16 | Kiandah
Orias Village
I’m not sure I’m going to like the excursion Yaron has planned. I woke up this morning to find him wearing skin instead of fur, naked and wrapped around me. He’d been awake, the naughty, naughty boy, and unrepentantly cupping my bare, wet core. I’d heated immediately, but he had pulled away before I was fully awake, and acted like it never happened, leaving me in a state of want so painful I wondered if he wasn’t a sadistic male. Or just a male determined to get what he wants. I’d been hard pressed not to tell him to forget his punishment and fuck me then and there.
But then he told me to get dressed and that we were going to the market. Again.
I’d been apprehensive when his mood changed. Now, sitting in the carriage while it jolts and jerks unsteadily down the Orias highway line, he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. Yaron sits like a beast caged against the plush black seat cushion. He stares out of the window, occasionally making small growling sounds. He looks angry.
“What’s wrong?” I blurt, not liking that I’ve asked. It’s too informal. Too strange, talking to the Shadow Lord in this way.
Like he’s thinking the same thing, his face turns to me, seated on the bench across from him, and his thick, black eyebrow lifts. Just the one, though. “Are you worrying about me, Kiandah?”
It feels like any answer I give here would be wrong, so I give him a truer one and shrug. “I suppose.”
“Alas, was that all it took? Obeying your commands to sleep at your feet? Have I won your heart so easily?”
“No. I would worry like this about anyone.”
His face changes and I feel a soft warmth pulse between us, then retreat. “I suppose you would, wouldn’t you?” He goes back to staring out of the window and, sensing I’m not going to get a better answer than that and knowing better than to press the issue, I turn to stare out of the window, too.
Paradise Hole is looking bleaker than usual today, even though the sun is shining. Maybe it’s because the sun is shining that it looks so much darker here on the ground. It’s like Paradise Hole is sucking the light from the sky, trapping it in a canopy above our heads, refusing to let the darkness below out, to be released among such color. The sky is overcast on the horizon, but above our heads, it’s blue.
“It’s beautiful today,” I offer lamely.
Yaron nods, but he stares out of the window for a while before answering. I don’t need to have rutted him to know that he is painfully intentional in everything he does. I knew that already. So, I don’t know why I’m still surprised when he doesn’t reply with something trite and instead says, “I can count on both hands the number of sunny days I’ve witnessed since I was a boy. Most of them, I experienced in Echo’s garden — the Fallen Earth Omega. It seemed that sunlight followed her.” He tilts his head and settles back in his seat, staring at me. “Perhaps, it follows you, too.”
“I feel like there’s something you want to tell me about her.” I feel jealousy twist in my gut like a knife and I don’t know why. I know she’s with the Dark City Berserker, but…Yaron speaks of her so highly. And now he’s gone silent.
He doesn’t answer for quite some time. I sit with my shoulders slightly hunched inward under his scrutiny. I don’t like the invasive way he stares. I do, because I don’t want his full concentration on anybody else, but I also am not strong enough to stand up under it. I feel rather threadbare seated here in nothing but his oversized clothing, unsure of where we’re going with a terrible sense that I don’t want to know and never want to arrive.
And then he leans forward in a surge. Wind rushes over me. It tastes like him. Like an expensive cologne, leatherbound books dusted with age, and ash. I never knew ash had a smell, but he smells of it. Like a fire after all the flames have burned away. “I cannot make sense of you. You present as this meek, terrified little girl, but by your heart, you are betrayed.”
“M-my heart?”
“Yes. You have the heart of a warrior, standing alone on the plane of battle against an army of the undead. You carry the conviction that you can and will vanquish them all because you have the lives of those you love to protect.” He keeps coming, sliding off of the bench onto his knees in the short carpeted space between us. He palms the side of my face, his hand large enough to cover it completely. I flinch as his fingers curl around my head — I shaved the sides into a fade this morning. I don’t have access to any hair products, so it was the only thing I could think of to make it look presentable. His thumb rubs the short hair near my temple, making my toes curl.
“You present as a peasant.” His brows furrow. The muscles at the edge of his jaw give a little pulse. “But when your love is on the line, you transform into a queen.”
“Love?” I balk, nearly choking.
“Yes. The love you have for your family.” His mouth curls up slyly, darkly. “The love you have for me.”
“For you?” I sputter. “I…”
“You are already half in love with me. I know you half as well as I should, but I know you well enough to know this.”
“You…I’m not…”
“Don’t lie.” His fingers curl around my ear. They’re rough and callused so badly, it feels like his touch could cut. “Don’t lie to me. Not in this. I won’t force you to admit it, but you should prepare yourself, because one day I will. Soon.”
I want to rip away from him and slap him and deny his accusations, but he has me feeling very small. Very seen. I don’t know how often it’s happened…that I’ve felt that. Growing up in a big family has its benefits…but one of the drawbacks is that we sometimes can all meld together. Siblings jostling for power, animalistic pack dynamics, and parents trying to maintain some kind of order. It makes it hard to have that intimacy.
