Anathema - The Song of Eloh Saga, Book 2

Anathema

Megg Jensen

Copyright 2011 by Megg Jensen

Published by 80 Pages, Inc

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are either products of the author’s
imagination or used factitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All
rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or
transmitted in any form by or any means, electronic or mechanical,
without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

1
^st
Edition: February 2011

2
^nd
Edition: April 2011

3
^rd
Edition: April 2012

4
^th
Edition: July 2012

Cover Design by Steven Novak

NovakIllustration.com

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Also by Megg Jensen

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The Song of Eloh Saga

The Initiate – a novelette

(Book One, The Song of Eloh Saga)

Cloud Prophet Trilogy

Anathema

(Book Two, The Song of Eloh Saga)

Oubliette

(Book Three, The Song of Eloh Saga)

Severed

(Book Four, The Song of Eloh Saga)

The Swarm Trilogy

Sleepers

(Book Five, The Song of Eloh Saga)

Afterlife

(Book Six, The Song of Eloh Saga)

The Sundering

(Book Seven, The Song of Eloh Saga)

To Tessa, thank you for planting the seed!

Chapter One

My fifteenth birthday. My greatest fear.
Funny how my life as a slave made the two synonymous. Even though I
wished I could sleep through the day, hoping such an act would make
the inevitable impossible, I woke up just like I did every morning.
But today was different.

It wasn’t the icy draft tickling my toes
under the mouse-nibbled blanket that roused me from sleep. Nor was
it the chatter of the thirty or so other female slaves, who shared
the sleeping chamber with me, prepping for their morning chores.
No, I woke up knowing something was quite wrong because I didn’t
hear my best friend’s snores. Like the other slaves, I shared a bed
and today Ivy was curiously silent.

Without lifting my cheek from the pillow, I
threw my left arm backward, reaching out for Ivy. Instead of
thumping her on the head, the pillow caught my hand. I rolled over,
expecting to see the sheets already tucked in, but instead I was
surprised by a rumpled mess.

Ivy wasn’t usually up first, but she always
made sure her side of the bed was neat if she was. Our overseer,
Ranee could punish us from across the room with just a flick her
wrist, leaving small welts on our backs if we didn’t keep our bunks
clean. One of the magically gifted, she kept us in line when our
masters weren’t around. Ranee loved thinking she was better than
the rest of us because she was gifted and we weren’t.

I glanced around the room, but didn’t see
Ivy. The other female slaves were getting dressed and shaving each
other’s heads, just like they did every morning, but still there
was no sign of her. Maybe she was up early getting a surprise ready
for my fifteenth birthday today, anything to mask the agony our
master had planned for me.

Eyeing the sheets, I sighed and reached down
to tuck them in. Making the bed was a task I hated and wasn’t very
good at. I grumbled under my breath as I yanked the sheets tight. A
small object flew through the air, landed on the floor with a
metallic ping and rolled under the bed.

I paused, my hands still grasping the edge
of the sheet. What was that? My heart pounded. The mysterious
object combined with Ivy’s absence caught me off guard. I had heard
the rumors. What slave hadn’t? It was the moment we longed for and
the moment we feared. My hands shook as I wondered if her early
exit this morning hadn’t been her idea.

“Reychel,” Ranee yelled from across the
room, “get that bed made quickly. They’re expecting you in the
kitchen. Take an example from Ivy and try getting up early for
once.”

I nodded, dropping to the
floor.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. It
couldn’t be,
I repeated to myself. I
reached under the bed, where my fingers bumped the rough edge of
the object. It was too thick to be currency, but too small to be a
button.

“It couldn’t be,” I whispered.

My fingertips tickled the edge of it and I
reached a little further until my fingernails scraped the top.

I dragged the metallic thing along the
floor, barely grasping it with my fingertips. I prayed to Eloh that
it wasn’t what I feared it was.

“What’s going on?” Ella, who slept in the
bed next to us, popped her head up off the pillow. I had thought
she was still asleep. “You drop something under the bed? Need help?
I’m a little smaller than you and can slide underneath.”

Normally Ella’s company would be a good
distraction in the morning, but the new girl was too eager to make
friends and today I didn’t want to deal with her. I shook my head,
hoping she would go away. Right now I needed to be alone. I slipped
the object closer until I could see my hand on the floor, peeking
out from under the bed. I palmed it before anyone, myself included,
could see what it was. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ella
inching closer.

“Ivy must have gotten up really early this
morning. I didn’t see her leave. Did you?” Ella glanced at Ivy’s
empty side of the bed.

I shook my head again, hoping Ella would get
the hint. Unfortunately nothing short of a rude comment would turn
the new slave girl away. Hoping there was nothing to hide, that the
metallic item I felt under my palm wasn’t anything more than a
piece of trash, I pulled my fist tight and stood up.

“What is it?” Ella asked, peering at my
hand. She reached out, but I jerked my hand away, hiding it behind
my back.

“Nothing.” I shrugged my shoulders, trying
to avoid looking concerned.

“Ivy’s up earlier than normal. You’re being
secretive.” Ella paused, her strawberry eyebrows arching. “It’s not
a token, or is it?”

“Shh.” I grabbed her by the arm with my free
hand. I glanced around the room, hoping no one heard her. Luci
yanked her dress over her head, wiggling to pull it over her
ever-widening hips. Geannie fought with Terah over an apron.
Everyone seemed enveloped in their own dramas, at least enough to
ignore mine.

