My lip trembled. My voice, when I could finally speak, was nothing but a hoarse whisper. “Is there nothing to be done?”
“Nothing.” His voice was sharp, and I couldn’t tell if it was my question or the answer to that question that had offended him. He sighed and let the sternness pass. “How strange of you to have a friend bound to a woman.”
“He … ” The admission caught in my throat. “She commanded him to remain my friend. Accidentally.”
“In women there lies a careless sort of power.” He patted my hand gently. “Why do you fear for him? Does she intend to send him to the commune?”
“No, it’s not that. In fact, he’s—” I stopped. I felt coddled and spoken down to, and my fear of punishment was overriding my desire for the impossible. “Never mind. I was foolish to think—” I wanted my hand free, with every bit of my desire. I felt strange, locked in this man’s grasp, blind to what was going on before me. His fingers loosened, and I was finally able to pull my hand back.
His voice grew quiet. “You love this … friend?” He took such a sharp intake of breath I thought something must have hurt him. My blood went cold.
“Yes.” I had said the words in haste and anger to Jurij in the cavern and spoken them in my heart a multitude of times before. But never had I admitted it to anyone else, and none but my mother knew to ask. And she at least had the pity not to.
My hand was enclosed in the gentle leather grip once more, and I let him take it, my muscles growing limp. Marble, as chilled as snow and as smooth and plush as satin, pushed gently against the back of my hand. I heard a light smacking noise upon its release, not unlike the noises Mother and Father made every time they met. A kiss?
“So you know,” whispered the hollow voice. “Perhaps you understand now. Men have no choice but to love, for that is their curse. Women are free to love, for what good it does. You need not fear death here.” He pulled me close to him, his body pressed against mine. I felt strange, revolted, but at the same time, an unbidden sense of exhilaration spread from my head to my toes. His hand stroked the back of my head, and I felt patches of his cold, thin arms sweep across my cheek. My other cheek brushed against the silken fabric covering his shoulder.
“That decree was my own doing, and I am delighted to at last be free from the order. For what would become of me had you not ventured here, against all counsel? What is your name?” he asked.
“Noll,” I whispered. My lips froze as they brushed against the icy surface of his ear.
His hand stopped stroking my head and balled into a fist around some of my hair. It hurt a bit, but I couldn’t express my alarm. My voice choked at the realization of what was happening.
“Olivière,” his voice croaked through the darkness. Somehow he knew my full name, the girly name I couldn’t stand to hear spoken. Like the vision in the cavern.
“Oh, Olivière,” he spoke again, his voice trembling. He let go of my hair and wrapped both arms so tightly around me, I thought he must have worried that I would float away.
And then I knew he would never again let me go.
He let me go home that night, but I could never truly be my own again, never truly be out of his embrace. Four months had passed since the lord of the village had found the goddess in me. I was only half a year away from turning seventeen.
And Mother was dying.
Before my thoughts were consumed with Mother’s illness, I found myself bitterly thinking like Ingrith said she once did, hoping at the very least that the news of my foolish trespass might spark some jealousy in Elfriede—what was a scrawny, puppy-face boy compared to the lord of the village?—or some kind of regret in Jurij that I, too, had someone else to love me.
But I was lying to myself. A scrawny, puppy-face boy was everything. And Elfriede and Jurij were so dreadfully excited for me. It was the only time they bothered to spare me any thought as of late.
“Wasn’t Mother right? We all knew your man would find you. And soon you can have your Returning and be as happy as me.”
“Now you know the joys that exist between a man and his goddess! Now you know real love.”
Their happiness was like the fangs of a monster, tearing into the defenseless flesh of the queen who’d foolishly set out to slay the beast, only to meet her own doom.
I couldn’t get used to the idea that I was somebody’s goddess. Not just anybody’s goddess, either. But it was so far from what I’d wanted I didn’t know what to do. Not only was Jurij’s curse unbroken, but I left the castle that night knowing my future. Knowing I had someone to Return to.
Because no one seemed to consider that I might not want to Return to him.