This intimacy.
To be noticed.
To be explored.
I look down at my lap, trying to retreat, but he slides that thick, callused thumb down my cheek, over the corner of my lip, under my jaw, which he tips up. His look is pure condescension and pure fire. It frightens and angers me.
“You can’t know that that’s how I feel,” I assert with force. My skin burns every place he strokes.
“I do.”
“How?”
“I may only know you a little, but I know you wouldn’t have taken me as you did in the hunter’s hole if you did not want to. Your commands are a gift, a treasure that I plan to hoard. And if you so much as think of giving them to another or, gods forbid, they try to take from you again, I will not react well, Kiandah. I will not react well at all.”
He drags his hand down my neck, over my chest, between my breasts until he reaches my hips. He grips them from both sides and scoots forward so that his chest is between my legs, my knees spread around him and locked there. I can’t move my lower half. I can’t feel my upper half. All of my concentration has surged downward.
“You can’t do this,” I whisper.
“Do what?”
“Use my Omega nature against me.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t say no.”
“No. Do not use your Omega nature against me, Kiandah. You are unbonded. You can speak freely. Do not place blame where it does not belong to make yourself feel better that you are letting a male you are half in love with eat you out like a beast, even though you pretend that you don’t like him at all.”
I open my mouth, but I don’t know which of his comments I’d have responded to first, if he’d given me the chance. But he doesn’t. He hooks his hands underneath my knees, wrenches my hips forward, and then leans in and rips a hole through the crotch of my linen pants with his teeth. Warm air, his breath, caresses me.
I tense up, arch my back, stab my fingers through his hair. I push him back — no, no I don’t. I drag him up against me and rock forward until I’m nearly sitting on his face. He bites me and I gasp, panicked that he’s broken skin and bonded me, and I jerk back wildly, violently. My arms knock into the doors and my head knocks into the wall behind me. My feet kick and my toes smart when I kick the underside of the bench seat across from me. My hips are still locked into place by his arms until Yaron growls and releases my inner thigh from between his teeth. Teeth, not fangs. Blinking rapidly, I look down to see my fingers tangled in his hair and his nostrils flaring as he inhales very deeply at my center. He glances up at me with those violent and demanding eyes and I tense. Everything within me immolates.
He reaches towards me and I flinch, but he was only moving to touch my cheek. “One day, you will realize that you are more than a member of a family. One day you will realize that you are only a peasant in the gaze of the weak. It is on that day that you will command me to bond you.” He leans up and forward, nose just barely grazing my cheek. “I look forward to that day.”
He returns to his seat and turns his gaze to the world outside of the open window, but not before sparing one last glance at the open crotch of my pants and releasing a low, almost inaudible growl.
I shiver with need. Yaron smirks and I scrunch my nose, annoyed with him in a way I’ve only ever been annoyed at my brother. “I love my family.”
He balks. “No one in their right mind would think otherwise.”
“It’s not wrong to have love for your family.”
“No one would suggest that, either. However, do you not find it a little peculiar that a family full of pretty girls and boys would have no children? No partners? You’re all of birthing age and yet, the family line has died with your generation.”
I feel my face flame. “It’s not dead yet. We’re just taking our time.”
“You may tell yourself whatever you like, but the facts still stand. I said it before and I will say it again — your family is so wrapped up in itself, it would be impossible for a partner to gain entry into that. The bonds are too strong. The walls too thick to scale. What mad man or woman would want to compete with a love like that?”
“You seem to want to try,” I shoot back, tone nastier than I’ve ever heard.
Lord Yaron seems unfazed. He just smiles that cryptic smile. “I am Lord of the Shadowlands. I have no fear because I know I will not fail. You will give me what I want. I could keep your family in chains and still get what I want from you.”
“I would never.”
I feel the wagon start to slow, but as he speaks, he takes his time. “Your love is strong. Your ability to hate is weak. I could stab your father in the heart before your eyes and still make you fall in love with me.”
I strike him before I realize what I’ve done. I feel heat in the backs of my eyes. In the back of my heart. My pulse is pattering fiercely and my mind won’t slow down. “I shouldn’t have done that…”
“No. And I look forward to punishing you for it.”
“You’re a bastard,” I whisper.
He grins cockily with one edge of his mouth, just enough to flash his teeth. His canine is sharper than it should be and I feel myself grow warm. I hate him, I decide, but only because he’s right. I don’t hate him. I really don’t. “For you, I will be the villain. A hero would have no chance with you.”
“Why are you saying all this? Why are you being so harsh with me?” He was so gentle yesterday, obeying me as he did, bringing me my sister and food.