I pulled Ella down on my bed next to me. We
sat quietly, both of us staring at my fist. My palm hurt as my
fingernails dug into my skin. I was afraid to open my hand. Maybe
if I squeezed hard enough it would disappear, just like the coins
Ian, my master’s servant and fool, would lose and magically find
behind someone’s ear.

“You need to look,” Ella said. She patted
the back of my hand. It didn’t reassure me.

But I knew she was right. If I sat here much
longer, Ranee would punish me. It wasn’t going to disappear, no
matter how much I willed it gone. I took a deep breath.

I opened my fist and looked at it. The
token. I held my breath and closed my eyes, not willing to believe
what lay in my hand, the emblem left behind every time a slave was
kidnapped. We didn’t know who or why but for years, intermittent
reports had popped up all over the kingdom of slaves disappearing
at all hours with only the token left behind.

There were rumors, of course. Some people
thought the Sons of Silence, a band of outlaws, kidnapped slaves
simply to anger the local authority. Others believed in the old
tales and prophesy of a savior freeing slaves until an army large
enough to overthrow the Malborn was built. While there were more
theories than kidnapped slaves, it hadn’t affected me. Until this
morning.

I glanced back at my palm. Even though I’d
only heard whispers about these coins, it couldn’t be more obvious
that this was exactly what everyone had been whispering about.
Round, rough, and metallic with an unmistakable word engraved on
one side: anathema. Flipping the coin, Ella and I examined the
engraving of a man and a woman holding a baby framed by the outline
of the island we lived on.

I traced my fingernail along the outline of
the infant’s face, wondering if my parents had ever held me in such
a loving embrace when I was a baby. Its head snuggled into its
mother’s shoulder and playfully rested one chubby foot on its
father’s arm. I smiled at the happy baby.

It winked at me.

I dropped the coin and watched it roll
across the wooden floor. I rubbed my eyes. Since when did inanimate
objects wink? Something had to be wrong with me.

“It must have been on the bed.” Ella
snatched the coin from the floor before it could roll away and held
it in her hand. “You know they always leave this token in place of
the slave they take.”

I stared at Ella. “Did you see that?”

“See what? What happened?” She cocked her
head to the side and examined the coin. “It’s just like everyone
says, isn’t it?”

“The baby,” I stammered, pointing at the
coin.

Ella squinted at the family.

“It’s supposed to be a girl,” she said.
“That’s what the old stories say, at least.”

I glanced back at the coin. The baby didn’t
wink. Its metallic eyes stared at its mother. Relieved that I was
just seeing things, probably just light glinting off of it, I took
the coin from Ella.

“Old stories,” I scoffed, “more like
children’s tales. It wasn’t long ago you were sitting at your
mother’s knee as she stuffed your head full of them. They are just
stories. There are no prophets, no secret groups, and no war to
come. Look around, Ella. This is our reality. Slavery to the
Malborn.”

Ella stiffened as she rose from my bed and I
felt my stomach sink to my knees. Why did I do that? I knew her
mother was dead, her father missing. It’s the reason she ended up a
slave. Like many other slaves, Ella had no one to speak for her, no
one to care for her. My parents died when I was a baby. I’d never
known a different life than the one I’d always led. Ella did. She
knew what it was like to be free.

“Either way, Ivy’s a lucky girl.” Ella
turned around to make her bed. “Wish I would have been kidnapped
instead of being sent here.”

“Don’t say that.” I stood up and put my hand
on her shoulder. “No one knows why slaves are being kidnapped. For
all you know, they could be selling Ivy to the tunnel diggers in
the south.”

“Ivy? With her body?” Ella laughed. “You
think someone kidnapped her to sell her to the mountaineers? Doubt
it. I suppose they’d be more likely to take you.” Ella glanced over
her shoulder, looking at me from head to toes. Her rude comment was
payback for mine.

I glanced down at my body. Maybe I wasn’t
curved like Ivy, but there wasn’t anything about me that suggested
I’d do well at hard labor either. My hands were calloused from
washing dishes, not smooth like Ivy’s. Buying food at the open-air
market outside the castle laid a nice tan on Ivy while my
confinement only accentuated my already pale skin. But kidnapped
for hard labor? I don’t think so.

I sighed, glad the awkward moment was over.
We were even. Maybe Ella had more fire inside her than I thought.
She was also forgiving. “The tunnel is being built by Emperor
Palen’s men. They wouldn’t kidnap slaves that already belong to the
empire.”

Ella tucked in the last corner of her sheet,
and then turned back to me, a smile on her face. She looked down at
my hand again.

I fingered the token, rolling it around in
my palm. I didn’t know what to make of Ivy’s disappearance. Did she
struggle? Wouldn’t I have felt it? If she left willingly, why did
she leave me behind? And who kidnapped her?

Another worry pushed through my already
crowded mind. If Kandek, our master, knew Ivy had been kidnapped
that famous temper of his would explode. Rulers didn’t take kindly
to escaped slaves, but kidnapped slaves were downright shameful.
Kidnapping signaled a collaboration, defenses being breached from
both the inside and out. Would he think I had something to do with
her disappearance?

Rubbing the stubble on my head with my empty
hand, I worried over my decision. Should I feign ignorance and hide
the token? Or tell the truth and be possibly punished for something
I didn’t do?