“I’m not very hungry today,” I said, giving Brann a meaningful look when he finally stepped out of the hallway into the kitchen. My mother would have been pleased with Lord Byron’s offer, knowing it would mean a better life for all of us. Like my brother, she didn’t know all of the details of my relationship with him.
Unlike my brother, she had no idea why I’d wept every time she’d sent me to the manor with my Mist Guard escort when I’d been too young to walk alone. Brann and I had worked hard to protect her from my injuries, hiding me away for the worst of the healing.
I stepped out of the kitchen and went to wash the dishes as I’d said I would, leaving Brann to make excuses for my poor appetite. The yearly sacrifice made my stomach churn every year, seeing my father’s face in each and every person they bled.
What would I see when it was my throat the knife came for?
6
The celebration was already in full swing by the time Brann pushed Mother’s chair along the path at the center of the village. The Veil loomed in the distance, sparkling like a gateway to the afterlife.
For me, it would be.
My blood would stain the ground, my body left there to rot until the villagers brought me to the funeral pyre. I smiled at my brother for a moment as we walked, everything in me and our day spent together feeling like a deception. We’d entertained ourselves with a card game, the three of us sitting around the kitchen table in a way that was so rare when Brann and I always had to hustle to make sure our family survived.
The streets of the village were wide, the paths lined with dirt between the many houses and shops as we neared the central square. There was a well at the center where most of us drew our water, and the buildings surrounded it, curving around the edges of the dirt roads that were packed down from the foot traffic of villagers going about their day. There were dozens of buildings, all pressed neatly in rows beside one another to save space and protect from the elements once winter arrived. As the roads led farther from the main part of the village, the houses became more sporadic and in ill repair.
Lord Byron waited in the center of the village square as people offered him condolences on the loss of his wife. His eyes were heavy on my face as he waited for the conversation that we both knew we needed to have. He needed to understand that I wouldn’t back down, and the speech he was prepared to give would not end the way he wanted. “I’ll be right back,” I said, touching Brann’s arm with a smile before I took a deep breath.
My skin tingled, goosebumps rising to the surface beneath the fabric of my dress. It wasn’t the autumn air that brought the chill to my skin, but the triumphant look on Byron’s face as I crossed the distance between us.
“Estrella,” he said, his lips tipping into the arrogant expression of a man who was so certain he’d caught his prey in his trap. “Walk with me.”
“Yes, my Lord,” I said, accepting the arm he proffered. A hush fell over the square, because the Lord of Mistfell shouldn’t have offered his arm to a peasant woman. He shouldn’t have bothered with me at all.
“I knew you’d change your mind,” he said, guiding me down the path toward the gardens. Soon enough, everyone else would follow to witness the yearly sacrifice before the evening’s celebration could begin in earnest.
“I have a question before I make my final decision,” I said, not lifting my gaze to meet his eyes. His arm twitched with surprise, and I realized he truly believed, from something as simple as walking to his side, I had accepted his place in my life.
“Then ask it so we can be done with this nonsense. I need to make my announcement before the High Priest makes his,” Lord Byron said, his voice filled with all his impatience. The fact that he’d even bothered to give me the illusion of a choice meant he truly feared what the King would do if news of his crime reached Ineburn City. He’d thought me so far beneath him that I couldn’t hurt him the way he had hurt me.
Men always underestimated the women they saw as insignificant.
“Why did you choose me?” I asked, finally turning my gaze up to his. I kept my chin tipped down, peeking up at him through my lashes to offer the image he preferred to see. “We both know there are far more beautiful women you could have given favor to, so why?”
His jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing for a brief moment as he considered my question. “I didn’t know you even existed until the day your father died. Most of the children remain silent if their parent is chosen, but not you, Estrella. You wept, sobbing so loudly I’m certain they heard you in the Hollow Mountains.”
“You chose me because I cried for my dying father?” I asked, swallowing around the nausea rising up my throat.
“You must try to imagine what it’s like being raised as the only son of a Lord. If you think I’ve been harsh with you, you know nothing of what it was like to be me as a child,” he returned, his eyes looking into the distance as we strolled along the empty path. “I didn’t grieve for my father when he died. Seeing you suffer so openly—the way you cried at Temple every week for months after his passing and couldn’t even stand to look at the High Priest—that was what initially drew me to you. I didn’t understand it for what it was at the time. I invited you to my library because I wanted to see that sadness in your eyes, but as the years passed and I remained without a child, I realized you could teach your children to love so fully, as well.”
“You chose me because I loved my father, and you wanted me to teach our children to love you that way?” I asked, simplifying his response and taking out the horseshit that was designed to make me pity him.
I wouldn’t, because he’d stopped being a victim a long time ago and chosen to abuse me, even knowing how much it hurt. My steps faltered as I considered whether he’d done it to others in secret, or worse, when he didn’t have the prospect of marriage to restrain him from causing permanent damage.
“Yes. I chose you because you love with all your heart and do not care what people think of you for it. What more could a father want for his children?” he asked, turning to stare down at me in a moment of vulnerability. “They’ll be lucky to have you.”
He raised a hand to cup my face, the soft fingers of a life of luxury touching my swollen cheek. I wanted nothing more than to grab that hand and shove it away, but I let it stay as the first people started to trickle onto the path beside the gardens.
They passed us in silence, stepping onto overturned dirt from the gardens, which we’d pulled every plant out of during the harvest. They made their way toward the front in groups, approaching the place where the sacrifice happened every year with solemn expressions.
They’d be sad as they watched the horror unfold, but then they would celebrate as if I’d never existed.
“They won’t,” I said, murmuring the words quietly. My voice caught—the reality of what was to come staring me in the face. I couldn’t look toward the gathering assembly without seeing my father unwillingly dragged to the front, the echo of my screams and the burn in my throat assaulting me through my memory.