“You’re awfully quiet this morning,” my brother quietly observed, nudging me with his shoulder as we walked along the path toward
the village center later that morning. Evergreens and oak trees lined the way, stretching to either side of the road. I couldn’t force myself to walk past the gallows and see what remained of the last body they’d hung for crimes against Lord Byron, so we had to take the long route, unlike the other villagers who didn’t seem bothered by the macabre of it all. “Did your walk in the woods not settle you last night?”
I glanced Brann’s way, smiling despite my better instincts when I saw the exasperated smile on his face. His blond hair was cut short, his skin golden from all his time spent working under the hot sun of the harvest season. His brown eyes, which were normally filled with mischief, felt heavy on my face, as though he wanted nothing more than to punish me for continuing to risk my reputation.
He’d long since given up trying to discipline me, knowing that if my lessons with Lord Byron and the Priestess hadn’t successfully made me an obedient woman, he stood little chance of making a difference when he wasn’t willing to hurt me.
It was a miracle he hadn’t nailed my window shut at this point, for all the times he’d caught me sneaking out or back in. He’d been in my room waiting for me when I’d returned home this morning and hauled myself up and into my window in a daze as the sun rose behind me.
“It was an interesting night,” I said, evading telling him about the circle I’d stumbled across. While I didn’t think he would condemn others for practicing a faith different from ours, I couldn’t see him being supportive of my risking the gallows for mere curiosity’s sake. Especially not when the ritual the night before had predicted my death before the next Samhain.
“You really must stop sneaking out in the dead of night, Estrella,” my mother said, her voice scolding as she twisted to look at me over her shoulder. Brann pushed her wheeled chair in front of him, his fingers gripping the wooden handles tightly. “What will the men of the village think if they find you? No man wants to marry a woman if he has any reason to believe she is not virtuous.”
“That’s hardly a motivation to stay inside. We both know Estrella doesn’t care much for the idea of marriage,” Brann said with a laugh, earning a scoff and chuckle from our mother. She wasn’t exactly supportive of my hatred for marriage and the way women were treated as if we were nothing more than broodmares, but she didn’t condemn me for it in the same way I suspected most would, either.
I loved her all the more for it. Her tolerance for letting me be who I was in the privacy of our home was something that had enabled me to survive the past two years. Since my coming of age, I’d been being poked and prodded at Temple, my face repeatedly turned from side to side and studied, my manners dictated by the Priestesses of the Mother who sought to train me to be a dutiful, obedient wife one day.
The weekly rite of Temple was something I dreaded with every fiber of my being; it threatened to consume me in the hours of night, leaving me sleepless in my bed. Those nights were when I wandered the most, giving myself deep circles beneath my eyes for the Priestesses to disapprove of.
The large stone building loomed as we approached the western side of the village, the sight of it drawing my nerves tighter. The tower jutted upward, the sole room at the top the temple where the High Priest went to convene with The Father, but though the otherwise square building was well-built, there was nothing spectacular about it. It served a purpose, and that purpose wasn’t a life of excess, but of restraint.
If the ritual the night before had felt wholesome, everything about walking into the home of the Priests and Priestesses felt obscene.
We stepped into the line of villagers making their way into the temple, murmuring happily amongst themselves like they were truly oblivious to
the reasons I hated it.
“Mrs. Barlowe,” Lord Byron greeted, stopping to greet my mother as we wheeled her up to the doors. My mother smiled back at the man who’d paid for her wheeled chair out of his own pocket and given her working accommodations that we would never have hoped for.
There’d been many days when I’d gone to Temple and my prayers were filled with pleas for her to never discover the price I’d paid for it in the privacy of his library; I prayed she’d never learn the true cost of his kindness.
“My Lord,” my mother said, accepting the hand he offered and touching her lips to his ring dutifully.
My brother bowed his head respectfully when Lord Byron turned his attention his way while glancing at me out the side of his eye as I dropped into my well-practiced curtsy. I could still feel the impact of my teacher’s cane against my skin when I hadn’t held my posture properly. Could still recall the way Lord Byron had watched my face twist with pain as the blow struck, even years after I’d long since memorized the motions.
Dipping my chin toward the ground at his feet, I waited for the moment his hand would appear in front of me, knowing he’d never miss an opportunity to force me to kiss his ring and remind me of the power he exerted over everyone and everything.