He gives me a look I cannot interpret at all as the wagon rolls to a final stop. Then in a flourish, he shoves the door open on a creak and walks out, leaving me sitting there alone. I have a choice — remain where I am or follow — and when I look out of the window, I see a crowd forming. We’re near the main town square, the stone Berserker still lunging up out of the stone fountain at the sky, like he’ll swallow the sun. It’s disappeared again behind the clouds, but when I take a shaky step down from the carriage, I can still feel its residual warmth.
The people of Orias Village are gathered, but not in commerce or trade, like they were yesterday. The stalls have been cleared and the doors of the shops closed and barred. Everyone is outside, gathered here. There are so many people gathered in eager and curious bunches, I wonder if he hasn’t summoned the entire village here.
They stand against the closed storefronts, low awnings shading some while the rest spill out into the square. Yaron and I aren’t alone in the space cleared out beside the fountain, though. Crimson Riders cross the space and my family stands at the fountain’s edge. I go to them.
“Kia…”
“Kandia…”
“My sweet baby…”
“Come here…” My brother lifts his arm and I step into him. He’s warm despite the fact that he’s not wearing a jacket. He’s just wearing a thin tunic, same as me, and when I look down, I see that we all have bare feet. We look like prisoners.
I frown, feeling sad that this is how Lord Yaron would parade us in front of the town. He speaks of wanting to bond me, but if I were out in the crowd, this isn’t how I would want to see my Lord parade his Lady in front of me and the rest of his people. Because they should be her people, too, shouldn’t they?
My mom reaches across Cyprus to grip my hand. I hold her back, and together, we watch Lord Yaron walk a long line in front of us. His boots clatter on the cobblestones. The skies have once again darkened. His gaze passes over each member of my family before finally landing and lingering on me. Then he wrenches his gaze up to the crowd.
He moves towards the other villagers and begins to walk a long line around the circle they form around us. He’s speaking to them directly, in ways he has done before but that I have only had the honor of being a part of twice — once when he was announced as our Berserker Lord all those years ago when I was six and he was fourteen, and again a year ago, or more now, when he came to warn us all about a dangerous animal that had been sighted on our shores. We didn’t know then that they were not animals, but undead Alphas.
His voice pitches loud and carries with a booming force that I feel in the soles of my feet, echoing through the cobblestones. There is a reason that, when I first saw him even as a child, I could identify him immediately as our Lord. “I have gathered you all here to witness the trial of the Ubutu family.” My blood turns to ice in my veins. What? Cyprus’s arm tightens around my shoulders as I feel my legs start to wobble.
Whispers start up. Yaron speaks over them, “The Ubutu family has been involved with Trash City in carrying out nefarious deeds impacting all of Gatamora. They helped Trash City prepare the bodies of Alphas. Though the reason cannot be confirmed without a shadow of a doubt, I’m sure that we all suspect that these bodies were collected with the intention of being turned.” His cloak trails behind him, fluttering in a breeze that I can’t feel. The air feels static everywhere except for around him.
“For those of you who have not seen the undead with your own eyes, rest assured that the rumors of their existence are true. I have seen and fought them both on the North Island and now here, on our shores.” He sweeps his gaze over the crowd and I wonder at his reaction. He seems tense, angry, even, and I don’t know why.
“My Crimson Riders and I have not been able to root them out, but if you have information that would help me keep you safe, please do not keep it to yourself. You will not be punished for holding information, if that is your concern. I am your Lord, yes, but I am also your protector. I am duty-bound to raze the undead from our shores. Inform one of my Riders if you know anything. They will be stationed around Orias Village over the coming days with the express intent of collecting any information you may have…”
A woman in the crowd whose face I know but whose name I can’t remember stands with her arm around a younger woman. She speaks up, “Inform your Riders, my Lord? So that we can be raped? We heard that the Omega was assaulted as she was escorted from Orias Village only yesterday.” The crowd’s rumble picks up in volume. Yaron remains undeterred.
“She was. And the assailant has been dealt with.” He lifts a scarred hand and beckons towards the carriages with two fingers. Two Riders emerge from between them, dragging something into the square that I don’t understand at first…until villagers begin screaming.
Shrieks and groans from the crowd are punctuated by the sounds of vomiting. At least half a dozen people retch, one of them being Zelie, who stands on the other end of the row of my family. Owenna gives her comforting pats on the back and whispers to her in words I cannot hear.
My eyes are still unfocused, not understanding…the mass… “Is that…”
“Yes, Kia,” Cyprus says to me. “Don’t look.”
I feel my own stomach lurch as understanding finally dawns on me. The man has had his hands and feet removed, he’s been impaled in his…rear end…and the skin on his back has been flayed. His lungs have been removed. They sit on his shoulders. I close my eyes and bury my face in Cyprus’s chest. He squeezes me tightly.
In my ear, he whispers, “He deserved it.”
“No one deserves that,” I croak. “Did…Lord Yaron do that?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Personally.”
I feel nauseous. This is what he’s capable of. I let him touch me with hands capable of pulling the skin off of someone. Another few voices release gut-wrenching screams.
