Chapter 58
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Knox
For the first time, I had no doubt Briar wasn’t lying to me. She couldn’t fake the devastation on her face. My heart ached for her, but I didn’t move to comfort her; it was too dangerous.
I’d kill her cunt of a mother one day. I truly would.
“When I was younger, I was told how we were divided into the two factions. One side wanted to worship the sun while the other preferred the moon. Before then, the casters were united, and one simply left the harem after their Needing and chose which god or goddess they would bind themselves to.”
“So, the harem has always existed,” I said.
“Yes, but at the start, they filled it with willing participants. After the split, day and night casters decided they needed a test to prove their loyalty to either the light or the dark by who raped those prisoners and who didn’t.
They created the harem system where they put their prisoners…
or at least that’s what they told me. But I guess that was all a lie too. ”
My jaw clenched at the reminder of that system. I knew it far too well.
Sadness filled her eyes. “It’s an awful system.”
I wasn’t going to get into that atrocity with her. “How could they tell if anyone had sex during their Needing? Or, at least, what did they tell you about how they would know if the day casters resisted?”
“They cast a spell that would let them know if the caster who entered remained virginal or not. Although I don’t think many who enter the harem are virgins. I doubt I’m the only one who didn’t follow our ways; I just got caught.”
“And did they cast this spell over you?”
“No, I was already publicly ruined. For me, it was more about what side I emerged on.”
“I see,” I murmured.
“I was given the birth control potion before entering the harem, and that was it.”
“You have a fucked-up system.”
“I didn’t create it and don’t approve of it, but I can’t stop it.”
“I can, and one day, I will.”
“I hope so.”
She stepped away from the tree and strolled over to one of the shelves. With the same reverence with which she touched the tree, her fingers trailed across the spines, and a small, delighted sound escaped her.
“They’re all divided into sections,” I told her. “Fantasies are on the second floor.”
She smiled over her shoulder at me before climbing the spiral staircase. By the time she made it to the second floor, she’d forgotten about the tree as she examined the books and pulled some of them from the shelves.
She read the plates at the top of the shelves, noted the genre, and either pulled more books or moved on.
Her arms were full by the time she made it to the third floor, where the tree’s branches hung over the balcony to create small hiding spots beneath its boughs.
She passed in and out of view as she moved amid the limbs.
There were also little outlets on the third and fourth floors, or reading nooks, as my mother called them. I’d sometimes find her in one of the alcoves, curled up on a settee or a chair while reading.
At other times, she’d take me to the library with her.
We’d spend hours hiding in one of the alcoves, reading whatever adventure we found for ourselves that day.
When I was little, I’d sit, nestled securely in her lap and enveloped in her peppermint scent.
To this day, that aroma was one of love and comfort for me.
Those instances only happened a couple of times a month, when she could slip away from her queenly duties, but I cherished them, even when I was older and running away to the forest or No Man’s Land.
While I was a disappointment to my father, I was my mother’s child…
a dreamer who loved to read and preferred my own company or hers.
I sometimes questioned why my father didn’t appreciate those qualities in me when he cherished them in my mother, but while he would never change a thing about her, he would have changed everything about me.
My mother was never disappointed in me and cherished our times together as much as I did. And to me, that was enough.
It was a devastating blow when I returned to Wildwood and discovered she was one of the cursed. While I hadn’t known how the rest of my family would react to my return from capture, or if they knew what happened to me, she would have welcomed me with open arms.
Instead, I never got the chance to see her again. I didn’t know if I ever would.
A clatter from above drew my attention as a book tumbled from Briar’s arms and hit the floor. She bent to pick up the one she’d dropped and set it on her growing stack. When she set the books on a table and pulled a ladder over to her, it rattled on its wheels before she started climbing.
When a branch brushed her head, she rested a hand against it and idly stroked the bark while perusing the books. She leaned too far out to examine more of the shelves, but she was too focused on the books to notice how precarious her position was.
Shaking my head, I ascended the stairs to her. When I arrived, her pile of books remained on the table, but the ladder was empty, and she was nowhere to be seen.