I grasped his hand in mine gently, leaning forward to touch my lips to his ring as I counted.
One.
I want to gut you while you sleep.
Two.
You are the worst of humanity.
Three.
From the corner of my eye, I watched a stately Lady Jaclen glare at me as she saw the exchange for what it was: her husband’s version of flirting. One of these days, she’d kill me herself.
I released his hand smoothly, letting it drop to his side while I waited for his command, so that I could end the torment of prostrating myself before him. Villagers passed us by as I held my position, while Lord Byron forced me to show just how long I could maintain the stance that was never meant to last more than a few moments of respect.
My body didn’t twitch even as my muscles strained. To twitch was to disappoint my Lord and to disappoint him was to suffer.
“Estrella,” he greeted finally, freeing me from the pain consuming my body. I rose slowly, keeping my face a blank mask in an attempt not to show him how much it had cost me.
“My Lord,” I murmured. Peering at him through my lashes with my head angled down the way he liked, I sank my teeth into the inside of my cheek to suppress the words I wanted to scream.
Words I wanted to throw in his face to wound him as much as he had wounded me.
“Lady Jaclen,” I said, greeting the frail woman who stood at his side.
She glared at me in return, her scowl heavy on the side of my face. She didn’t offer me her hand in the way our customs demanded, deeming me so far beneath her, she didn’t want to taint herself with the press of my skin against hers.
The message was clear to anyone who observed the interaction as they passed. I may have been how her husband chose to occupy his evenings more and more often, forgoing her bed altogether as her health declined, but I had less worth than the dirt beneath her jewel-studded silk slippers. “Still no husband, I see?” she asked, humming thoughtfully as she looked over my shoulder for the man she knew did not exist.
“No, my Lady,” I agreed, shaking my head subtly. Every month that passed without a formal declaration for my hand came as another blow to my family’s already low status.
What good was a daughter you couldn’t successfully marry off?
“Perhaps one day soon,” Lord Byron said, offering his flagging wife his arm. She leaned into him, allowing him to absorb her weight as she struggled to stay on her feet. With every day that passed, she grew sicker. With every day that passed, villagers whispered of what illness might have consumed her for so many years, and of who might follow to replace her after she finally passed.
Byron was a Lord without an heir, and the women of Mistfell postured and hoped for the death of his wife for the very same reason many of them barely tolerated me.
I had his favor, even if I didn’t want it.
Lord and Lady Jaclen moved into the Temple, leaving me to shove my dread down into the deepest part of me where no one could see. He’d said
as much in vague words repeatedly over the years, but until the day his wife died, there was nothing he could do.
He was permitted mistresses, so long as they were not deemed virginal, and thus appropriate for marriage to other suitors. My most recent virginity test should have condemned me to a life as a mistress or Lady of the Night, but the doctor had deemed me pure. I knew it was a lie, and I suspected he did as well.
I just didn’t know why he’d hidden my secret, why he’d protected me from the harsh consequences for the things I did in the night, when my body seemed to come alive and hum with energy that I couldn’t restrain. Perhaps he’d protected the son of his friend, the only boy I’d trusted enough to be intimate with, even though Lord Byron would have benefited from the loss of my virginity.
Perhaps the doctor had acted out of nefarious purposes. I hoped I’d never learn the truth either way.
My brother and I leaned down, grasping my mother’s chair by the wheels and lifting it up over the step into the Temple. Moving inside, I took over steering my mother toward the right of the cavernous space and the rows of women who knelt on the cold, stone floor with their heads bowed as the Priests and Priestesses waited at the front of the sanctuary.
Stopping her chair in the aisle next to the space on the floor the other women had left for her, I moved around to her front. Taking each of her hands in mine, I guided her up and out of the chair as her legs trembled under her weight. Hugging her tightly to my chest, I used my entire body to shift her around her chair, shuffling her nearly limp legs over as I slowly lowered her to her knees.
I’d learned long ago that, even though she couldn’t feel the impact when she fell, I felt the stain of those bruises on my heart if I failed to move carefully enough. When her knees touched the floor beneath her, I lowered her until she sat on her heels and she lifted her palms to rest atop her thighs. Leaving her there, I took her chair to the back of the sanctuary where it wouldn’t be in the way of the Priests and Priestesses as they made their way around the room.