And still, Yaron is unfazed by them. “There will be rewards for those who come forward with information pertaining to Trash City, its leader, Merlin, or the undead.” The same Riders who dragged the thing forward on a bloody rope return from the chariot with a chest. One of them pulls open the lid, revealing treasures. Gold, silver and gemstones glitter. “And punishment for those who hold information and do not divulge it.”
The juxtaposition of the thing and the treasure chest are stark and grotesque. The implication behind his words is clear. The crowd quiets amidst sniffles and whispers.
“However, punishment is to be handed out by me alone. And if I say that the Ubutu family is not to be punished, then I expect this proclamation to be followed. You are to treat them as you would any other citizen of the Shadowlands.” He’s approaching the blacksmith now and Olac does not cower, but meets his gaze with a ravenous gaze of his own. Lord Yaron is not much taller than Olac, who was the largest man I’d ever seen and might still be. He has meat on him Lord Yaron doesn’t have, especially around his thick belly. “Am I clear?” I hear him say to the crowd, though his gaze doesn’t move from Olac’s.
Olac clenches his teeth. His hands are blackened, which seems fitting as he gestures towards us hatefully. “You mean to let them go unpunished? They killed my goddaughter.”
“They did not raise the blade that killed her, but I understand your grief. Your desire for revenge. You wish to see them punished, yes? Beyond their confinement to the castle?”
“Yes. You turned this foul man inside out for daring to touch your precious Omega, yet you won’t touch her for doing far worse to a family in this village.”
Yaron grabs Olac by the collar and wraps his fist in the fabric of his shirt. He looks a breath away from the kill. “I plan to take this precious Omega for my wife. And this precious Omega is not a killer. She saved the lives of thirty members of this village when I intended to kill them by burning them alive within their precious church, under the eyes of their ancestors.
“That is how I intended to punish her for what she did to that family. That is how I intended to punish them all. I packed innocent people into a church — people who had no idea that Trash City was even on the South Island, let alone scavenging for bodies — with every intention of burning them all to the ground. Incinerating them. Listening to their flesh bubble, blister and burst. Five died that day, but myprecious Omega saved the rest. Does that sound like the mark of a killer?”
Olac is looking defiant…yet unsure. And the crowd around him is in an uproar. They have been ever since Yaron declared he’d take me for his wife. Though I know he said as much already, I still stand in shock. Maybe, because he told me in such a private space where it felt like the world was different, between us — where there were no blistered or disemboweled bodies, no undead and no expectations, only peace and tension, curiosity and lust — I sort of…didn’t believe him. And still…I know he cannot mean it. Lady of the Shadowlands? Me?
I frown and waver on my feet, using my brother’s strength to comfort me while Audet shoots me a carnivorous look around Yaron’s and my mom’s bodies, a look that I cannot fault her for because it says just what I’m thinking — that I’m not worthy.
Meanwhile, Olac sputters out a response when prompted by Yaron. “Even-even the guilty will defend themselves when backed into a corner, my Lord. Just because she was successful at staying your hand doesn’t mean her family’s punishment should be over.”
Yaron nods, as if expecting this answer. He releases Olac. “Very well. How would you have them punished? An attempted rape was not sufficient?”
Olac’s fists clench as he tries to find his footing. His wife’s hands come to his arm, steadying him, and I see her lips moving. Enough. Olac sags into her slightly. He shakes his head. “I am…I am… This is not who I am, my Lord. I must apologize to the Omega. I tried to stop the Rider from handling her when he made his intentions known, but I still let him leave. And before that, I put my hands on her when I should not have. My wife is right. She is the goodness in me when I am only my temper. I would gladly accept a punishment from you, my Lord. Whatever you deem appropriate…”
“No!” I shout, trying to lurch away from Cyprus, who grabs my shoulders and pulls me back. “No, please, Yaron.” Yaron. I call him by his first name, which incites the crowd to excitement bordering on violence. There are some laughing, there are still some crying and screaming, there are cheers. There is so much emotion, I want it to stop. My bones are still weak, my flesh bruised, and my heart…it’s been too much in too short a time…I can’t breathe. “Yaron, please.”
He turns to look at me, his expression cold. He comes forward as I break free of Cyprus’s grip, but only because he lets me. As I stumble forward, he catches me against his chest. He slides his hands around my throat and squeezes gently, a reminder of what Olac did…a threat… “My Lady,” he breathes against my lips, but he doesn’t kiss them. Instead, he brushes his softer than sin mouth over my nose and then my forehead. “Do not break my heart. I cannot stand your begging.”
“Then I command you…don’t hurt anyone else. Not for me.” I grab the front of his tunic in shaking fists. I’m scared. My feet are cold.
He brushes his lips over my temple and his words, unlike his actions, are so, so soft. “You are master over me, Kiandah, but I am still Lord of this city. Rejoin your family and do not interfere again. I will not ask you twice.”
