Nobody's Goddess (Never Veil #1)(9)

“Do you need to eat?” I asked, thinking of the apple.

Jurij shook his wooden head. “No. Don’t worry about it. Besides, we ought to present Ingrith with something edible.” He stuck his hand into the basket and rummaged around. “What did you put in here? A stone?”

I tore the basket away from him and cradled it in my arms like a child. “I didn’t pack it. Mother did.”

Jurij nodded. “I suppose the gesture is all that’s important. It’s ill luck to have a Returning with the threat of the lord refusing to give the first goddess’s blessing.”

It’s ill luck to hold a Returning when your “goddess” forced herself to love you. If Elfriede didn’t love Jurij, he wouldn’t live through the end of the day. Not if he still removed his mask. How could he be so confident that she loved him? After how she treated him?

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to even begin. But if his life was in danger … “Are you sure Elfriede loves you?” That was subtle.

From behind that contemptible mask, I heard what had to be a laugh. “Wow, Noll. Elfriede is lucky to have you as a sister.”

My chest tightened. “I just meant … ” What did I mean? I didn’t think she’d kill him on purpose. She wasn’t a bad person, really. But how did she know she wasn’t just fooling herself into accepting the only man who’d ever love her? I couldn’t see Elfriede taking up a trade and sending a man to the commune. To her, there was no other choice.

Jurij stopped walking, and I stopped too. “I know, I know. You’re scared about today. But, Noll, I’m not going to die. Elfriede loves me.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Have a little more faith in your sister. Sometimes I worry you don’t realize how wonderful she is.”

Jurij’s faith in her stung. “She can be nice. I’m happy for you. Really.” There was a sharp burning taste in my mouth. “But we’re talking your life here.”

The earth shook beneath us. I stumbled and Jurij, the fool, reached out to catch me. Even as the ground kept shaking, I wanted to fling his hands off my arm and shoulder. The touch was so intoxicating, my hands were trembling. From the quake or the contact, I couldn’t tell. The basket I held, like everything about this awful village, kept the distance between us.

The shaking stopped. I looked up into the black holes in Jurij’s mask, and he let me go, his face poring over the horizon. “That started nearby.” Jurij rubbed his wooden chin. I’d have stopped to think about the ridiculousness of the gesture were it not for the seriousness of the situation.

I shook my head to clear it of the chaos under my feet and in my heart. “We should hurry.”

Jurij nodded, and he sprinted. With the basket and my heavy heart weighing me down, I had no chance of catching up to him. My legs felt like they were caked in mud, and they were pulling me down, keeping me from him.

When at last I caught up to him in front of Ingrith’s shack, Jurij was reaching out to the shriveled-up old woman, and the crone was batting his arms away, even as she stood on unsteady feet. The dirty black cloth she wore over her head tied her thick hair down and made her a bit less menacing than she’d seemed when I’d last seen her close up. When she was digging her claws into my shoulders.

Ingrith placed a hand on Jurij’s chest and pushed him backward. “You just leave me alone. I’ve got no need for masked men ’round here.”

“But Ma’am—”

“No buts. Get outta here.” Ingrith tore her eyes from him and let her glare fall over me as I approached them. “Wonderful. Now there’s a fine face I won’t soon forget. Come to bother an old woman again with your fancy games, girl?”

Better to pretend I had no idea what she was talking about. “Did you cause the quake?”

Bad idea. Ingrith’s face grew even more sour and puckered, and I wouldn’t have thought that was even possible. “Yes, I did. And never you mind.”

I glanced beyond the old woman to the rest of the northern dirt path. “But won’t the quarry workers notice? They’re close enough to have felt—”

Ingrith scoffed. “You let me worry about them workers.”

There was no sign of movement from the quarry, but still. “It’s got to be dangerous to look at the castle so near where there are men working.” She couldn’t have meant to kill the poor men, could she?

“Dangerous nothing, girl, I just made a mistake. A bird startled me. Can’t blame an old woman for lookin’ when something starts screeching at her.” Ingrith’s mouth clamped shut, and I could see the muscles tense in her jaw. She bent over to reach the walking stick she’d dropped.

Jurij tried to grab the stick for her. “Let me—”

“Oh, no.” Ingrith slapped his arm, and Jurij pulled back, cradling his forearm and staring at the woman with his blank-eyed face. Ingrith snatched her stick and stood back up. “Didn’t need no man’s help then, don’t need no man’s help now.”

Jurij turned his wooden mask toward me. The opened-mouth grin probably didn’t match his real expression underneath as the ungrateful old woman smacked him. But that was the Returning mask, and that was the countenance he was stuck with for the day. Until dusk, anyway. I hope I really do see his face. Surely Elfriede forcing herself to love him is enough. Surely …