Nobody's Goddess (Never Veil #1)(80)

But this wasn’t what I’d meant to do.

The spell was cast.

The castle roared to life. A halo of violet light spread across the land and the ground shook.

As I fought to stand steady, my eyes darted about the entryway frantically, falling at last upon the small figure peeking through the crack in the door to the garden. The dark eye that locked on to mine was wide and frightened.

Ailill. Who I could see so clearly now would grow up to be striking—perhaps more striking than his brother. Who was now the lord of the village and had been the moment Avery’s gouge had struck the killing blow to their brother Elric. Who would now bear the brunt of my curse.

Who would one day love me.

No, he already loved me, in his childlike way. And that was all the more reason why my words would hold him prisoner, now and forever.

A flicker and then a flame burst to life in that small dark eye.

I felt ill.

I sheathed Elgar, knowing I would never draw blood with the blade. It was no more meant for slaying monsters than the tree branch I had once called by the same name. Full of pride at myself and my power, like I had been as a child, I was just pretending at battle. I hadn’t meant for this to happen. The cavern pool had called me to a dismal time, and I was just following the example of the first goddess.

No. The truth was too plain.

I was the first goddess.

I dashed across the short distance between myself and the garden doorway, shoving aside women, dodging spears, watching as the guards screamed and fell and vanished one after another. A man who didn’t fall prey to an ax, a hoe, or a pitchfork melted into thin air with no injury, banished from existence simply by the look of a woman’s eyes upon his face. Goncalo stumbled and turned around to avoid one woman’s stab only to come face to face with my stare. His eyes widened, the newfound flame within snuffed out, and he was gone.

A sour taste rose high within my throat. I ran through where Goncalo had been and ripped the shawl off of my shoulders. I have to cover him. I have to teach him to keep his face from women who don’t love him.

I almost stopped right there, realizing what I was thinking. But I knew I had to move on, that covering him was the right thing to do.

That he would be safe from my eyes, if not safe from the eyes of anyone else but his sisters’.

After a lifetime, I reached the door, my hands running wildly over the coarse wood until I gripped the iron handle. Pulling it open the smallest amount I could afford, I slipped inside and slammed the door shut behind me.

Ailill stepped back from me as I entered, tears flowing freely from his firelit eyes, his hands shoved forward weakly to block me. Ignoring his attempt to keep me from him, I flung the black shawl over his head and dragged him behind the nearest rose bush. Squeezed tightly between the wall and the blooms, we both got pricked and scratched and gouged by the roses’ pointed thorns.

I crouched down to my knees to match Ailill’s small height and shifted the shawl so that I could see his face, which I cupped in both hands with as much force and tenderness as I could inject. His chest expanded and contracted rapidly. The look of terror on his face felt worse than any blow that had been inflicted to my body.

I smiled, although it broke my heart to think of what my words had done. I formed the next few words carefully. “For you, Ailill, lord of the village, for you alone, I have another command.”

Ailill’s shallow breathing slowed somewhat, and his face grew less terrified. His eyes dared not blink and would not move from mine.

My words meant for Lord Elric, backed by the ferocity of the abused women among my ancestors, had been too powerful to undo. I couldn’t speak a countermand directly, for I had passed my power to all of the village’s women, and they knew nothing but contempt for their abusers. I had forbidden the lord company in his castle, I knew, but I wondered if Ailill would still get around my words by seeking company elsewhere. Avery, her hands now so soaked in blood, would be unlikely to put much thought into saving Ailill so fresh after her victory. If he ran to someone like Livia, to whom he was not blood related, Ailill could vanish from existence. Long before I could meet him.

But how could I save him? I felt the hot sting of my foolishness, for even if I had intended the worst for Elric and the rest of the men, even those words rightfully placed would have harmed this poor, dear boy before me. I thought, too, of the men I knew from my time. I thought of Father and the shade he became following Mother’s illness. I thought of Master Tailor and Jaron, stuck loving two women whose hearts would never Return to them—and also, by forcing them each to bear responsibility for a man’s misery, what my words would do to rend Alvilda and Mistress Tailor unhappy. I thought of Mother and all of those who loved where love was not wanted. I thought of Nissa and Luuk and all the rest—children who grew up overnight because of the love I forced upon them. I thought of friends lost to love, and love lost to friends. I thought of Jurij, and all the lost hope of love I would come to know because I myself willed it.

There was no deep malice in my village’s men. What disdain there was only existed because I had forced them to think of none other than their goddesses. Perhaps my words this day had made that happen, but they had doomed the men of my village, too. They had doomed us all.

“Ailill, though you may be bound by words already spoken, hide away and banish women and girls from your castle. Do not allow them even to look upon the castle, so that they may forget it and leave you alone. Treat the villagers well, but do not, if you can help it, walk among them—if you do, the earth will tremble, and the skies will rumble to scare the villagers away from you, to protect you from harm. The same will happen if a woman lays her eyes upon your abode. Await your goddess safely within your castle. She will find you.”