Fury fires through me as he barks an order and Cyprus comes and takes me back to my kin. I clench my fists and cross my arms, hating Yaron as he approaches Olac again. My muscles are all locked and they’re too tired for that. I feel lightheaded despite getting a good night’s rest — the best I’ve had in a long time — and having eaten well last night and this morning. I think…my greatest fear is knowing that Yaron was right in the chariot — he does…he is capable of having my love. But I don’t want to love a man who hurts other people like this…who is capable of such unrepentant and merciless violence.
“You are good to renounce your anger and request punishment. What do you see fit for yourself?”
Olac doesn’t answer, but I see how his gaze nervously shifts to the pile of dead Rider, a thick carpet of blood leading back the way he came. “Whatever manner of punishment you select for yourself will also be delivered unto the Ubutu family.”
Olac’s eyes widen. “I… You are right, my Lord. The Omega has been through enough and, perhaps, isn’t responsible for the crimes her family comm—”
But Yaron cuts him off. “A public flogging, perhaps? A good lashing?”
“Uhm, yes. That is customary.”
“How many lashes for putting your hands around my Omega’s neck?” Lord Yaron’s hand opens and the tail end of a black whip tumbles out to hit the ground. I hate him for it. I hate him so much for that. He came prepared to lash my family.
“My Lord?”
“A number. How many?” He speaks to the crowd now. “How many lashes does this village deem appropriate for Olac for laying hands on the female that is to be your Shadow Lady?”
Several voices shout numbers, but I can’t stop myself from shouting, “None!”
“One!” Cyprus says, shouting over me and drowning me out.
Yaron turns to look at Cyprus over his shoulder and nods once. “Very well.” Turning back to Olac, he says, “Prepare yourself.”
I clench and watch in horror as Olac nods and moves to the end of the square. His wife struggles to release his arm, but he reassures her. I find something absolutely tragic in that. I find it more tragic that Yaron could stop this, but doesn’t. Instead, he positions himself at the opposite end of the clearing, raises his whip and only just waits for Olac to lift his shirt to fully expose his back before bringing the whip down. One strike, that’s all. But it feels like a hundred.
The last public flogging happened when I was only ten. Yaron was eighteen then. He’d been Lord for only two years and his master of coin thought he could filch from the public coffers. A new Lord, a young Lord, Yaron had made an example of him. Eight lashes later from Yaron’s own arm, he fainted. He died at lash twenty-two. My parents had let me watch the first lash fall, but had taken me away after the second and still, the sound that it had made was and is forever burned into my memory.
Yaron turns to face the village while Olac’s wife rushes to him. Yaron points at the medic called Finn and gestures him towards Olac. The male responds immediately, carting supplies across the space in a small satchel. A chair is produced from somewhere within the crowd. Olac sits and Finn begins administering to him immediately while Yaron points his whip at my family. At me. It’s only when Cyprus clenches my hand tighter that I realize I’m shaking.
“And how many lashes until the Ubutu family has learned their lesson?”
Silence.
“You all were so confident in their guilt moments ago, yet now you are silent? Tell me, how many each?”
“T-two?” a young woman says.
“None!” another shouts. Justine — I’d recognize her voice anywhere. I scramble to find her in the crowd and when I do, I meet her gaze and we exchange small, scared smiles. They do not all hate us. Some that know us will know our hearts and believe that the killing strokes were not delivered by our hands. By mine least of all. Because I am not my family.
“Two only?” Lord Yaron says, ignoring Justine. “You can do better than that.”
“Three!” someone offers and I recognize that voice, too. It’s the pig farmer, the one who threw shit at me. “No more! Any more than that and they’ll bleed out. These are townspeople, not Crimson Riders! They cannot take more than that…”
“You care? You intend not to kill them?” Yaron’s tone is condescending and cruel. The crowd is murmuring, unsure. “For such wickedness, I would think at least ten lashes apiece would do.”
The pig farmer doesn’t respond. Silence prevails. I can’t believe it. My stomach is in my eyeballs now. That I haven’t vomited is only a testament to the fact that my shock outweighs my terror. Yaron begins to turn away, but a voice from deep within the crowd says, “Fifteen.”
A collective gasp echoes across the village. Fifteen lashes could be a death sentence. Cyprus will likely survive, but I don’t know about the rest of us — of them. Yaron will show no mercy.
“Fifteen,” Lord Yaron says softly. The boy who spoke steps through the crowd, which parts around him. The boy is pale with blond hair and bright eyes, red cheeks and hate seeping through his pores. He must have known the Alpha family intimately because he looks at Yaron with a gaze full of sadness and scorn.
“Fifteen it is, then.” Yaron says. The crowd gasps. Several mouths utter protest, but they are washed away by the whooshing in my brain. I feel lightheaded and can only watch, stunned and betrayed, as Yaron steps towards the boy and says, “And you shall deliver them or name your champion.”
