axle is by my side before Keegan can assert the position. Slowly we leave the crowd behind and walk down a barren street against the seemingly endless wall.

  “We’re going to the council now,” he whispers.

  I roll my eyes. As if I didn’t know that.

  Immediately, I regret the mistake. I had become so used to the small difference in pronunciation, the constant deciphering, the incessant foreign mockery, and the assault of childhood language lessons that I no longer noticed the unique poetry of the ancient vocabulary. They had been speaking in ancient Kelban the whole time.

  “Good,” I whisper back.

  The corners of his mouth twitch with amusement, but he says nothing.

  The council house is a modest, dome-shaped building situated near the secluded part of the wall. Several men have already gathered outside it, no doubt summoned by quick-footed messengers. Gossip spreads like wildfire even in this dreadful place. They are dressed commonly in tunics, boots, and a few possess an outer robe.

  I am shoved inside without a word. It is dark and smells of damp hay and mortar. A rusty hinge creaks and a trapdoor in the dome-shaped roof falls, allowing a beam of sunlight to strike the center of the floor. I am thrust beneath the light.

  “I am Otis, girl, the Keeper of this city. I am responsible for the safety and security which these people entrust me to maintain.” The leader’s voice is no less rough than it was in the square. “I will answer my questions, girl. Oh, don’t shiver so. Our interrogation is more refined than that of your Kelban society. We do not use whips or tools to loosen your tongue. We depend upon your honesty and, quite frankly, your common sense. Pray that you have a lot of it.”

  My eyes adjust to the blended frays of light and darkness. The council members have pressed themselves against the walls in all manner of statures. They’re guarded attempts to maintain a casual attitude a
re not lost on me.

  “What is your name?” Otis asks.

  “Kyla.”

  “Your full name,” a council member corrects.

  “Lady Kyla Kelonia Bone,” I whisper, curling my fingers into fists.

  The barrage of insults I have waited for erupts.

  “Lady?” scoffs another member. “Lady indeed. Must you rub ‘nobility’ in our faces now, too, outsider? Lady? Put me in a room alone with your for two minutes and we’ll see how much of a lady you are.”

  I struggle to keep my voice from trembling when I speak. “Repeat that.”

  A long, low chuckle pervades the room. Dirk cranes his head so I can see his taunting eyes in the dim light. “I said, Kelban, that your skills in the art of seduction and leg-spreading are well known. Everyone knows all you highborn bastards are nothing but common whores.”

  In Kelba I could have had his tongue for that. I could have him flogged publicly in the streets for defamation of my honor. But here, I do not have the voice – the power – I possessed back home and must endure their taunts. Their insults.

  One of the council members turns his attention to Otis, who has remained silent, and speaks in low Kelban dialect. “We have no good use to put her to and you know it. She would be a nuisance, and quite frankly, a curse upon us.”

  “Yes, exactly!” Dirk jumps at the chance to despoil me further. “A curse! Her kind have caused trouble for us in the past. You have not forgotten the last bastard we allowed to remain within these walls, have you, Otis?”

  “I have forgotten nothing!” Otis glares pointedly at Dirk. “And I have definitely not forgotten the role you played in that little foray, Dirk of Brunt. I am a patient man. A modest man. An understanding man. But you push every single one of those virtues to the limit.”

  “Piss on virtue!” Dirk snaps. He points accusingly at me. “You allow that bitch to mingle within these walls and there will be hell to pay. Their kind have always been a curse to us. They trample us. They lie about us. They put us behind a wall. She deserves to hang. To rot. To die.”

  “The girl is a child,” another council member argues softly. “My daughter is no older than her. I will not condemn her.” He sits down sullenly.

  “Your daughter is of this land,” Dirk says to him. “This invader is a curse to us. Her kind would bleed us before we even reached their Wall. Why should we not do the same to her? You should have killed her, Shade of Smoke. You should have done your duty as a guardian and killed her, for all our sakes.”

  Shade steps out of the darkness, but it clings to him like a second skin, emanating in the color of his eyes, and the muscles of his chest. “First, I am no guardian, Dirk of Brunt. I have made no such vow to protect useless, cowardly bastards like yourself. I have made no such vow to defend this city which is not my home. Second, whoever I kill is my business, not yours. And you’d better thank the gods I stand by that opinion because there have been many propositions for your life.”

  “You still should have killed her. Common sense. Knowledge. Duty. Honor. Do none of these things command such a simple solution within you?”

  “I possess plenty of those virtues, Dirk. But, in your words, I ‘piss on virtue’ too. Honor and duty have gained me nothing but pain and suffering. Common sense is rather uncommon. And knowledge . . . well . . . if my knowledge commanded me you’d make a lovely pelt for my bed.” Shade steps towards the much smaller man. “Do not criticize me for finding a small portion of humanity inside of me. You’d better pray I possess that same humanity the next time we are in the same room together.”

  “You’re a monster!” Dirk hisses through clenched teeth. He increases the distance between them.

  Shade smiles and tilts his head to the side. “You’d do well to remember it.”

  “When you women have finished bickering we can continue this interrogation,” Otis says with an impatient gesture. Shade and Dirk remain silent.

  “I see you are married, Kyla,” Otis says, eyes cascading over the scar on my wrist. “To whom?”

  To Aspen Wood, heir to Kelba. Oh, to see the sweet shock on their faces would more than make up for the brutal insults they have thrown my way. But it would also spell my doom even if I argue that I had been ostracized for refusing to marry. For taking a stand against Celectate Wood. I am not ready for them to know that part of me. That part of me – that rebellious, conniving girl with fire for her clothing – must remain hidden. Or it will destroy me.

