I turned, the sword somehow forgotten. His presence drew my eyes with such force I couldn’t bear to look at anything else until I’d absorbed all of him.
He was cloaked entirely in black. Not only was his embossed leather jacket darker than a shadow, his folded hands were covered with what appeared to be smooth, black leather gloves. Instead of a mask or a beautiful face, a gauze veil dark as ink covered his head, the corners of the material tied closed with a somber broach on his left shoulder. Were it not for the wide-brimmed hat he wore atop the veil—which was just as dark as the rest of his attire, if perhaps a little more resplendent—he might have very well sucked all of the light from the room. As it was, the hat—a sort of metal, pointed hat—was glossy enough that it reflected the flicker of the torches’ firelight in small, spectacular movements.
He walked past me before I could speak, his close stride rustling my skirt. I moved back to give him room, and he sank into the black throne, crossing one black boot over and resting it on his knee. He brought the tips of his gloves together, his elbows resting comfortably on the armrests. “I had hoped to see you again much sooner.”
I swallowed and ran a shaky hand through my hair, tucking a chunk of it behind my ear. “I figured. I—I saw the carriages. I just needed some time.”
“Time? Time for what?”
I clutched my shawl again, as if that would somehow save me from the chill that hung over every room of the castle. I formed my words carefully. “I’m not yet old enough for a Returning.” It was true, and I wasn’t saying there was going to be a Returning. Not the moment I turned seventeen, anyway.
The lord dropped his fingers and gestured around him to the empty room. “Since when does that stop a man from seeing his goddess?”
“It doesn’t. Usually. But you didn’t come to see me, either.”
The lord scoffed. I could hear the sound clearly even through his veil. “You expect me to visit you?”
I blinked. This wasn’t going at all how I expected. “No, I … ” I was quite happy not to have to think about you, I wanted to say. But there was no need to tell him that. A man could crumble at even the slightest hint of harshness from his goddess. “It’s just that … that’s the way it’s normally done. Men visiting their goddesses.”
The lord tossed his head and cradled what must have been his chin with his thumb and forefinger. His face seemed turned a bit sideways, like he wasn’t going to look at me, although I couldn’t be sure. “I cannot leave the castle.” His voice broke a little, and I was almost unsure I’d heard him right.
I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t like I’d wanted him to come anyway. And arranging courtship was hardly the first thing on my mind. “Um, sir, Lordship … ” The lord dropped his hand back to his lap. “My mother is unwell. Women have been ill these past four months, and they started dying this week. I thought … we all thought they’d get better, but now that doesn’t seem to be the case, and … ” I didn’t know what else to say.
The lord tossed his hand in the air with a flourish, gesturing for me to go on. “And?”
I felt something snap in my chest, like the one word from him, the callous tone of his voice, was enough to stomp all hope I’d managed to muster. The hope that had gotten me to accept that carriage ride at last and face the fact that I was somebody’s goddess, and that somebody wasn’t who I wanted.
“And you’re our lord. Isn’t there something you can do?”
The lord drummed his fingers on one of the throne’s armrests. “You have tried all the herbs?”
“Yes!” I regretted the tone of my voice the moment I said it. But it was obvious we’d tried that much, wasn’t it? I tried to soften my voice. “I mean, of course. It seems to help with the pain a bit, but they’re still—that is, my mother now, just her, she still has no strength.”
The lord’s fingers stopped tapping at once. “You say women have died?”
“Yes!” I squeezed my shawl tighter. Wasn’t he listening? Wasn’t he paying attention at all to the people he ruled over? Why, then, do people say he’s always watching?
“There is no typical sign of illness? No rash? No sores?”
“No … ” I bit my lip, thinking about Ingrith and her “healer” man. “I knew a woman, who … well.” I swallowed, struggling to summon my courage to face this man. “She said there was once a family of healers in the village.”
The lord’s head snapped forward slightly. “Healers? I thought they had all been forgotten.”
“They have. That is, if they existed at all in the first place.”