“Olac,” the boy says immediately. “He is stronger.”
Yaron nods. “Good. Olac, come.”
It is a brutal sight — Olac turning in his chair, a needle hung on a thread like a noose dangling from a loose tag of his flesh. He’s sweating, I can see the way his rich brown skin glistens even from here. “My Lord, I cannot deliver so many lashes to each of them…”
“And you won’t.” Lord Yaron hands Olac the whip when the man rises to stand, wound still gaping open. “You will deliver their lashes to me.”
The crowd goes crazy. My knees go weak. I start to fall. Cyprus catches me. “No…” My heart. My heart…
“My Lord, no!” Olac sputters and gasps. “I cannot be compelled to raise a hand to the Shadow Lord. Do not dishonor me so…”
“You will do as I say for this is my decree. I shall champion their lashes. You open your mouth to defy me again, I will give you the punishment I think you truly deserve.” He tips the staff of his whip so subtly it could have been mistaken for a simple twitch. But I do not mistake it as such. I know that he is gesturing to the mess of a male he made out of that Rider and I know that Olac does, too. He is no fool and takes the baton when Yaron gives it to him.
Yaron turns and sheds his tunic, tossing it aside, but the boy who said fifteen still stands in the clearing, not in Yaron’s path, but not well enough out of his way. He looks stunned, his jaw works. He tries, “My Lord, this isn’t what I wanted at all…”
“But it is what is deserved. I will take the lashes they are owed because I failed to deliver your justice in the church, and subsequently let the family escape. And now the family that aided and abetted the Trash City scum that took Gwyn’s life will be punished, for they will have to live forever with this humiliation, knowing that the scars I bear are for their crimes. For Gwyn, for how I failed her, too.”
“S-scars, my Lord?” The young man shakes his head. “Why should you scar? Won’t you heal quickly from this?”
“Not this time. Okayo,” he barks. The male comes forward with a black syringe which he injects directly into Yaron’s vein. “So that my blood does not coagulate,” he hisses and the village is in upheaval. So many voices chiming for him to stop.
He continues past the boy and gestures with two fingers to his Riders. Two appear and flank him. He faces away from me, his back visible to me and my family and the riotous crowd. Several villagers try to storm forward to stop the atrocity we’re about to witness, but Yaron directs his Riders to hold them back.
Meanwhile, I feel something stir in my chest that I can’t put a name to. It feels like sludge, but hot. I step forward, away from Cyprus, afraid, but needing to do something. “Yaron.”
“Stand down, Omega,” he says, facing away from me. “The village had its chance to punish you yesterday, and so they did. Olac, begin. Ninety lashes for each member of the Ubutu family save Kiandah.” He spreads his feet and grips the inner shoulders of the two Crimson Riders that stand before him. They grab his forearms with both of their hands and brace.
Olac takes a long time to deliver the first lash. It’s the hardest to watch, to bear. The crowd has started to shift, to run, to return, to retreat, to swell. Many are cursing Olac. Many are cursing the boy whose name I hear shouted. Robert. But I don’t blame him. I blame Yaron. This is barbaric.
I start forward and the sludge in my chest moves, hurtling down my arms. I raise my left hand as Olac raises the whip to deliver the tenth, twentieth? Lash. I’ve already lost count, my skin burning, my eyes blurred as I watch Yaron stand there and bear it. Already, Yaron’s back is a mess of torn skin and bright abrasions. He hasn’t so much as flinched through it all. He keeps his head down like he’s staring at the ground just in front of his feet, and his hands planted on the shoulders of the soldiers before him who are both gritting their teeth.
Olac lifts the whip but when I exhale, I feel power roll out of me. My will is my command. A small tuft of blue smoke explodes from the tips of my fingers. The whip is gobbled up by a rogue flame. Olac shouts and drops the whip, and together, we all watch it catch fire at his feet. It burns far faster than it should, turning to ember by the time Yaron has looked over his shoulder to understand what caused the delay and the commotion. The ash from where the whip once was disperses in the breeze.
Yaron’s expression is incalculable as he stares at it and then looks at me. “I said stand down, Omega,” he hisses. He releases the Riders and advances on me. I stagger back. It’s so silent. The entire village is shouting, but it feels like they’ve all vanished as he crushes my biceps in his strong grip. He lowers his head and speaks angrily through his teeth. “I will heal from these wounds. Slowly, but I will heal. You delay and prolong the inevitable. Stop, or I will reverse my decision and design a punishment just for you. You will not like it.” He roughly shoves me back against my brother and calls for a new whip.
The flogging begins anew, this time to a chorus of silence. The muted sounds of the crowd are punctuated only by the occasional whimper or cry. His people bleed for him. They love him. We love him. We always have. Even when he flays and maims and imprisons, we love him for it. Because we lead good lives in the Shadowlands. We lead good lives…
Why did my family do this to us? To all of us?
