CHAPTER 3: Burning

THERE'S THIS panic people talk about when your skin touches something hot. I remembered feeling the sensation as a child when I'd dangled my fingers into the oven fire when Mama hadn't been looking—first, the wave of heat, the sizzle, then, the shock—

The scramble as you realize you're burning.

Fire.

Scorching.

Skin.

A prickling, panicked torching.

I'd swung my fist, straight into the iron-master's face. It'd been a natural response...as were the black, iron restraints the temple guards cuffed my wrists in afterwards.

I yanked my bodyweight against the freezing metal pinning me to the equally iron chair, but it was pointless.

"I thought they were supposed to be Demure," one of the muscular goons holding me down around the shoulders snuffed.

I grit my teeth together, seething at their blood-shot and bulging, amused stares.

How dare he—

"They usually drop the act when needle hits skin," the iron-master smirked, raising his metal tool in the air. Just seeing it made me shutter at the thought of it back on my skin. "Especially these Poseidon ones. They're all...emotional." He made a face which had the other two guffawing.

I wanted to slap all of them.

To spit in their face.

Especially as the needle came down again—the iron-master's harsh fingers digging into my skin where he held and the scalding metal digging in otherwise.

And I bit my lip.

Till it bled.

And held my breath.

Till I couldn't stifle the screams any longer.

And I howled.

Long.

Shrill.

As the temple guards chuckled in the background.

***

Tears pooled in my eyes. The back of my throat was raw—from screaming? From swallowing the pickling sensation still stabbing at the skin of my bicep hours after the visit to the iron-master's? From wishing I was dead or could disappear into the wallpaper of this place?

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But there was nowhere to hide.

Not even from myself.

The swirling, green and blue satin and tulle that swirled around my legs was pinned tight around my lack of a bosom with long hairpins that the dressmaker had poking out of a pin cushion around her wrist and between her lips as she hemmed and hawed about the length of my dress, folding and refolding it in tense concentration, almost as tense as the lines gathering on her forehead as she stared at it.

"You are much taller than the other girls," she noted, bluntly, "and no curves. It'll take me a minute to amend the design."

Her words bit into me.

She didn't have to say anything; it was already apparent from a quick look around the white-walled, temple room.

I was the awkward one.

The sore thumb.

The question mark.

I'd thought it would have been obvious that I'd never make it to Icon status.

I'd thought, for sure, there was no way that I could have the blood of gods in me. My hair wasn't long and shiny. My cheekbones weren't pronounced. My eyes were narrow and squintish, not wide or startling. And, even with my current age, I was built like a twelve-year-old boy, practically straight in the front with no hips or butt accounted for.

Only freckles.

And the acne that goes with the menstruation that had barely changed the bits of me it was supposed to.

The men who came to temple had sometimes stared at the other girls my age. They'd smiled shyly at the older girls or outright ogled them when their wives weren't in view.

But I'd never felt the stare of a man like that.

And the girls complained about it, but I, sometimes, wondered what it'd be like...

To be wanted.

...But I hadn't wanted this.

Chosen.

Like the worst joke in history.

"Hold your arm up higher, girl," the dressmaker barked—her fingers, ice on my skin.

I whimpered as she nicked the fresh tattoo there with her pinky.

But I held my arm up.

...As the beautiful girls milled around the platform I stood on, already fitted for their dresses and combing their long tresses of glossy hair, talking easily to each other in a way I couldn't dream of.

Maybe this was just a nightmare that I'd wake up from.

I'd sit up on my cot and the other girls would be rushing around getting ready because it was the day the Mediator came.

...All this, a fear-dream...

"There you go," the dressmaker said, placing a final stitch, "You're good to go. But...what did they do to your arm?" She grabbed it, examining the flesh and marks there with obvious scorn, "It will take away from the gown. Poseidon is very picky about the appearance of his Icons."

I grimaced, looking down at the twisting mass of lines and angles embedded into the skin of my bicep in a tight knot of black ink, surrounded by floating dots.

The other girls had depictions of mermaids with swirling hair and tails on their arms.

Beautiful.

Magical.

Icon tattoos were known to endow the recipient with magic and describe the gifts and talents they could offer the gods.

In that respect, I figured mine looked about right: a tangled knot of yarn.

But the woman's condescending stare did irk me more than I wanted to admit.

She clapped her hands together, jolting me out of my head, "Line up! Everyone, line up! It's time to be presented!"

And I swallowed.

Feeling my throat, raw again.

Feeling the open wound on my arm sting, and the woman's words about it sting my ego even more. Tears smarted in my eyes, but I picked up the folds of my gown and joined the forming line.

This was the part I'd been dreading.

This was the part where I was sure they'd see what I truely was.

...Maybe it wouldn't be so bad being thrown out.

So, why was I cowering at the thought like a punished dog?