Nobody's Goddess (Never Veil #1)(44)

I swirled around as if in a dance and darted through the crowd, leaving poor Mistress Baker to her breads and probable confusion once she looked up to find me gone.

Relief flooded my body when I finally made it across town to Alvilda’s. I almost tore the door open, but then I remembered her visitor and knocked before I entered. Alvilda told me to wait a moment, and then to let myself in.

“Good day, Noll!” called a cheerful voice as I entered. Master Tailor’s worn down owl mask greeted me from Alvilda’s ever-dusty eating table. “How goes the woodcarver’s daughter?”

I sighed and slipped into the seat next to him, placing the chisel and the wood on the table, where they seemed right at home. Alvilda was by her workbench, lost in the task of whittling a chair leg. I could see the as-yet-unfinished headboard propped up against the wall in the corner. She said nothing.

“The same,” I offered. I didn’t bother to ask whether he was inquiring about the daughter in front of him or the one who made his son’s life worth living.

Master Tailor answered for me. “I bet she’s excited about her wedding in the spring!” Even though everyone in the village was excited for the Returning, the most important things remained the same. Their own men, their own goddesses. Their children and the goddesses and men belonging to their children. I was just an excuse to have a celebration. Copper in their pocket, a day off from work.

Alvilda dropped the chair leg she was carving and shook her head in disbelief. She threw her gouge on the workbench, marched across the room, and whacked Master Tailor on the back of his head. Sawdust went flying with each movement.

“Ow!” Master Tailor rubbed the back of his dark curls.

“Go home!” barked Alvilda.

“What?” asked Master Tailor quizzically. “I’m excited about Noll’s Returning, too, of course. Nissa has been so helpful in making the lord’s new garments. Not that they’re much different than the usual garments he orders, but Nissa does such a good job, they look better than—”

Alvilda crossed her arms. “Out.”

Master Tailor shook his owl head and stood up from the table. “Sometimes I wonder if you think you’re my goddess instead of Siofra.”

Alvilda tapped her foot. “That’s a disturbing thought. At least you can choose whether or not to obey my orders. Although I do suggest you choose wisely.”

Master Tailor waved his hand lazily in her direction. “I’m going, I’m going.”

“Mistress Tailor asked me to tell you to come home,” I interjected.

Master Tailor tensed and moved so quickly out the door that I could hardly believe he’d had time to cross the room.

Alvilda shook her head and filled the seat that Master Tailor had just emptied. “You have to watch how you word your orders from a goddess to her man. They’re almost as effective as direct orders from the woman herself, so long as they have a basis in truth.”

That was true. I felt a little guilty messing around with that kind of power, even if I hadn’t intended to. “Sorry.”

She shrugged and began playing with her fingers, concerned with picking out some of the sawdust stuck under her nails. “So,” said Alvilda, finally giving up her futile quest to clean her nails and slapping her palms against the table. She picked up my half-block, half-rock piece of wood and examined it. “How goes the carving?”

I thought back to the ruined sculptures and other blobs of wood that looked no better than the piece Alvilda turned over in her hands. “Spectacularly,” I lied.

Alvilda put the wood back on the table. “And how goes the carver?”

I waved a hand. “He’s the same as always.”

Alvilda shook her head and grabbed my hand that rested on the table. I flinched. “I meant the other carver in the family,” she said.

I started bawling.

Alvilda got up from her seat and swooped in to embrace me, but that only made me cry harder. She let me cry a few moments more before she took my face in her hands and put on her most stunning smile. I wondered if this was how Jaron saw her when he first knew she was his goddess, and my heart ached for the pain he must be feeling even at that moment, to know that he would never hold her in his arms as I did.

“So, what would you like to do today?” asked Alvilda. I hadn’t actually told her I was going to come over.

I glanced toward the work area of her home and the fallen chair leg. “Don’t you have work to do?”

Alvilda shook her head and began shoving a few buns, some cheese, and a bottle into a picnic basket. “Nothing that can’t wait another few days,” she said. I noticed with some pleasure that her picnic basket’s handle featured what I thought might be swords and daggers.

“A picnic sounds wonderful,” I said.



Alvilda’s choice spot for a picnic wasn’t my own, but I imagined she didn’t want me to head back home before I had to. We enjoyed the meager meal in silence under a tree just a ways from the commune. My eyes guiltily wandered over the moaning, wretched men sprawled out on the ground or walking about, lifting one foot after the other slowly, aimlessly. It was an odd choice for my last day of freedom, but I had no place else I’d be welcomed. After a little while, Alvilda went inside her home to grab my chisel. She gave me a new block of wood, and I’d started carving a flower. A lily.