I feel a hatred toward them I don’t often experience as I watch Yaron take the brunt of our failings as villagers, as neighbors, as human fucking beings. I glance down the line of my family, first at Cyprus, nearest to me. His expression is set grimly. At my mom — sobbing. At Audet, shaking so badly she looks like she’ll fall apart. At Owenna. Her face is blank — no, hollow — her eyes sunken and dark like she’s seeing a ghost. At Zelie, hunched over, gagging at the sight and smell of flayed flesh. At my father, whose eyebrows are pulled together and whose face is darkened in rage.
His proud shoulders are pulled back as he steps forward and says, “Stop!”
Olac stops. Yaron’s muscles are moving beneath his skin in a way that I don’t like at all. He’s clearly in pain. His beast is clearly trying to escape. He’s having to endure this while also keeping his Berserker side contained. And he’s bleeding. He’s bleeding so much. The blood pours in rivulets down his back. I’m not even sure if, had Olac been trying to go easy on him, it would have mattered. The whip he’s using is Lord Yaron’s black whip. He makes them special. To hurt.
My eyes are hot and my fingers are pressed so tightly to my lips as I watch my father step forward and speak, not to Lord Yaron, but to the town. To Olac. To Robert. To everyone. “Enough!” He roars, lifting his hand and letting it fall. “For our honor, please. There are ten lashes left. Let me take them…”
Lord Yaron stiffens and straightens up. His fingers uncurl from the Riders’ shoulders he’d been holding and they both wince as he finally releases them. Yaron turns to face my father, fury on his face that my father does not back down from.
“Please, my Lord. Let me take the remaining.”
Yaron’s nostril’s flare and though his posture is lethal, his back a brutal landscape, his gaze is soft. He shakes his head just once, down at my father and says softly, firmly, “No.”
My father takes a step back and touches the center of his chest. He steps away from Lord Yaron and speaks to the crowd once again. “Then let this be enough.”
A pregnant pause. Lord Yaron nods and turns around to face Olac, who lowers his arm. The crowd seems to release a single gathered breath before falling silent once more.
“Are you satisfied?” Lord Yaron roars to the village, and then more quietly to Robert alone. “Are you satisfied? Do you think Gwyn would be happy seeing the Lady of the Shadowlands kicked through the streets or her Lord whipped like a dog?”
He takes the whip from Olac’s hand and tosses it at Robert’s feet. The boy bursts into tears and retreats to his parents. He’d looked like a man standing strong in his convictions. Now, with shaking hands, he looks so small. He meets my gaze across the square and looks away quickly.
Lord Yaron’s chest is heaving. His blood drains from his back and soaks his trousers, which are dark, but not dark enough to disguise the blood loss. There’s so much of it. I want to go to him, but I know it would not be welcome. He is raw, unbridled rage.
He sweeps his hand across his lower back, his palm coming back red. He holds it out to the village and all but roars as he says, “May this blood be enough to assure you that this family has paid their penance.” He swipes his hand across his chest. The red palm print streaks across his abdomen, making him look like a god not of this world, but a god above us. Or maybe that is simply how I always viewed him.
“May my blood ensure that they do not step out of line again. And may this tome of violence finally close.” He looks so huge, his body swollen with rage or pain or a combination of the two. His muscles glisten. The sun pokes its head through the clouds and brushes over his face before retreating in terror. “I should hope that you all remember the sound of the whip falling the next time you have your dealings with the Ubutu family.” He lingers in front of the baker and the pig farmer, who stand together. “And provide them with clean food. It is not your job to punish them.” He moves to Olac and concludes. “I am through here. Are you?”
“We understand, my Lord. The Ubutu family has paid their penance. I believe we all have.” Olac looks down at his feet, his expression pained. His hands are flexing — with his own pain, or with the pain we all feel looking at Lord Yaron. I wonder if he’ll ever forget what it felt like to flog the beloved Lord of our city.
Yaron sneers in disgust and turns away from the village. He starts towards my family. No, not them. He has eyes only for me and they are brutal slashes, everything about him untamed and scarier than my most vivid of nightmares and so utterly severe. I stand, surging away from my siblings and batting away Cyprus’s reaching hands. I walk towards Yaron, fingers clenched violently underneath my chin in prayer — prayers I’ve been making to the ancestors since the whip was first revealed.
We meet, coming within reach of one another, but his fists are clenched. He speaks low enough for me alone to hear — at least, he tries to, but I never hear what he says. I don’t stop walking and barrel straight into his chest.
A shocking puff of laughter leaves his lips as he canters back, clutching me to him — for balance or because he wants to, I’m not immediately sure. But then his hands form around my face and he moves my jaw so that I have to look up at him and his lips descend and he kisses me for everything I’m worth and I kiss him back with everything I’m worth and so much that I’m not. Deserving. I do not know what I deserve, because he makes me feel like I deserve…I deserve…to bask forever in his light.
