Nobody's Goddess (Never Veil #1)(79)

Goncalo surged forward, cracking his whip. “You insufferable woman—”

The lord halted him with a wave of his hand.

“No, please,” said the lord. “Let her speak. She went to the trouble of bringing all of her friends for a visit. Let us hear their message, and then we can be done with this mess and punish the lot of them.”

The last of the men who had not yet drawn their swords did so. The women shook their tools. I caught Avery’s eye beside me. She nodded and began slinking away from me, between Goncalo and one of the other men.

I drew Elgar again and pointed it toward the lord, closing the space between us. It bothered me that he didn’t move, and his guards didn’t stir from their posts. I stopped just a few paces from the lord, Elgar looming dangerously close to his abdomen. He looked amused.

“In your arrogance,” I began, “you have treated the women of the village as your slaves. You have worked them to the bone while the men sit on their asses. You have plucked them from the commune at will, treating them like your playthings, all of you—fathering children like it was no greater deal than siring cattle.”

I turned my eyes from the lord and let them wander over the rest of the men in the castle. I recognized a few from my day in the stocks. Those last few words would be especially suited to them.

I continued. “But you will learn what love is, and you will respect the power women can have over you. For where I come from, it is women who have the freedom to do as they will, and the men have no choice but to follow them.”

The lord tapped his fingers against his elbow impatiently. Behind me, the women started shouting and spreading throughout the room. Many stared straight into the guards’ faces, willing them to melt.

Still the men didn’t strike. My blood boiled.

“I will not let you forget what you have done!” I cried. “What I say will be done by any man who has ever felt longing toward me.”

A flash of pain marred the lord’s stunning features, but only for a moment. The women continued to circle the room.

I felt moved by the lord’s sadness, as I had the only time I had seen him before all of this, when he was drained of color. But then I thought of Avery, Livia, and the other women of this village. I thought, too, of Ailill watching his mother die, using his healing in vain on a woman chopped into pieces. I thought of the lord’s disdain and lust for me in my version of the village, the twisted game he played with my comatose mother, his plotting and planning to match his power over mine, blow for blow. I knew what I had to do. I would not let him die this day. He had to suffer, to know firsthand what he inflicted upon those around him. I only hoped I could word it so that I would win in the end, so I could enjoy watching him vanish that day in what I now knew to be his future—with one direct look from my eyes.

Yes. It’s clear now. Things have to be this way. I felt as if a force unseen took over me.

“Men of this village!” The words flowed so easily. The curse that had shaped my life tumbled out of me. “Love only one woman each and treat her as the goddess she is. Leave no woman without a man to worship her. Obey your goddess’s commands, pine for her heart and body and suffer if she will not Return her love to you. Win her heart with obedience and affection to enjoy a small reprieve from your torment. Fail to feel the Returning of her affections, and rot away for the rest of your wretched existence.”

There was a strange stirring throughout the room. The men cocked their heads, as if lost in a dream. The already lax grips on their swords grew even laxer.

The lord’s face flew into a fury. His expression contorted with something I guessed to be pain, his eyes rolling backward in his head.

I smiled. “But I have a special command for the lord of this castle. Do not find your goddess for a lifetime after a lifetime and more. Until then, keep no living company in your castle, not even the company of living, breathing horses with which to ease your loneliness. Live the lives of many men, leaving a mere shadow of each life behind to keep you company and to remind you of how long you have suffered.

“And don’t think that a pretty face will abet you, Your Lordship, in your quest to win your goddess’s heart. All of you men, lord and guards, villagers and tormentors, cover your faces now, cover your faces always, or crumble under the eyes of the women around you and vanish forever as if you had never existed. Find sanctuary from this command only in the blood relations who know you are no more than breeding stock and among all women only once you have earned the love of your goddess, no sooner than when she ages from girl to woman.”

The last words had not yet left my mouth when I saw the tip of the gouge jutting through the lord’s chest. It dripped with blood, spilling drops on the stone floor. Lord Elric fell forward without a sound. Before he could hit the ground, he vanished, and it was the leather clothing, wide-brimmed hat, and golden bangle that broke the silence, clattering like the crash of thunder that would start an avalanche.

Avery stood behind where the lord had been, her mouth contorted into a look of primal lust. She licked her lips, raised both her ax and her bloody gouge, and shouted out a cry that reverberated across the castle walls. The other women joined in, running forward while shaking their axes, hoes, and pitchforks at the ceiling.

Lord Elric had been stabbed, perhaps dead before I gave my command to the lord of the castle. But I had spoken all of the command aloud before I could stop my wayward tongue.