Chapter 11 #2
Pressing her bound wrists to the pane, she flattened her nose against the glass, gazing out into the dark.
I returned to my nest, scrunching my eyes and begging for sleep to claim me once more.
They snapped open not a heartbeat later.
From the window came a sound that set every hair on end, something borne from the chest, like a wolf’s howl, its raw note looping around the circular walls and rattling my bones.
Rising, my gaze locked onto the heathen whose face was smushed to the glass. Her mouth widened in the midst of a guttural scream, the type that hollowed you out from within: a warbling, deep undulation reverberating off the pane.
She slid to the floor and buckled at the waist, black hair cascading over her back.
“Bind its mouth, not its wrists!”
“Paxiam, stick a spear in its throat.”
Just like in the piazza, the crowd bayed for blood, calling out their demands for penance and dues. Their voices were few, but enough…
Enough to set my teeth on edge.
The group she’d broken away from paid her no mind. Their bound hands were stretched out before them, knuckles touching in the centre of their loose circle. Eyes closed, they swayed in unison, whispering prayers through barely moving lips.
Her wail dulled to a sob, tied hands pawing at the window, as if she could claw herself free.
Like the First, some part of me longed to take those hands and cradle them against my heart.
To whisper into her hair that all would be well, that the sun would soon rise and chase out the dark.
I yearned to tell her nothing but sweet lies and sweet nothings to quell the bitter pith of our truth.
Just as I wished someone would do for me.
Padding to the window and ignoring the scoffs and sneers, I approached her from behind.
“Pay them no mind,” I said, placing a tentative hand over the top of her rattling shoulder. “What’s your name?”
She wrenched away, twisting from my touch to give Dendra her back.
I curled the offending hand into my stomach, startled by her speed. Two Ovidian eyes flickered beneath a black curtain of hair, fixed wholly on me.
“Forgive me,” I tried. “I only meant to offer some comfort.” Unmoving, those dark eyes flared with black fire, made hotter by the sheen of wet tears.
Sinking to my knees, I joined her on the floor.
“Do not give them your tears,” I whispered, throwing a scathing glance of my own over my shoulder, to the paxiams and laurels alike.
“Bawl into a pillow if you must.” I nudged one towards her, mercifully dry, unlike my own.
“They will take everything regardless, but we must try to keep some things for ourselves.” I thought of Demetri, of his fingers inside me and his tongue in my mouth.
Take. Take. Take.
All they did was take. Yet they still weren’t done.
“Come, sit beside me.” I patted the space to my right. “Come and tell me something good, and I’ll tell you something in return,” I offered, words wobbling as I attempted to banish some tears of my own.
“No,” she replied with the conviction of a druid.
“Oh.”
“It forbidden.”
I cast my eyes down. Thromarrians were not to converse with heathens, and needless fraternising was subject to penance. But that was then, and this was now.
“It is of no consequence, is it?” I tried, fiddling with the buttons at my sleeves.
My gaze drifted to her bare, pebbling arms, her dress devoid of sleeves entirely.
But the rest of it… The fabrics permitted for heathen use were few, but I knew pits’ yarn when I saw it: fibres of coarse goat hair spun into uneven, open weaves.
No seamstress worth her salt would work with it.
She cleared her throat, and I wrenched my eyes back to hers, chest flushing at the realisation she’d caught my appraisal.
“What’s your name?” I tried again, stilling my fingers.
Her eyes narrowed, but after a while, she said, “Esioul.”
“Es-i-oul…” I sounded it out slowly. “Esioul?”
She nodded.
“Ashara,” I offered back. “What does it mean?”
“Eh?” Her teeth bared, crinkling her straight nose.
“Your name,” I clarified. “It’s beautiful. Does it mean anything in your tongue?”
Eyes large as pits, they assessed me the way an innkeeper does the enclave drunk after all his drachmae is spent. I had the sudden urge to go sit in a corner. “I was named after the colour of ash,” I explained, wringing my hands. “Since I was born with grey hair.” I pointed to my scalp like a dolt.
Those inky orbs shifted, examining my hair. I ran a few fingers through it, trying to loosen the knots.
“No word in your tongue,” she divulged, voice serrated from screaming.
Crossing her legs, her hands dropped to her lap, long fingers picking at the wayward hairs of her garment.
Each nail was chipped and broken, the tips raw and red.
“Brawler, maybe?” Her syllables were tight, far sharper than typical Thromarrian. I liked the way they pricked my ears.
“Do you mean warrior?”
“Yes.” Head jerking, she thumped two bound fists to her chest. “I fight my whole life.” Angular shoulders squaring, the goats hair draped from them like the finest of silks.
“I believe that,” I admitted, smiling despite myself. “I am no warrior, just a seamstress.” I motioned to my bodice, the white now stained with small dots of cherry wine.
Esioul mimicked the gesture, eying her own. “The goats make mine.”
“It’s…” Whatever it was, I hadn’t the nerve to say.
Her answering scoff was deserved.
“Itches like flea,” she spat, clawing at her skirts to reveal pink, irritated calves. “Stinks of dung and death.”
“I’m sorry,” I breathed, the words tasting like nothing.
“Sorry?”
“Yes, sorry. I am. Truly.” Suddenly, it wasn’t Esioul before me, her dark hair morphing to a mess of warm curls whilst her midnight eyes turned the colour of bark. “Sorry for all the spite. Sorry for what you’ve endured. Sorry we both must die.”
She leant forward, knobbly knees indenting the cushions and crawled towards me. I did my best not to wince at the stench of the pits’ yarn, its taint overwhelming the cling of cherry wine and sweat. A hair’s width away, her black eyes bored into me, holding me rapt.
“You no understand.” She spoke slowly, each word pressed through her teeth.
“I cry not because we die, tusu morōs. I cry because happy.” Her lips spread like oil in water, curving into a grin.
“Soon, I will see them…mea oíkos. I will see them in place of honey and milk, where we use bones of druid to pick at our teeth.”
I jumped as she threw back her head, a raucous laugh erupting from her still-smiling mouth, rebounding off glass and rock to circle our heads. It was a wild, abandoned thing, sending my heart racing.
“Tusu apomor imni! Tusu apomor imni!” she shrieked between bouts of hysterics, shoulders shaking so hard they could shatter.
I desired two things: to either scramble into a shadowy alcove and hide my face until dawn or join her.
But the paxiams gave me no chance to do either. Spears thrust to her neck, they barked orders at her to seal her lips, cease this madness, be silent and good and return back to her flock.
But Esioul kept laughing, and laughing, and laughing.
She laughed when they dragged her away, her smile pulled tight, even as they hauled her through the doors by her long, black hair.
And for a moment, just a moment, I laughed, too.