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Chapter 9
CHRISTY
Sunlight streams through the back of my eyelids, waking me from my troubled slumber. I’ve been in and out of sleep all day, waking up every time my knees gave way and my wrists screamed in pain from having to hold the weight of my body. My arms ache from being held aloft, my wrists are bruised from being shackled so tightly and my fingers are numb. I’m thirsty, hungry, and completely and utterly exhausted beyond anything I’ve ever experienced before.
The only thing keeping me sane, keeping me alive, is my anger. Even when I withstood the storm that flooded this courtyard with rainwater three inches deep yesterday afternoon, rage and the late afternoon sunshine that broke through the clouds before nightfall had dried me off and warmed my body enough to survive the night. The tree itself acted as a shelter of sorts, the slight curve inwards of the trunk that I’m resting against protecting me from the worst of the elements. Regardless, whilst I’m mentally able to withstand a lot, I know that it will catch up with me eventually. My body always pays the price.
Shifting my feet, I push upwards, my back sliding against the rough bark as I stand on the balls of my feet, trying to ease the pressure off my wrists. A sudden jolt of pain causes me to cry out, but I bite it back, swallow it down and concentrate on seperating my physical self from what hurts. Within a minute or two, I’m detached enough from the pain to not let it bother me. I just need to wait this out. Lifting my head to the sky, I look up at the canopy of branches and leaves and try not to think about which branch those poor women were hung from. Instead, I concentrate on the position of the sun and the shadows in the courtyard. At a guess it’s early afternoon. Sighing, I wiggle my fingers and move my body, trying to stretch as much as possible and keep the blood circulating, stopping only when I sense someone else entering the courtyard.
“I’m impressed with your gumption, Nought. Most of the Numbers begged for release within a few hours of being shackled to The Weeping Tree. Yet here you are surviving a whole day and night, not to mention a storm so violent that we lost a few trees in the forest,” Leon says as he steps out from behind one of the stone pillars.
“I don’t care what you’re impressed by,” I reply, eyeing him warily. I probably should be more polite, amenable, but I can’t bring myself to act that way. I don’t have it in me to stop fighting, even if it is only with my words and my attitude.
Leon laughs as he approaches me. He has his hands buried in the pockets of his black slacks and is wearing a white fitted t-shirt that shows off his muscular arms and strange black tattoos that wind up from his fingers, wrap around his biceps, and disappear beneath his top. When I noticed the tattoos on his hands yesterday, they reminded me of reeds in a pond, and that’s exactly what they appear to be. Even his mask matches his outfit, with similar imagery painted across its surface.
“By now you should’ve lost most of the feeling in your arms. It can’t be comfortable.”
“It isn’t.”
“And yet there have been no tears. No calls for help. No cries of pain,” he muses, stepping closer to me.
“Would that have gotten me set free sooner?” I ask, unwilling to hide the disgust in my voice.
He cocks his head to the side. “I guess that would’ve depended on which one of us was tasked with watching you. Konrad might’ve succumbed. Jakub definitely wouldn’t have, but me— well, here I am.”
“You’ve been here all this time watching me suffer like some twisted creep?” I interrupt.
“I made my way back here late last night. Though not before taking my time to shower and changing into something less… wet.” His gaze tracks over my dress, which has dried off now and is fluttering around my legs in the breeze. “That storm really was very unfortunate, but as much as I’m intrigued to know whether this tree will weep for you, I alsoneedyou to stay alive. Therefore I stayed with you just in case.”
“Are you expecting thanks, is that it?”
“Not in the slightest, though I was getting bored waiting for you to break.”
“Then it’s just as well you’ve struck up a conversation because hell will freeze over before that happens.”
“Everyone has a breaking point. It’s only a matter of time until we find yours, Nought.”
“Not me. I won’t break. Not now, not tomorrow, not next week or next month. Not in a year's time, not on my goddamn deathbed. I willneverbreak,” I retort vehemently.
He looks from me, and into the branches above, completely ignoring my outburst. “Yesterday, when my brothers were telling you about the story of this tree, they forgot to mention one very important piece of information.”
“And what was that?” I ask, watching him from behind my mask as he steps into a pool of light. The sun catches his hair, the dark strands highlighted with deep brown and mahogany. He has the kind of hair you want to run your fingers through, and the kind of physique that most male models aspire to, but he’s no less a predator. He’s just wrapped up in pretty packaging.
Dropping his gaze back to me, he continues. “Marie’s husband, the rich nobleman, was called JanBrov. This castle, this tree, their love and her death is a part of our history, our legacy. We’veallsuffered because of her kindness.”
“You make it sound like she was wrong to help that family?”
“Six months after this castle was completed, and three years after her death. Jan died of a broken heart at the foot of this tree,” he says, pointing to my feet. “Right where you’re standing, actually. He couldn’t live without her, so he slit his own throat and fed The Weeping Tree his heartbreak. In the next five years following his death all but one of their five children perished from disease and illness. The only surviving child, Szymon, grew into a bitter, twisted man who eventually bore three sons of his own. He was cruel and heartless, every last ounce of empathy taken from him because of all he’d endured. One craze-filled night, Szymon beat his wife to death here in this courtyard, and murdered two of his sons, leaving his eldest to carry on the Brov name. Every generation has a similar story, all of them cursed by her kindness and brought up with cruelty and savagery. The Brov’s family tree is as twisted as the roots that grow beneath this castle.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m telling you this because kindness, empathy, andlovedoesn’t exist inside these walls. It has been eradicated from the bloodline wholly and completely.”
“You can’t blame Marie’s kindness for what happened. She helped those people. Shesavedthem.”
“And lost herself and her family in the process. For what? All it’s achieved is a lifetime of suffering. Generations of it.”
“You’re using Marie and the tragedy that befell her family as an excuse for your behaviour. Ever heard of the term, breaking the cycle?”
