Page 171 of Anathema
Tears streamed down my cheeks as she told me her story. Although I didn’t have the power to absorb pain and suffering, like Rykaia, I felt her anguish pulsing through me in the tremble of her muscles, the tightness of her clutch, and the suffering of every word. I held her through the tears–the hot, angry tears, and the quietly soft ones too.
When she finally loosened her grip, she sat back, her eyes red and lost, as if she were trapped in another time. “It was Branimir who kept them from hurting me, too. They tore away my clothes, and they promised worse than what my mother suffered.” She spoke in a flat tone, as if relaying someone else’s experience. Completely devoid of emotion. “Have you ever been afraid of monsters?”
“Sometimes, yes.”
“I had no idea the kind of monster that lived inside my brother, until I watched him and his spiders feast on those soldiers alive.”
My blood turned cold. “He consumed them? Alive?”
“He made sport of it first. His … creatures formed webs around them so there was no escape. It was well into the night by the time the last one stopped screaming. There was so much blood. Rivers of blood that crawled toward me as I lay hidden beneath the bed. I don’t want to fear my brother, but … what he did was–”
“Terrible and frightening.” I squeezed her hand, emphasizing my point. “But what they had planned for you was so much worse. He protected you, Rykaia.”
“At what cost?” Lips quivering, she shook her head, and I realized her torment was thinking she’d turned him into what he was. “I avoided touching him afterward because I knew there was nothing there to absorb. An empty shell whose insides had turned to rot. Because of me.”
“Not because of you. And there’s still something good in Branimir.”
She stared off for a moment and wiped at her eyes again. “As I understand, it was a Solassion who won the tournament. A soldier who’ll take Calisza’s innocence at the ceremony.” Wincing, she shook her head. “Perhaps that’s why Zevander felt the need to keep me away, but he doesn’t understand. He’s never known the feeling of being in a room full of complete strangers who are all imagining you entangled with some beastly creature that happened to win the right. It’s terrifying and lonely and Calisza doesn’t have a mother to calm her. She has nothing but the men who are relying on her to fulfill her duty without question.” Her brow twitched as if she might break into more tears. “I’m well acquainted with the brutal nature of Solassion soldiers. They’ll carouse and laugh, like everything is sport. They’ll be far gentler and respectful than they were with my mother, of course, but in the end, they’ll still take.” She paused for a moment, brows pinched to a frown. “You asked why it’s so important for me to be there. This is why. I want her to know I’m there and that she’s not alone. But I don’t want to go alone, either.”
I pushed to my feet, my head wound up chaos as I sat back in the chair across from her. In the silence, I felt her rest her hand atop of mine and I turned to see her eyes brimming with tears again.
“I promise. I’ll take you to the woods after.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
MAEVYTH
Rykaia clipped the silver chain to my neck, letting the cold metal rest against my spine where it reached to the center of my back. “Dear gods, Maeve. You better pray my brother doesn’t see you …. This ….” She lifted the scorpion charm and let it fall against my back again, reminding me of its presence. “Well, I’ll just apologize now for any indecency on his part.”
I stared at myself in her mirror, the black roses etched in gorgeous, silk jacquard, the bodice cinched at the waist. Off-the-shoulder sleeves elegantly framed my collarbone and shoulders, cut low enough that the whole of my back was left exposed. “You’re sure this isn’t too much? I feel like I’m hardly dressed.”
“That’s the point!” Rykaia stood beside me in her blood-red gown, the bust of which was cut just as low, but at least her sleeves covered her shoulders. Regardless, Rykaia looked effortlessly stunning, as usual. “You look good enough to eat.”
Pulling my hair to the side, I turned to see if I could get a glimpse of the glyph that’d glowed when I’d taken a bath. Only bare skin, from what I could make out.
“What is it?” Rykaia tipped her head, staring back at me in the mirror.
“There was something on my left shoulder I noticed while taking a bath.” I awkwardly pointed to where I’d seen it. “It looked like a glyph, the way it glowed.”
“Your sigil.”
“Sigil?”
“The symbol of your bloodline. It can be anywhere on the body. Mine is at my ribcage, but also at the nape of my neck.” She dragged her hair to the side, rubbing her finger over the spot.
“Why would it have glowed the way it did?”
Shrugging, she turned toward her bed and lifted a silver and black jeweled mask with glittering black wings that faced downward. “Mine glows when the moon hits it. Or when I’m mad, or scared. Or uncomfortable. You say you were in the bath when it happened? Do you recall any particular thoughts you were having at the time?”
My cheeks burned at the memory of fantasizing Zevander’s hands and lips on my skin. “Nothing unusual.”
“Maybe the heat of the water, then.” When she placed the mask on my face, the wings covered my eyes and stuck outward at either side of my head, but I could still see out. The jeweled thorax of the insect covered the bridge of my nose, and its antennae pointed upward like two crooked horns.
“What is this?” I ran my fingers over the horns that stood above my head.
“This is the grotesque representation of the cicada who climbed out of the underworld with a message for the stag, convincing him to rape the Goddess of Fertility.”
“Why on earth would I ever dream of representing that?”