"So hear me, gentle sisters. It is to love me by honoring your husband, for as he is my body on earth so too do you honor me in serving him."

Iscah barely was listening to Korette's clipped, pious tone as she stared blankly at the woman who was reading scripture to her. Already she despised everything about the her, from her watered down blue eyes that missed no flaw to the deep groves bracketing her wide yet thin-lipped mouth.

Her whole demeanor spoke to a tightness that knew no joy, only a fervent objective of molding her charge into the coming lifetime of servitude.

"What do you think this scripture means, child?"

Iscah took a slow breath, ignoring the spasm in her lower back from having to keep her spine ramrod straight at all times.

"I think it means that it was written by an oblivious old man. I think he wrote it in a time when women were viewed as lesser beings whose sole objective in life was to please men."

Korette's lips vanished as she pressed them together, even as Iscah's own curled in contempt. "And I think it is sad that still to this day women would buy into the idea that's all they should be."

Above the mantel a mechanical clock ticked the seconds of silence by as the two glared at one another.

"God never blessed me and my deceased husband with children," Korette began.

"Which makes you such a wonderful candidate for teaching all about how great it is," Iscah quipped, not caring about the consequences.

"It does," Korette agreed, nonplussed. "To not be able to give your husband a sense of purpose, true purpose, or even yourself, can make those that suffer the best instructors because they know true loss."

Iscah gave a mirthless puff of a laugh at that, looking away before she let her anger and frustration let her mouth run wild. Not that it mattered, the hag would probably reprimand her anyway despite having asked her for an opinion. Yet the older woman didn't pick up the fresh-cut willow branch she had made Iscah select earlier that morning from the small table between them.

Rule one; ladies are to be seen and not heard.

Rule two, she added to Korette's first rule. Be what everyone else wants to see.

That was the gist of it anyway. Talk a certain way, sit a certain way be a certain way until everything you are is buried under the mantle of upholding your families reputation. Until you care more about what your child's situation would be perceived as more than how it had affected her.

Iscah blinked as the burning in her eyes began to match the burning across the back of her hands where red welts criss-crossed her skin. Lessons of Korette's matched with cold truths of how her life was now to be, how she was to be.

She was desperate to escape, but there was no longer anywhere to escape to. Korette had even moved into her bedroom so she had no privacy, the long nights spent listening to the wheezing snores of the older woman that fell silent anytime Iscah so much as moved.

There had been no time for books, no time to take a breath, no time to even process all the whirling thoughts ricocheting through her head and gather up the shattered pieces of her life.

Constable Edever knew of Apoch, and Father knew him. Yet to ask her father was not an option; she knew he'd only lock her up tighter if he found out the whole truth. If he knew the cambion had uttered his daughter's name while covered in the blood of his enemies.

It had felt like a promise, when he had spoken it. Had felt like an acknowledgement of all the questions she had been asking herself over and over again. Was he real? Did he dream of her too? Did he feel what she did?

Yes.

Yet it had been three days since that night. Three days of Korette's endless droning plaguing her every waking hour until she swore she could hear that inflectionless voice in her head. Three days, each of which made the memory fade until she half wondered if it had truly happened at all.

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Korette's voice finally cut through the whirlpool of her thoughts. "You are afraid of a life many dream of having."

"So you keep telling me," Iscah intoned blandly, giving a slow blink when she realized the hints of tears had dried up.

"Do you know why we call the Cambions mules?"

She returned her focus to the woman, interest piqued. "I always assumed it was an ethnic slur meant to dehumanize them, make them simply animals rather than people."

"In a way, yes, but there's more to it than that," her chaperone replied. "When you mount a donkey to a mare, their offspring is a hybrid we know as mules. In almost every case, all mules are born sterile. The Cambion have the same defect as those creatures, with one exception; they can still breed with us. Their females can carry, but from what we can tell it is hard for them to conceive, and most pregnancies end in miscarriage. Because of this, it is our women they desire above all else, and so it is that young girls from across our realm go missing."

"If they're lucky, they're sold to a single Cambion as a slave. If not, then to an entire tribe to be kept as livestock, shared by the males, used during the entire duration of their term. When they've healed enough, they are bred again. Over and over until they are too old to give birth but are still able to nurse those endless spawn until their milk dries up. Only then, they are sent to slaughter, eaten by the very beings they had been raped by for decades."

"God never blessed me and my deceased husband with children," her eyes glittered with malice. "After our first daughter vanished at just three years old. Stolen from her bed that was a closed-curtain away."

"Ah," Iscah replied, letting her spine relax brazenly. "Now it makes sense why you sleep so lightly, why my parents picked you to be my tutor. Thats' not all you are, you're a layer of protection."

"You will have all the chances possible to not only have children, but to be there as they grow into young men and women, not monsters."

"The court is full of monsters, the only difference is they don't have horns and tails and visible forked tongues," Iscah snapped, nails digging into her palms once more. "I'm being married off to one, while being told how lucky I am for it."

Korette's jaw clenched, the only sign her temper was fraying. The two stared at one another, until Iscah's defiance shifted back into despair.

"What would make this easier to bear, child?"

"Let me see Jalen."

"That is no longer appropriate."

"Let me write to him, then," she replied, leaning forward in her desperation to sway the harpy. But already her tutor was shaking her head with absolutely no sympathy for her plight.

"Whatever you have to say to him, you can confide in me." She reached out, touching Iscah's hand gently. "I am here for you, regardless of what you may think."

The appeal was there, the desire to tell someone, anyone, what she was going through. To explain to her parents the dreams, the meeting with Apoch that had gone so, so terribly wrong. To have them understand things were so much more complex than what they assumed. To absolve herself of their disappointment.

But looking into those grey-blue eyes, Iscah knew she would find no ally.

The maddening little clock chimed the last hour of the morning, and Korette let the offer of confidence fall away with her touch. They rose, and together headed towards the chapel built on the northern-most wing.

Most of the hallways were empty save for the rows of paintings and portraits, the servants using alternate means of traversing the building to remain unseen. While religion had fallen out with the aristocracy and replaced with magic, the lesser fortunate still held to their beliefs.

Korette had taken the initiative to indoctrinate Iscah back into the fold, having found her peace in the prayers and words of the clergy. It was, like all things lately, something Iscah had no choice but to go along with.

The small chapel drenched in sunlight was peppered with a few of the servants. Though her family had long ago quit hosting priests, they had not barred their employees from practicing their religion, so long as it wasn't on their working shifts.

Iscah followed her guardian to the kneeling benches, following her example as she folded her skirts artfully and sank down. She winced, the padless wood bruising her knees that were unused to such meditation.

With a silent sigh, she stared at the icons of their dieties as Korette bowed her head and closed her eyes in prayer.

Beside her a servant knelt close, and Iscah's breath seized in her throat when she caught the wild curls out of the corner of her eye. Agatha bowed her head as well, lips moving in soundless prayers even as her hand snaked out to link her fingers with Iscah's in companionship.

The dam holding her emotions back nearly broke, and it took all of her focus to work her throat around the lump that formed from the effort. Agatha gave a comforting squeeze before letting go, careful to make sure Korette didn't witness the interaction.

And with that gesture, Iscah realized she had an out. However small it was, perhaps Agatha could help her get word to Jalen.

Focusing on the statues, Iscah finally had a prayer of thanks to give them.