Nobody's Goddess (Never Veil #1)(36)

I felt more lost now than I had before I entered the secret cavern.

The other men walked forward to join their leader in glaring at me.

“You’re right!” said one, his voice cocky and assured.

“Whatever possessed this one?” said another.

They were puzzled and introspective. A flash of light burned in their eyes and then faded. But it was not the flame I expected to see, just a trick of the moonlight, an echo of a shadow. These men didn’t carry flames in their eyes—and yet here they stood living before me.

The leader was confused, and he was angry. There was something about the way he looked at me, the way Father had always looked so longingly at Mother. Or Jurij at Elfriede. He let my face free and grabbed me tightly by the arm, yanking me forward down the dirt road and toward the village.

“Stop!” I screamed. The leader paused, looking over my head to address his compatriots.

“Let’s go!” he said. “It’s time we show those women exactly what happens when they disobey.”

He pulled me forward. I started struggling, but another of the men appeared at my side and grabbed my free arm, yanking me forward just as forcefully. A third man appeared behind me, and a black cloth flew in front of my face, wrapping tightly across my mouth and digging hard into my teeth and tongue as it was knotted behind me.

The men dragged me down the path, away from the castle. Even the Tailors’ home at the edge of the village was altered. My heartbeat echoed in my ears. Home, but not home. The village was much the same, but not entirely. I’m drowning. I stupidly leaped into the pool again and this is my dying dream.

The one place that seemed hardly changed was the commune, where the men stopped dragging me at last. A fire was burning in the center, and a few dark figures stood in front of it. The men in the commune could never bring themselves to bother building a fire.

“Come out!” screamed the leader of the pack. “All of you women, come out now and look at what we bring with us!”

The commune was changed after all. Women and girls stepped out from shacks. One after another, they surrounded the small roaring fire that was lit in the center. They huddled together in packs of threes and fours. Only occasionally did a woman stand apart—mostly the women who had been standing before the fire—her eyes narrowed.

And again, as with the men, I thought I saw women I knew, only to discover something that made their faces not quite familiar. I wasn’t home, I knew that much. But I had no explanation for where I was. And why now, why when I had so much else to worry about, I found myself in this place.

“This woman,” spat the leader, “dared to take a treasure from your lord! She violated her ears!”

Gasps and whispers broke out from the crowd before us. There were so many terrified faces and murmuring lips amongst the rare angry expression and the jaw clenched tightly. The women were thin and frail and looked defeated. Even the few who were with child looked malnourished. Though there were some lighter in skin tone and even a few as oak-tone fair as Elfriede with the same blond curls, quite a few were the same dark earth tone of the men.

And their ears. Every last one of them had the pointed ears of men. If this was a dream, I needed desperately to wake up. But I wasn’t waking.

The leader let go of my arm, and the other man did the same. I barely had a moment to register my newfound freedom when a sharp kick on my back sent me hurtling forward.

“I don’t know how many times we have to make this clear,” said the leader. “You follow our orders! You never go against them! And don’t you ever disrespect our Lord Elric!”

Elric? I couldn’t remember if I’d ever heard someone say the lord’s name.

The man grabbed at the small of his back and produced a whip. I raised my arms to defend myself, but two other men appeared at my side and flipped me back over.

The whip cracked fast, the snap echoing in my ears only after I felt the sting of pain shoot through my back. I tried to scream, but my tongue was bound. I tried to flinch, but the hands on me gripped tighter.

“This is what becomes of a disobedient woman!” He cracked the whip again.

My eyes rolled to the back of my head, a flash of light offering to let me flee with it into unconsciousness.

“Goncalo! Whatever is the ruckus here?”

A third crackle echoed and the whip lowered, hitting what I thought to be the ground behind me instead of my back.

“Lord Elric,” said the leader, the man named Goncalo. “Only just punishment.”

The men holding my arms let go and kneeled. The women before me crouched, their faces pushed tightly into the ground, while the men beside me remained more upright but still near the ground.

I rolled over and noticed with pleasure that Goncalo, like the other men, was kneeling. The whip was still clenched in his hands, its tips stained with blood. My blood.

“What has this woman done then?”

At the condescending tone, I looked up. A man sat atop a black horse, dressed entirely in black leather. He was bathed in the firelight, a glisten bouncing off of the metal on his pointed hat with the wide brim. My gaze was drawn to the hand clutching his horse’s reins. The light bounced there, too, off a metallic bangle around his wrist. In the light of the fire, the bangle seemed golden, the sole sanctuary of color amongst the black silhouette.

His face was so alluring. His cheeks protruded so, I suspected the bones would cut my fingers should I touch them. His nose was so sharp and straight, it was almost unsettling. His fine brows were drawn together.