At the front of the room, one of the servants helped Lady Jaclen to her knees as well. Everyone knelt for Temple—gave themselves to The Father and The Mother—even the Lady of Mistfell.
I returned to my mother, lowering to my knees beside her. Everything in her body trembled, the difficulty of maintaining her position evident in the strained lines on her face. My palms rested on my thighs, facing up and opened to The Mother as my head tipped down to look at the floor in front of me.
Across the room, the men knelt on embroidered cushions the Priestesses had stitched for them by hand, as the Priest spoke to them in low tones that faded into the space between us. I stared at a spot on the stone floor that was lighter than the area surrounding it, fixating on it as the Priestesses moved between the rows of women. They touched a few as they passed, correcting posture with firm hands.
“Hmm,” Bernice, the severe High Priestess who’d once been my tutor, murmured as she passed by us. She didn’t touch me, knowing she had long since beaten my slacking shoulders and lazy elbows out of existence, but just the thoughtful sound of her voice in the air sent my heart pounding. It took everything in me not to flinch away from the blow to my shoulders that she’d conditioned me to expect.
“Look upon The Mother,” the tall, spare woman said, walking to the front of the room and taking her place next to the stone statue of a woman, which sat beside the statue of The Father. The Mother’s head was bowed as she knelt at The Father’s feet, her palms opened to the sky to accept the gifts he bestowed upon her for her obedience and dutifulness as his wife.
His love. His protection. His seed that she would take and use to create children.
“The harvest season ends tomorrow,” Bernice said, a smile on her face as she glanced around the group of women gathered. “The Father has communicated his wishes to the High Priest, and one of our own will give their life for the continued protection of the Veil. It is our turn, after the sacrifice of Mr. Daugherty last year.”
“Yes, Priestess,” I murmured, the sound of my voice echoed by those around me with the well-practiced words. “It would be our honor.” The words burned down my throat like acid, stinging with the noise of my betrayal.
That honor had left me without a father and my mother without a husband, alone with two children. It was no honor at all, but a twisted promise of obedience that proved we would walk willingly to our deaths if so demanded by those who claimed to speak for the New Gods.
“We are women. Our duty is to our homes and our husbands, to our sons and daughters so that the next generation may be even stronger. Now we bow our heads and pray for forgiveness for our wicked thoughts, for our sinful desires, which tempt us away from the absolution only The Mother can provide.”
I bowed my head once again, studying that same spot on the stone floor as the men across the space rose to their feet. Bernice spoke to the High Priest and Lord Byron as they joined her on the women’s side, while my gaze refused to leave that light speck in the limestone.
“The married may depart,” the High Priest said from the front of the room. At my side, Brann helped my mother to her feet as another of the men brought her chair. They lifted her into it as I waited for the part of Temple that I had even less tolerance for than kneeling for a Goddess I was losing my faith in.
This life couldn’t be all there was. It couldn’t be the point.
When the married men and women had vacated the space, the sounds of footsteps sounded throughout the room as the unattached men walked between our rows. “Will Miss Ead have a bigger dowry this year after her father’s deal with the Lord of Copstage?” one asked.
“Yes, her dowry has doubled since last year,” the Priest announced happily. I sat still, hoping to avoid notice. The dirt and grime on my old, stained clothes turned away most men, and I could only hope they would continue to do so. Only a peasant would be interested in marrying another peasant, and with the coming winter, none could afford another mouth to feed.
“And what of Miss Barlowe?” another man asked, stepping up beside me and dropping his hand to my shoulder. His fingers toyed with the end of my tangled braid, pulling the tie free and working my hair loose until it hung about my shoulders. I froze solid, my bottom lip twitching as I fought for the composure to remain still.
This was what I was supposed to want.
“She continues to have no dowry to offer,” the Priest said, something in his voice sounding tight and reserved. “That is unlikely to change given her situation,” he added, referencing the fact that I was fatherless, and that we’d long since spent the meager compensation they’d provided when they’d killed him in the name of Mistfell’s security.
