Nobody's Goddess (Never Veil #1)(35)

Then what I saw became unfamiliar. Was that Mother as a child? The images passed by faster and faster, and I spun so I could hardly bear to look. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to shield my lids from the light.

I stopped turning with my arms tightly above my head.

No more vertigo. I opened my eyes. Nothing. Only violet light.

Is that what was to become of me, then? Would I float aloft in the light forever?

“Olivière!”

There was life outside the light, if I chose to seek it.

I clenched my jaw and nodded. Anywhere but home. Anywhere but that life. Somewhere I wasn’t that man’s goddess, if just for a little while.

Elgar shot upward, pulling me with it. This time, my arms didn’t ache. This time, as we broke through the light and back into the waters, I felt as if I were swimming. As if I were in control.

I emerged from the cavern pool more skillfully than I had entered it. I had somewhere to go. So I went, following the familiar path through the woods and to the dirt road, trotting toward the village.

And I felt immediately disappointed. Even stupid. I was home. Of course I was. The lilies still dotted the hilltops. And my house was right there beside the—

No, my house wasn’t there.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. A chill swept the air, and a breeze rustled the tresses I could never tame. I turned.

My gaze fell on the castle, which towered over the land and threatened to make me cower.

You idiot. I squeezed my eyes shut. My knees buckled in anticipation of the fall.

But the ground didn’t shake. I slowly opened one eye and then the next and openly stared at the castle, dumbfounded.

“Who goes there?”

That voice. So familiar, so scornful. But not entirely unwelcome. I could picture the voice now, asking me to wash dishes for Mother. To grab a chair for Mother.

My gaze darted from the castle to the dirt path through the woods behind me. A group of unmasked men covered in crisscrossing chainmail exited the woods behind me. They laid their hands lazily over the sheathed blades at their sides.

“You, boy,” said one. What was that voice again? Fish Face? Had his wife unmasked him with a Returning?

Another slapped him across the chest. “That’s no boy!” I didn’t recognize him, either. But I guess I didn’t know everyone in the village.

The men shook to life, some pulling their swords out and pointing them toward me, others jolting awake and staring at me with a look of utter confusion. Their faces, varying in their beauty, all had a degree of allure that stirred my heart. Yet I knew none of the faces. And none were masked. True, most men of that age were unmasked, but to find so many together at once? And they have swords. Like out of made-up tales. This is clearly not real!

“What are you doing here, woman?” demanded the one who had first spoken, the one whose voice I had mistaken for Father’s. There actually was a bit of a resemblance, but the man had just a few different features, a bend to his nose, a sneer to his lips that Father didn’t. The man hadn’t drawn his blade.

There was something off about these men. Before I even realized I wasn’t playing games with a stick blade, I’d pulled Elgar out of its sheath and fixed it readily in their direction. Both of my hands gripped the hilt. They’d come from the direction of the castle. “Who sent you?”

Some of the men burst out laughing, letting their blades fall. A few stuck them into the ground and leaned on them like walking sticks.

The leader took a few paces forward. I backed up uneasily, poking Elgar out in front of me.

The man dodged my awkward thrusts easily and knocked Elgar from my grip with the back of his hand. I cradled the sore spot without thinking, and the man slapped me across the cheek just as he had my wrist, with the back of his hand.

I cried out in shock. It was as if my own father had hit me. But he wouldn’t have. No man would have. I mean, unless their goddesses asked them to, but then why would a woman ever do that?

The rest of the men laughed, and the leader gestured to where Elgar had fallen.

“Pick it up!” he ordered.

One of the men scrambled forward to do as instructed. He handed the blade with two hands to the leader, who picked it up and turned it around in the air, staring at the violet glow. The leader’s brow furrowed and at last he lowered it.

“Take this back to His Lordship.” He thrust it at the man, who nodded and turned back to the pack waiting behind him before disappearing into the woods.

His Lordship? Since when does the lord have a set of speaking servants?

The leader slapped me with the back of his other hand across my other cheek.

I jumped.

“Thief!” he cried. “How dare you walk around with a sword from His Lordship’s castle?”

My tongue caught in my throat. “It’s mine! He gave it to me!” Had he sent these men to get it back? Where had they come from?

But your house is missing, Noll. This can’t be real. I rubbed my sore jaw. But it sure feels real.

The leader laughed, but his smile faded quickly. He grabbed me by the chin, and I winced from the pain of the pressure he exerted, a pain especially sharp in the cheeks that bore his blows. He turned my head back and forth, observing me like Mother often observed a piece of meat in the market.

He gasped. “Your ears! You mutilated your ears!” Despite the strangeness of the situation and the force exerted tightly over my face, my fingers instinctively brushed the tips of my ears. They were the same familiar, unwounded smooth edges as they were always.