Velaiah’s head spun. Though slow, it was no less nauseating. She coughed. The weight pressing on her chest, mild for now, reminded her not to move if she valued the air in her lungs. Dehydrated and weak, she fought until her eyelids permitted her to open them. The pain in her head, however, had been waiting in ambush and struck the moment the light entered her pupils. She clenched her fists, but something dug into her hand. Looking down, she found the bamboo tag, which she had squeezed hard enough to skin her palm.

In her unpleasant return to the waking world, she nearly forgot she wasn’t alone.

“I was getting worried,” said Nyrra, leaving her wondering how long she’d been asleep. “Hopefully you’ve changed your mind…?”

“Yes. I have,” Velaiah answered, rasping and defeated. She’d hesitated a moment before answering, as if waiting for a force greater than herself to intervene. “Do what you must.”

“That is a relief to hear.” Nyrra’s fingers glided over Velaiah’s face, her cheek swollen and welted. She’d bitten her lip at some point, leaving it fat and crusted with dried blood. The delicate touch moved down her slender neck to her arms and wrists, rousing dull pains from bruises and sending a shiver crawling down her spine. “What a waste it would be to ruin something as beautiful as you.”

Slow and sure, almost divine in grace, she stood, letting her haunting smile etch itself into Velaiah’s mind. With light and quiet steps, she slipped away, disappearing behind the folding screen with the silk of her black dress rippling in gentle waves.

Velaiah stared at the bamboo tag as she lay in agonizing silence. Only her thoughts filled the dead air, reeling with uncertainty of what would happen the next time someone walked through the door. Sweat beaded on her forehead; parched as she was, she did not know she had any more to spare. An eternity seemed to pass stewing in dread before voices spoke out in the hallway. Her stomach lurched when she heard laughter.

Broken pieces of conversation – both Adris and Nyrra’s voices – carried into the room. Velaiah held her breath, trying to pick out as many words as she could, but they spoke none of value. She discovered only patter, a comfortableness between them that she found deeply perturbing. It sounded blissful. Remorseless. Flirtatious. Without a care in the world that they held a captive in the very next room whom they’d beaten into submission. She wondered how many times they’d done this before.

“Don't worry, my dear,” she heard Adris say as they neared the door. There was a long pause before he spoke again, the whispers of cloth brushing against cloth. “You are the one who holds my heart.”

“Of course, Father,” said Nyrra. “This is all undoubtedly fortuitous. I do hope Tabathys returns soon – I should like to thank her.”

Velaiah’s heart pounded. Desperation burgeoned within her, sending adrenaline gushing through her veins. Heavier than the weight which sat upon her was the realization that her last opportunity to escape was slipping away.

“Mir’ah,” she pleaded to the gray goddess in whispers between short breaths. “Break his spell. Let me be free.” A moment of grace was all she asked. Enough to break free and run away – she could handle all the rest, if only Mir’ah would grant her the strength. For all she’d suffered in years of service to her, she asked only this – deserved this.

Salvation did not come. Instead, there was only the creak of the door’s hinges and the click of the lock setting into place. Velaiah had been there long enough to recognize Adris by the sounds of his quirks: sniffles muffled by a handkerchief, the rustling of his robe as he returned the cloth to his pocket; calm, controlled breaths flowing through his narrow nose; fingers tapping the top of his hand with a slight fleshy pat as he held them, one in front of the other, at his waist, clasped at the crooks of his thumbs.

His even steps did not miss a beat. Each one was a warning, imprinting his presence, making it real – but not quite as real as when he came into view. Boxed in the squarish frame of his face with proportions as faultless and calculated as his demeanor, his angular features announced no emotion while still projecting the perpetual hum of intelligence. Even as he regarded her, not a single muscle twitched.

He moved in toward her bedside table, only unhooking his hands to retrieve a pinewood match from a pouch on his sash. Velaiah did not take her eyes off of him as he leaned forward to catch the dying flame of a candle. Sulfur bubbled and ignited, releasing a trace of its pungent odor before that of the burning wood prevailed.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“You are doing the right thing, Warden,” he said, lighting a stick of incense. “If this debt ends with you, the monster of fate will be sated.”

Velaiah did not respond. She only watched as smoke began to pour from the hanging censer, spreading its dry, heavy fragrance which she had come to abhor. He continued as he turned to face her, an unknown spark alight in his eyes.