“I inquired after her hand last year, though nothing ever came of it. The dowry matters little to me, but she kneels so prettily, I think I should like to see her do it elsewhere,” the man at my side said with a chuckle. I sank my teeth into my cheek so deeply the coppery tang of blood covered my tongue.
“I’m afraid The Father has plans for Miss Barlowe now,” the High Priest said, halting my breath in my lungs. I glanced up at the High Priest at the front of the room, and the look of confusion written onto Lord Byron’s face as he snapped his attention to the robed man beside him.
The cane cracked against the back of my neck, toppling me forward from the force of it. I barely had time to catch myself, my cheek just glancing off the stone floor rather than cracking against it with all my weight. My back throbbed, the pain radiating down my neck as I stayed bowed in submission. I squeezed my eyes closed, waiting for the next strike, which never came.
“Enough, Bernice. I think Miss Barlowe has remembered her manners, haven’t you, my dear?” Lord Byron asked, the slime of his voice sliding between us.
“Yes, my Lord,” I murmured, my cheek rubbing against the stone as I turned my head to the side and nodded. Bernice’s glare met mine, her hatred of who she believed was an ungrateful swine, undeserving of Lord Byron’s kindness, glimmering in her eyes.
She claimed I hadn’t deserved his wandering hands or ministrations after her canings. Hadn’t deserved his attention or the lessons he gave me out of pity for the loss of my father and for my crippled mother who couldn’t care for me properly.
I’d have given it all up in a heartbeat to never have known what his hands felt like as they pressed into the welts she’d left on my skin, so perhaps it was true I was ungrateful.
I would remain that way until I returned every moment of suffering they’d caused me.
Lord Byron stepped forward, moving through the rows of women that remained. The men who browsed their potential wives moved out of the way as he closed the distance between us and drew a ragged gasp from my lungs when he stopped in front of me. His shoes filled my vision, the brown leather of them far too clean and shiny when I considered how worn and filthy mine were.
My eyes shifted to Brann where he stood with the women, his hands clenched into fists and his jaw tight. There was nothing he could do to save me from the coming storm, from the wrath I’d incur from Bernice if I so much as twitched a muscle.
I held perfectly still as I shifted my eyes up to meet Lord Byron’s where he stood over me, and watched as something passed over his face. He lifted his hand from his side, holding it palm-up and turning his focus to Bernice. She smirked as she glowered at me, setting the wood of the cane in his open palm.
“I need a few moments with Miss Barlowe,” he said, curling his fingers around the instrument of my pain.
“But my Lord, Temple is still—” the Priestess interjected as the people around us paused, waiting with bated breath to see who would be the victor in the power struggle that might follow. The High Priest was an extension of The Father himself.
“In honor of the coming celebration, The Father releases you all from Temple early so that you may have more time to enjoy the weekly market,” the High Priest said, a chill spreading through my body with the words.
My fingers scrabbled for purchase along the stone as I turned my face to it, the cool press of the surface under my forehead grounding me against the dread rising within me. Against my slowing heartbeat as I drew in deep breaths to prevent the trembling in my limbs.
I didn’t watch as the women around me rose to their feet, fleeing the uncomfortable scene without so much as a moment’s hesitation. They left me alone to the married man who shouldn’t have even known my name; such was the way of a lowly harvester who was so far beneath the Lord of Mistfell.
I braced against the coming pain—against the blow that I expected to land across my back or the tops of my thighs at any moment. My throat closed, saliva filling my mouth when I couldn’t swallow.
He made me wait, his torment of me well-rehearsed. Lord Byron understood the pain itself was only one of the tools he wielded against me, and the dread of what was yet to come was an even greater torment.
“Kneel,” he ordered, his voice sliding over my skin; an insidious menace, tangible and grimy as I rose slowly to my knees. Keeping my head bowed in submission, I fought back the burning in my nose and the threat of
tears at the back of my eyes. Time seemed to slow as I waited for the next instruction, narrowing to the rhythmic sound of his breathing.
The cane touched the front of my throat, pressing firmly as I bit the inside of my cheek to quell the urge to flinch. He slid it over my delicate skin, hooking it under my chin and lifting until I raised my eyes to his finally. “You didn’t come to the Manor last night, and yet you look as though you haven’t slept a wink. Do I need to worry that you’ve found companionship elsewhere?” he asked, quirking his brow as I swallowed.
