Nobody's Goddess (21 page)

The lord loosened his grip on the tablecloth and picked up a napkin from beside his plate. “She means to let her retire from the dining hall for the night. And so shall I.” The napkin disappeared behind the curtain.

The specters swept into a state of activity, having regained their composure. As expected, one swooped down by his lord to pick up the fallen fork. The others stood in two facing lines, forming an enclosed path between the doorway and myself.

But I wasn’t satisfied.

“No, that’s not the full extent of my wishes,” I began, emphasizing each word with a strained attempt at Elfriede’s own pretense of innocent sweetness. “Let—”

The lord flew into motion, knocking his chair backward into the waiting arms of one of the specters. The curtain in front of him shook rapidly with the movement.

“Do not speak further!” he bellowed.

The words echoed in the cavernous dining hall and died only after a series of repetitions.

I could see the two black-leathered hands clench into fists below the surface of the fluttering curtain.

I clenched my own fists. “I don’t think you understand how this works—”

“Silence!”

“No! Who do you think you are? What do you think you’re supposed to mean to me? I don’t even know you. I don’t want to be here, and you’re expecting me to perform the Returning!”

The black fists pounded on the table. “Was it not
you
who first sought me out?”

I gestured at the ridiculously large, cold, and empty room around me. “Not for this! I never asked to be your goddess! I just wanted—” I bit my lip. There was never going to be any going back.

“You wished to free your friend so you could steal him from his goddess.” He made a gesture toward the line of specters, and the two closest appeared at my side, their hands wrapped tightly against my arms. “How unfortunate that I was unable to help you with such a generous act.” I struggled to break free, but I felt powerless in their tight grip.

The lord turned sharply. Before he took more than two steps, a series of specters appeared from the line, one to pick up his plate from the table and then one who fit the lord with his black veil and hat even as he walked. He appeared in mere moments from the side of the curtain.

“Come with me!” He exited the dining hall doorway.

The specters dragged me after him. I kicked and screamed, and, thinking of Alvilda, even tried to reach the specters’ hands in order to bite them. They dragged me forward without hesitation, and other specters broke from the line to open the doors for the lord.

“Stop!” I screamed.

The lord stopped.

“Let me—”

“Silence her!” he ordered before walking again, and one of my pale captors produced a black veil-like material and wrapped it over my mouth, tying it at the back of my head. My eyes welled with tears. But not from sadness. No, this was a rage I’d felt only once before.
He’s just like the men from my dream.

Staring straight ahead into the back of that black-veiled head was no different than staring right into the front. It made me realize that there was no loss of honor to stab this man in the back if need be. The thought gave me comfort, and I let the specters drag me, soon willing my feet to keep up with their pace so that they wouldn’t be so sore. But try as I might, I couldn’t quite match my pace with them or with the lord in front of me.

He led us through the main entryway and up a flight of stairs. From there, we marched down the long hallway that contained an empty set of guest rooms—one of which the lord had shown me earlier and told me would be mine, an opulent room that retained the chill of the castle air despite the tremendous fire in the fireplace and the bear-skin rug spread before it. I had spent the afternoon after the “tour” and lunch nestled deep within the fur, and still the chill sliced down inside of me.

As we passed a hall window, I noticed that the sun had set. The dull torchlight and the slit of a moonbeam were all there was to light the way. But the lord moved through the near-darkness unheeded, as comfortable navigating the twists and turns of the path before us as I had been in my own dark secret cavern. Only I at least knew a violet glow awaited me at the end of that journey. What would await me now? A prison? A shackle for my arms and legs to match the muzzle over my mouth?

The lord led us up another flight of stairs and across a hallway. My heart sank at my speculations nearly proven. This had not been on the “tour.” The specters had even blocked me from coming this far my first time to the third floor. The lord’s shoulders twitched as we passed the throne room, its doors opened, the room darkened. But I’d never been past this point.

At the end of that hallway—the coldest place yet in the castle, a blast of icy air blowing in from the few windows—stood two more specters, immobile before a large wooden door.

“Let us in!” barked the lord. One of the guards pulled a set of keys out from his front coat pocket and turned the lock. He stood back and both specters pushed open the thick, heavy door; even they strained to do so at their usual rapid pace.

This was it. I was to rot in his prison the rest of my days. Probably “graced” on occasion by a visit from the lord, asking me if I would like some more wine or venison or if I found the cell cold enough or if I was ready to break down and perform the Returning.

Or why I’d “mutilated” my ears.

The nausea that spread over me was met halfway with something deeper. A force of sheer will lent steadiness to my shaky legs. I could let him think he had broken me. I would let him remove the muzzle with his leathery fingers, and with all of my might, even if they proved to be the last words I ever spoke, I could tell the lord to climb up to the roof of the castle or the tallest mountain and to jump to his death. I let the words form on my trapped tongue, ready to pounce the moment he removed the muzzle.

And then the specters dragged me into the room after the lord. He stood in our way for a moment before shifting to the side and pointing to a bed. There, in the middle of the room under a thick quilt, lay my mother.

I tried to scream, but the veil muzzle gripped too hard against my tongue. Its movements were heavy and impeded.

“Do you understand now? Do you understand what I am to you?”

My eyes darted around the room. I did not understand. I didn’t understand at all.