“If only Ghol had done the same – if only he had accepted the death of his stone child Mir’ah as the punishment that it was for letting a mortal woman rule his heart. Had he done so, perhaps our souls would have manifested somewhere nobler – not among a clay-sculpted people cursed to repeat his failings for eternity.”

“We were not just crudely sculpted of clay,” said Velaiah, “We were made in the vision of Mir-Virah’s beauty. Nor are we cursed. Not any longer. Ghol’s dues have been paid.”

“Then tell me, Warden,” said Adris, “Why we continue to suffer this futility? Why we destroyed our own land with our own greed and vanity? Why we continue to evade mol varondis and repaying our familial debts, despite these being our promised paths to eternal life in Dronthôd?”

“Some of the Shroud’s former adherents believed it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Velaiah. “But I believe it is simpler than that. Even the divines are imperfect; we mortals cannot be without flaws.”

“How interesting your beliefs are,” said Adris. “Bold, confident, and steeped in a lethal dose of idealism. I can see why the rest of you were killed.”

“By the likes of your daughters, no less.” Velaiah held out the bamboo tag in her hand, heart racing against her laborious restraint of fear. “I’m ready.”

“Very well.” Adris unsheathed a small knife in his pocket and sat himself on the bed beside her. The ravenous glint in his eyes – the one he had the day she arrived – had returned. His facial expression still did not change otherwise. Now that he was so close, it was all the more maddening, unsettling.

He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her hand toward him, then plucked the tag from her palm and set it down on his lap. The blade of the knife froze her blood as he traced a line across her hand to the pad of her thumb. He pressed the tip into her skin, and she let out a shaky but controlled exhale. She bit down on her lip where it had already been punctured, and the raw, dull pain overpowered that of the clean, fresh wound.

Adris squeezed out a deep crimson pearl from her thumb. A small drop separated itself and trailed down as he stopped to speak again.

“This will hurt,” he said. For a moment longer, as if mesmerized, he watched it trickle before picking up the tag. Once acknowledged by a slight nod, he proceeded.

He pressed her thumb to the empty groove. Excruciating pain took over her senses in an instant. From her fingers, it crawled up her arms and into her core. Then as her heart pumped, it turned every drop of blood to fire and sent it rushing through her entire body, burning as if something were searing its mark into the very walls of the vessels themselves. Holding back from crying out, she whimpered as agony swallowed her whole. It left nothing untouched, not an inch of sanctuary within herself to retreat from it.

Her eyes squeezed themselves shut, pushing out tears which streamed down her face. She twisted and convulsed, the invisible weight pressing down harder with each movement, leaving her choking and gasping. But she could not keep herself still, not with the sensation of thousands of burning needles piercing and melting her from the inside. The old wound on her lip broke open again. Blood streamed between her teeth, filling each tiny gap.

The metal buckle of her belt clicked, unfastening. Fabric loosened around her waist and chest as buttons came undone. The cold air nipped at her skin. She'd become far too weak to continue her fruitless struggle. Each precious trace of air escaped her in groans, in sobs. Her face was bloated and wet with reddened tears. She knew, but didn’t want to believe, that he would make this part of her price to pay. Such was the way of those who believed themselves cursed; perhaps they were. Perhaps they had never escaped it after all. It was easier to accept this than to believe a child of Mir’ah would choose this wickedness of their free will.

A bright light flashed, and Velaiah was transported to a peaceful mountain valley. All was still and quiet as the sunlight glittered on a gentle river winding down the slopes. A bed of gray clay hid itself at the bottom, undisturbed, untarnished. Lush greenery and vibrant flowers stretched over the meadows, vast and endless. There was no pain here, no suffering, for there was not a soul around.

From the trees, the glint of a distant treasure enticed her. As she came closer to the source, it surrounded her with a soothing hum. She let it lead her deep into a grove, where a massive diamond stood planted into the peaty ground. Encased in the crystal was the goddess, whose song filled the forest with its empty promises. And her face returned Velaiah to her pain – to the deceit and betrayal from her own kin. To the bruises and cuts that ached all over. To the hands that would subdue her and claim what they felt owed.

Velaiah fell into a kowtow before Mir’ah, knowing now that the gray goddess was aware of everything. She spared only one thought for her as the fragrance of greenery gave way to the smoke of incense.

I was the guardian of your people. Just this once, I wish you’d have been mine.