He holds me beneath the bum, his large hand circling the underside of my thigh, his fingertips very close to the hole he tore in my pants earlier. His other hand slides around to grip the back of my neck. He clutches me to him like a lifeline, while my arms slide up his shoulders to carefully and lightly tug on the hairs at the nape of his neck.
His eyes close and the growl he releases is so beautiful. It’s all for me. I see him better now and know that he is dangerous because when he said that he would win me and I said he could not, he knew. He’s always two steps ahead. I might as well give him whatever he wants. To fight him is to lose. It’s just inevitable.
“Will you come with me or would you like to remain with your family?” he whispers and I feel immediately guilty. Does he really think I would not want to go with him after this? Or maybe, he just thinks I would never choose anyone over my family. And I…never thought I would.
“Do you want me to stay with you, my Lord?”
“I would not have asked if I did not.” He growls, “And don’t call me Lord, Kiandah.” Yaron is out of breath and his heart is pounding so hard I can feel it against my own breast. I try to disentangle myself from him, worry that I’m hurting him eclipsing my need to be close, but he only grips me tighter.
“Let me go to them, Yaron.”
Disappointment drags his shoulders down. A fleeting pain twists the expression on his face. “Of course. I will come find you after Okayo deems me fit to…” He starts to release me, but it’s my turn to grab him with the desperation of a drowning woman clinging to a flotation.
“No.” I shake my head, reach up, lightly brush my fingertips over the blood spatter on his cheek. “Not to leave you. Just to say bye to them and make sure they’re okay. Can you wait just a moment?”
He stares at my face, his eyes tracing its every curve. I would feel self-conscious if my body weren’t so warm and wanting. I feel arousal pool in my stomach and surge down, slickening my folds. Yaron grunts.
“I’ll only be a moment.”
“I don’t want to be parted from you for a moment,” he says, sounding strange. I’m worried and elated. He sounds so…soft.
I nod, tears wetting my eyes, desire, desire, desire beating me like a whip against flesh, only so much more damaging. “Whatever you want, my King.”
He hisses in a breath, sounding shocked. I smile a little and take him by the hand and we walk very slowly to where my family stands by the fountain. They rise, except for Audet, who sits crouched over her knees, looking so very small and scared in a way I’ve never seen her.
“I’m so sorry, Kia,” she sniffs as she takes my free hand. “I never thought you would get hurt when I suggested you leave the keep…”
“It’s alright…”
“And I’m sorry for how I’ve treated you. I…I’ll do better. And not just because you’ll be Lord Yaron’s Lady. I just…I’ve always envied you.”
“Envied me?” I say, feeling surprised by this revelation whispered by blubbering lips that are full and perfectly formed, just like the rest of my sister. She’s always been the beautiful one.
“You are always so happy. I just…never felt…never understood how. It was like you knew something — had something — I didn’t. I guess you always did. And now you definitely do. But I don’t…I’m just…I’ll work on it. I’m sorry, Kandia. I hope you know I do love you.”
I bend down, not releasing Yaron’s hand for a moment, even as I wrap my arms around Audet’s hunched shoulders. Against her pretty rush of curls, I tell her, “I will love you forever. No matter what. You’re my sister.”
She sniffles some more while I quickly give Cyprus and Zelie hugs. Owenna squeezes my shoulder and gives Yaron a funny look. My mother is crying. She’s fussing and telling me what a poor wife I am, asking my weakened husband to hobble around like this. Yaron’s puff of laughter reassures me and all of my soul because it sparks small smiles across all the members of my family. My father sticks out his hand to Yaron after giving me a hug.
Yaron takes it. My father pulls him in and Yaron, in a worrying display, stumbles. “I could not have parted with her for anyone more worthy. Thank you, my Lord. You do not understand the depth of my gratitude for what you’ve done for us.”
“Taken a few licks?” Yaron says, trying to joke, but it isn’t funny. He sounds downright pained.
My father does not rise to it, but releases Yaron’s hand and bows a little more deeply. “Lord Yaron, you gave us back our lives today. Now go, Kia, get the poor lad some medical attention.”
“Since Lord Yaron has cleared our names and we are in need of supplies,” Owenna announces slowly, “I will do some shopping here in the market. Do you think it acceptable for me to ask Lord Sipho to provide me an escort?” she asks Yaron. They exchange an even funnier look.
Lord Yaron nods. “You may.” And with that, she’s off. He turns to me, looping his arm over my shoulders. I say bye to my family and help him as best I can to the chariot.
It’s a surreal sensation, reentering the small, plush wagon. The sun is no longer shining, but it doesn’t matter. The whole world tastes of sunlight.
“You’re giving me a strange look, Kiandah. What are you thinking?”
I drop forward off of the bench across from Yaron and land on my knees. I place one of my hands atop his knee, and then the other. I spread his legs a little further and don’t miss the sharp way he hisses or the hard way he swallows. “I’m thinking that you’ve been a very, very, very good boy, Yaron.”