Everything in me felt heavy, the bone-weary exhaustion of the harvest and the coming struggles of winter weighing me down. “Of course not, my Lord.” I didn’t tell him I’d found that months prior, sneaking around on the occasions when Byron didn’t demand my company.
His knowledge of that would be disastrous for me. My purity was all that protected me from him taking everything. There were many ways to touch a woman, many ways for him to torment me that didn’t rob me of my alleged virginity, but his belief meant that one part of me remained mine.
That one part of me was safe.
“Do you think I did not know about the Mist Guard? What was his name—Loris?” Lord Byron asked, arcing the cane through the air with precision.
It didn’t touch me, but it was enough to make me feel like my eternal soul would jump out of my skin at any moment. Combined with his words and the confession of what he knew, it was enough to make my body go slack and slump as dizziness consumed me.
His cane cracked against my ribs just below my breasts, a hot trail of fire bringing my body back to life as I forced myself to sit up straight. The mark he left burned with the sensation of a thousand needles stabbing me. I barely resisted the urge to cover myself, to cower away from the pain.
Only the knowledge that retreat would cause more punishment kept me still.
I fumbled for words, unable to find the right ones to say. I’d been so certain that he’d have progressed our relationship if he’d known the truth— that he wouldn’t have hesitated to make me into another one of his conquests. “I don’t—I don’t understand,” I said finally, stumbling over my words. Instinct drove me to apologize, as if he had some Gods-given right to my body and it wasn’t truly my own.
I shoved that down, focusing on my lack of understanding. Focusing on the why.
Lord Byron dropped the cane to the ground beside me, tilting his head to the side as if it hadn’t occurred to him I might not have realized he knew the truth. He took my chin between two fingers, the intimacy of the touch sending my nerves racing.
Surely he couldn’t mean to touch me in the Temple?
“You have no secrets from me, Estrella,” he said, releasing my chin slowly. That hand came down on the side of my neck as he bent at the waist, leaning forward until his forehead touched mine. “But remember what happens to men who take what is not theirs. It would be a shame if the Mist Guard learned what he’s done.”
“No, please. You can’t—”
Lord Byron pulled back, glaring at me as if to remind me of who he was. He could, and would, for there was no one to stop him, condemn a man to death just because he’d stuck his cock where it didn’t belong.
I hesitated, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip. “I just wanted something that was mine. A choice I-I could make for once,” I explained. Confessing my sin in the Temple felt like the greatest crime, an apology for something I couldn’t force myself to regret; not when it meant that whatever husband they chose for me would be sorely disappointed in the wife he ended up with.
“I know exactly what you wanted. You are rebellious, reckless, and most often foolish. If you were so determined to ruin yourself for marriage and make yourself into a common whore, the least you could have done was allow me to be the one to do it,” he snapped, the words striking against my skin like a physical thing.
“You would know, my Lord,” I said, my voice curling into a high- pitched mockery. It resembled the well-practiced moans of the women I’d watched him with, who he’d tried to throw in my face over the past two years, when he’d needed to fuck because of the frustration he said I built in him.
Because I’d been off limits—but I hadn’t, and he’d known it all along.
The back of his hand cracked against my cheek, the sound echoing through the empty space. My head snapped to the side with the force of it, my cheekbone throbbing from where his ring struck. “You will remember your place,” he said, grabbing me by my face. His thumb pressed into my
cheek on one side, his fingers on the other as he leaned over me with his lips twisted in fury.
“Yes, my Lord,” I mumbled, my voice restricted by his cruel grip.
“You will come to the library tonight. There are things we need to discuss, and I need to calm down from your insolence or I will cane you until you bleed. Thank me for my kindness, Estrella.”
“Thank you, my Lord,” I said, wincing as he released my face suddenly. “Tonight. Do not disappoint me again,” he reminded me harshly. He straightened his clothing, donning the persona he wanted everyone else to see, his lips tipped up into an appeasing and kind half-smile. Only I seemed to see the truth of who he really was. He made his way toward the doors, the sound of their creaking echoing through the sanctuary as he shoved
them open.
Left to pick my beaten body up off the cold stone floor for what seemed like the millionth time in two years, I knew whatever was coming that night would be far worse.
