“I’m fine, Jaron.” Alvilda pushed away at his chest even as he extended his hand to help her. “How is everyone else?”
I took in the shambles of Alvilda’s home and shop. Furniture tipped over, carvings fell off the mantle, and some of the artwork was on the floor and split in two. Her tools lay scattered about the room. On the ground, Father rubbed his elbow. Jurij lay on Elfriede’s lap beside the doorway. Elfriede wept. Jurij was moaning and a trickle of blood ran down his face.
And I was clear across the room, dazed but uninjured. It was as if the ground had moved solely to split Jurij and me apart.
And as I thought that, I knew that it had. That he had made it so.
Why did I do that? Goddess help me. I’m sorry, Jurij. I’m sorry, Elfriede.
But when I thought of how much the lord had overreacted to my inability to Return to him, I wasn’t very sorry to have hurt him.
Although only two specters had brought me to the wedding, half a dozen filed into the home now. I blinked and swore I saw even more of them piling into the road outside.
Alvilda scrambled to stand beside me, elbowing Jaron as he tried to restrain her. He didn’t succeed, but he trailed after her, only one step behind.
“What’s going on here?” Alvilda demanded of the specters. She still hadn’t learned that she couldn’t take them in a fight.
“Alvilda—” began Jaron.
“Be quiet until I tell you to speak again!” snapped Alvilda.
Jaron spoke no more.
The specters moved around Alvilda and seized me, propping me up. Alvilda launched herself at them, but the specters weren’t bothered in the slightest. Jaron wrapped his arms around the kicking, snarling Alvilda but had no choice but to let her go when she ordered it. Two specters took Jaron’s place and grabbed Alvilda to restrain her, if only to stop her from yipping at them.
“I apologize for being so late to the celebration.”
Alvilda ceased struggling. Even Elfriede stopped weeping. All eyes but those of the specters turned toward the black figure that had entered the room.
“Congratulations, my dear,” said the lord, extending his hand downward toward the weeping Elfriede. She looked back at him, confused, her eyes still swollen with tears.
The lord pulled his hand back, not bothered by Elfriede’s lack of reaction. “What an accident!” said the lord. My gaze fled to the fallen Jurij on Elfriede’s lap. The blood I’d noticed earlier extended clear across his left cheek. His left eye was swollen and clamped tightly shut. A bloodied gouge lay on the ground beside him.
The lord waved his hand in their direction and a few more specters entered the already crowded home to sweep Jurij from Elfriede’s lap and carry him outside. Jurij moaned as he disappeared from view. Moments later, a black carriage passed by the open doorway, silently slipping away from sight.
What have I done?
“Fret not, my dear,” said the lord to Elfriede. “My servants shall attend to him.” He crouched down and cupped Elfriede’s chin in one gloved hand. “There, there. You have to smile. Today is your wedding day. And was it not kind of me to allow your sister to attend?”
No. What has he done?
Elfriede’s mouth cracked upward in a hollow echo of her smile. She opened her mouth to speak, but she bit down on her lip quickly. Was it the idea of our mother in the castle that kept her from asking the obvious?
Well, I wasn’t afraid to ask the monster a question. “Where are you taking him?”
The lord released Elfriede and stood now, facing me. He adjusted first one glove and then the other, tugging on the leather cuffs.
“Well, well, good day, my goddess,” he said. “Did you enjoy the wedding, Olivière? Or did you find the reception afterward more enticing?” His words gathered an extra edge toward the end of his latter question.
Heat swirled inside of me. “I enjoyed the reception very much.”
The lord placed his hands on his hips and stood immobile for a moment. Then he motioned a hand toward me and turned to exit. “In any case, I can see I just missed the last of the festivities.” He nodded at Elfriede, the tip of his hat bobbing down and up. “I dare say your sister will be glad to see us leave. The lord of the castle and his goddess alike. Wherever they go, no mere bride can compare. It seems we have stolen all that was owed to her this day. It is, after all, her wedding day.”
“Noll, how could you?” Elfriede screamed as the specters pulled me toward the second black carriage. She was weeping, barely able to speak between heavy, quivering sobs. Her voice grew quieter, the words catching in her throat. “How could you be so selfish? You won’t be happy until you have Jurij for yourself. You’d rather he die than be with me.”