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What had she done?
Oh Goddess, was she responsible for that scar?
The question froze through me as the sound of boots I knew all too well thundered down the hall toward my door.
“Holy Goddess!” I hissed, half forgetting my brain for a moment as I placed the book back on the shelf, hopefully just how I had found it and took off toward the chair on the other side of the room.
I should have never gone over there; I should have never grabbed the book. It was a mistake…
I threw myself into the chair as the door opened, the Boy emerging in his full black, not a bit of it out of place, the face covering was pulled taut and pinned down so tight there wasn’t a wrinkle in sight.
I, however, was half laying over the edge of the chaise, panting as though I had been wrestling with the thing. He froze at seeing me, his shoulders stiffening as he turned and he surveyed the space.
“Hello, I’m happy you are here.” I tried to sound normal, but my voice was too high, my breathing still too ragged. Besides, when did I ever talk that fast? I could practically feel his accusatory gaze burn through me.
He continued looking around before turning, hands gesturing with two notions I knew from him ‘what’ and ‘safe’.
What am I doing, and am I safe?
“I’m fine,” I said, still too high pitched and breathy. “I was waiting for you. You were gone all day.” He mimed a sword moving and went to his bunk. “I know, but you were gone all day.” Was I sounding whiny in an attempt to cover up my guilt? Yes, I totally was. I took a breath, trying to center myself. “I just… I missed you and I worried after… after last night.”
I wasn’t going to beat around the bush, especially when he was clearly ready to dart into his bunk and vanish for the night.However, he froze, his hands knotting at his side.
“I know it was an accident, and I know you don’t want me to see you,” I hesitated, standing from my chair to move behind him.
I froze a few steps away, his back tensing and moving with each of his breaths. My fingers tingled, practically begging me to reach up and touch him. To feel those muscles, same as I had his jaw. I exhaled, balling my fists in the fabric of my skirt if only to keep me from making that reach.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I continued, my voice thankfully returning to normal. “But you don’t have anything to hide. I promise.”
I whispered that last bit, still balling my hands in the cotton skirts as I thought of those scars on his ear and neck.
“You don’t have to hide from me.” The words barely escaped the knot that had formed in my throat, my hand slowly rising to touch him. He turned before I could make the move, his shrouded face peering toward me. I swore I could see the line of his jaw and his lip that time, but it was probably my imagination now that I knew what to look for.
He clicked twice ‘no’, and shook his head in a near frantic motion. The message was clear. He did have to hide from me.
He had to do what ‘she’ wanted, so that he and his ‘Momma’ would get to go home soon.
He was as trapped as I was.
The Boy made to turn, but I grabbed him, my hand gripping a taut shoulder. I tried to pull him back around, but I might as well have been trying to move the Runturin into a new position.
“I won’t–” I didn’t get to finish, he shrugged me off and stepped behind the partition, the place I wasn’t supposed to go.
“I won’t make you, and I won’t tell,” I finished after a minute, staring at the carving on the wood panel closest to me, two women on either side of a great tree, one with three babies at her feet, the other with a pail. All of the panels were weird, the distorted story of the Goddess all fantastical as it went from love to war to death. None of them were as weird as the center panel, though, where three people stood below three suns.
More knots wound themselves through my gut as I made my way back to the chair, flopping myself in it again.
“I am going to need your help, however,” I called after a few minutes, there wasn’t so much of a grunt in answer. I went on. I knew he could hear me, even if he was pretending not to be there. “Aeinya has a plan so I can prove that I’m not sickly, and I may have agreed to it.” Another pause and I waited; I couldn’t even hear him breathe. I would have been worried if I hadn’t seen him dart back there.
“I agreed to fight in the Pankreatin.” A foot hit the ground as though it had slipped off of something in shock. “Not officially, of course, but I would sneak in and show them all what I can do and then everyone would realize I wasn’t sickly and Mother wouldn’t have any excuse to keep me from the wedding.”
Two clicks sounded loudly from the other side of the partition before he emerged again, hands already moving in the clear sign of ‘no’ as he clicked again.
I pressed my lips together, “I know it’s maybe not the best idea, but Aeinya’s cousin will go easy on me. It won’t be a real fight, just enough of a fight that she will see I’m not useless. Everyone in Okivo will see.”
His hands dropped from their furious motion, moving instead to his hips and then ‘why’.
“Because I don’t want to let her control me anymore,” I paused, watching him as he stood there and thinking again to those words on the page. “Because I can’t be scared of her anymore. I need to do this. If it doesn’t work, I’ll sneak out while they are all at the wedding, we will sneak out, and then we can be free of this place. Of her.”