My mother lay in a large wooden bed atop a plush mattress. Across her body, the thick quilt was tucked tightly below her neck and hid everything from view but her face. Aside from a roaring fire in the nearby stone fireplace, the room was empty. I wanted to know how she still remained visible after death and why he would have her.

She moved. I had to squeeze my eyes shut tightly for a moment to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. But there it was. Ever so slightly, the area of the quilt over her abdomen rose and fell.

She was alive.

The mother I thought dead months prior had been alive all this time.

But why? How? Why had we held mourning? And why was she sleeping? Why didn’t she wake after hearing all of the ruckus?

“Will you think twice about abusing your power now?”

My gaze shifted from my mother’s peaceful shape to the harsh, black-covered lord. He stood beside the bed, his elbows akimbo, his legs slightly parted. He awaited an answer.

I had more than a few choice words to give him, but I couldn’t speak. I did what I thought would rectify that situation and nodded.

My eyes still betrayed some of my intentions. The lord nodded, and one of the specters’ hands released its grip on my arm and removed the muzzle. However, he stood holding it beside my head, ready to slap it back on at a moment’s notice. And his other hand wouldn’t release his painful grasp.

I said nothing. Nothing was to be gained yet until I knew what was going on.

The lord had no qualms about filling the silence. “We should have had the Returning today. And the wedding. I would have let your father and sister come to see her.” He paused. “I gave you almost a year to get over that
boy
you thought you loved. But, as ever, you prove too stubborn.”

It was difficult to bite my tongue and not respond to his comment about Jurij. I forced myself to remain calm. “What’s going on? You said you wouldn’t help me.”

“I said I would do what I could.” The lord stirred slightly, seeming to fight something within himself. Then he relaxed. “Her survival was to be a Returning present.”

“What?” So much for calm.

The lord crossed both his arms tightly across his chest. “I would have told you, but only upon the Returning.”

“But since I refuse the Returning, why did you tell me anyway?”

“Because you have acted so imprudently. You are taken with the power you have over me!”

“The power
I
have over
you
?” I gave a pointed look first to one of my trapped arms and then to the other before glaring in the lord’s direction.

He must have nodded, if only slightly. His shiny metal hat tipped forward and caught a small sparkle from the firelight.

The specters released me but remained close. The one holding the muzzle tucked it into his front coat pocket. I had the feeling that even though they had set me free, it would take only a slight wave from the lord and I’d find myself ensnared again.

The lord’s voice was hard and cold. “You know of what I speak.”

I laughed. I was his goddess, but the thought didn’t make me rejoice at my power over the lord. It was a mere illusion, like the power of my choice.

My mother was alive and the lord had her in his grasp.

I crossed over to her and felt her cheek. Ice cold, like the rest of this dreaded castle. I wished against all hope that I could turn back time and listen to her and the other villagers. That I had never so much as looked at this place.

I ran a finger across her golden hairline, noticing the touches of gray that framed her face, and watched the barely noticeable twitch of her nose as it took in and let out the frigid air around us.

I faced the lord, one hand still resting atop my mother’s head. “How is she alive?”

The lord moved closer, the hollow echoes of his hard-tipped boots reverberating across the room. Without even thinking, I jumped up, sliding between the bed and the wall and clutching the headboard tightly with both hands. Although thin, the lord was more broad-shouldered than I. He wouldn’t be able to follow me.

He almost tried it regardless, but he paused and walked slowly in the other direction. He ran a black-gloved hand along the length of the quilt covering my mother and stood opposite me at the foot of the bed.

“I expected to be thanked,” he said.

Forget the lost blade Elgar. I wanted a few of my chisels and gouges. Perhaps I could carve him a new face so I could stop directing my anger at an empty black void.

“
Explain
,” I uttered slowly, “why my mother is here.”

“I had her brought here,” replied the lord, “after you asked for my help.”

So Father was right. He could have done something. But what had he done?

The specters snapped back into imitating statues.

He was careful with his words, this one, saying not a grain more than bidden. I had never seen a man not yet Returned so reluctant to obey his goddess. But he wasn’t like the other men at all; the power he went great lengths to hold over me was more than enough to prove that.

I couldn’t help but think the men I’d met in my dream were a warning, something my subconscious had picked up on the few times I’d met the lord.

The lord moved casually now toward the fireplace, the fingers on one hand running over the edges of the footboard.

“I would be careful,” he said before pausing. “Just how freely you use that power.”

He faced the fireplace now, folding his hands behind his back. One finger pointed outward briefly and the four specters flew in, two on each side of the bed. From their coat pockets, they each removed a small blade and held it out over my mother, ready to strike.

“No!” I screamed, my arms flinging forward, trying vainly through the holes in the headboard to block the nearest blades from my mother.

The lord stepped to my side at the edge of the headboard. He flicked his hand, and the specters put their blades back into their inner coat pockets. They remained hovering over her.

I fumed. “Don’t hurt her!”

The lord shrugged. “I am not hurting her.”

I pointed at the specters. “Don’t let
them
hurt her.”

“All right.” He waved his hand.

The specters retreated through the doorway. Six more specters marched in. They were all so similar in appearance and in gait that I had yet to put my finger on whether they were identical or merely brethren.

The six shuffled in on either side of the bed, and each removed a blade from his inner coat pocket.

“Stop!” I yelled.

The lord tensed and didn’t move, but the specters stirred just a little, glancing first at me and then at the lord. After a moment, the lord moved closer, running his hands slowly over the top of the headboard, almost within reach of me.