  So I lie.

  “A common, low-born bastard heir. Lord Rugen of Glothan.” I add a violent bite to my words.

  “An unhappy marriage, I take it,” Otis queries

  I stifle a chuckle and look straight in his eyes. There is no anger. No malice. No judgment. Just a man searching for answers. A man determined to protect his city and his people. For that I respect him. For that I will convince him I am no threat. I want what he wants. Safety and survival.

  “Unfortunately, though nobility are wealthy in life, they suffer in love. Unhappy?” I shake my head. “Happiness is never taken into consideration among well-bred bonds.”

  I think of poor Asher. A lowly Celect Knight in love with his best friend’s sister. I had known, and for keeping him at arm’s length, I was sorry. But nothing could have grown from such a match even if I shared his feelings. He knew it too, and that was the real reason he hadn’t said anything.

  “You have been . . . ‘bonded’ is the word your kind uses, I believe . . . to this man for how long?”

  “Eleven months.”

  “Have you born any children for this bastard lord?”

  I frown. “No.”

  “Have you born any bastards for other lords?” Dirk asks from the shadows.

  “No!”

  “The displeasure in your marriage . . . what fueled it?” Otis’s question is simple but deep.

  I will give him a simple answer. “He was 36 years of age. Delicate. Soft. Hardly a man to pick up a sword and fight – much less inclined to gather the courage to speak up for himself. Or his wife. Such a man . . .” I cut myself off and shake my head. They are transfixed. As I knew they would be. The man I’ve spoken of is the perfect example of what they consider Kelban nobility to be. By expressing my distaste for the man they assume is my husband, I have struck at their idea of what a Kelban girl is.

  “What were you ostracized for, girl?” Otis asks. “Don’t look shocked. Your sleeve does nothing to hide that ugly red welt growing on your shoulder. Treason? Murder?”

  “Adultery,” Dirk grumbles.

  “The Celectate visited. His son and I had once been very close friends until I discovered what kind of man Kelba’s ruler was. I distanced myself from him. He propositioned me when my husband and Celectate Wood were admiring the estate. I refused. Told him to go to hell. Told him that Rugen would hear of it.” I wipe a tear from my eye, remembering Aspen’s blazing eyes as he sentenced me to die. Remembering his kiss that burned and violated me. “He didn’t listen. Rugen found me in his arms.” Dirk sneers.

  “Kissing,” I add forcefully. “My word against the son – the heir – of the Celectate. Who would a man like Lord Rugen believe?”

  “So you were ostracized for adultery? Prostitution.” Dirk sounds ecstatic.

  “I was ostracized for refusing to let a man use his title to bed me. That is all!” I snap.

  “You say you’re a High Lord’s daughter? Forgive me, but I know a little of Kelban nobility,” a council member says. “Pray, tell me, why a High Lord’s daughter must marry a low-born bastard nobody? Were you sullied by this bastard lord? Was that why you had to marry him?”

  I glare at him. “He had an army. Not that he used it for much good, but he had one. My father thought wedding me to a man with title, wealth, and an army would be a safe match for me. He also lived out of the city and away from the nobility’s corruption.”

  “It seems you’ve had your fair share of trials,” Otis mutters thoughtfully. He taps a finger against his
cheek in silent debate.

  Dirk struggles to regain control of the situation. “Her own people threw her out. Her own people lashed and branded her. If they have abandoned her she must be cursed. Defiled. Dangerous. We cannot allow her to be within these walls.”

  Someone laughs near my ear. I flinch at the warm breath that tickles my neck.

  “On first sight, I did find her a very interesting specimen,” Keegan says. He feathers my ear gently with his finger. I jerk away from the touch. “But there was one part of her I found the most interesting – the most eye-catching. It was something that not all of those smooth bastards possess.” He dips his hands downwards. I remember his arrow tracing my breast. His foot between my legs. His hand pauses on the sleeve of my worn tunic.

  I try to grab his hand, suddenly understanding the little game he’s unfolding. The part of me he means to put on display. Too late. He rips my sleeve off, tearing shreds of clothing from my back and front. Cold air rushes over my skin. Over my shoulder. Over the scar – now exposed in its complete hideousness to the entire room.

  Men gasp and lean close for a better look. Others wrinkle their noses in disgust and turn their eyes away. Otis remains blank-faced. Watching. Quiet.

  Keegan grips my arm and pulls me close to his side. “Does it hurt, Kelban?” He extends his hand towards the black-and-red symbol, anticipation for cruelty shining in his eyes.

  I think I’m as shocked as everyone else in the room when my gleaming dagger is an inch from Keegan’s eyes. I don’t remember reaching for it. Don’t remember the band of my restraint wavering.

  “Don’t you ever . . . ever touch me again!”

  Keegan stares at the toned blade with cross-eyes. His lip turns up at a corner in an undecided sneer. He doubts my honesty. My skill. My intent. That tether on my rage snaps.

  He shouldn’t.

  “I won’t miss!” I say, voice so low it raises the hairs on my own skin. “I swear by the gods, I won’t miss!”

  He backs away, the sneer disappearing from his face and replaced with a dead white color that normally would give me intense pleasure were the awfulness of the lashings on my back and scar not evident to the entire room. Vainly I try to cover myself, to shield against the air and the attentive stares.