Page 103 of Threaded
And there was Ciana, leaning against one of the pillars framing the foyer entryway still dressed in her stunning gown of crushed maroon velvet, her golden eyes roaring and raging like a lioness. Mariah could have sworn she saw the ends of Ciana’s hair lift as if on a phantom breeze, the whisper of a wind chasing through the room and across her own skin at the fury radiating off her friend.
Interesting.
Mariah held that golden stare, testing to see who would break first.
In the end, Mariah couldn’t stand the harshness of the other girl’s words, even if she was her closest friend.
“What if I mean it? You know it as well as I do, Cee—I don’tbelonghere. Nothing in this palace is for me. No one except you, Delaynie, and my Armature evenacceptme. Everyone stares at me like a whore, an outcast, a traitor, someone who stole a crown I never fuckingwanted. And the best part is that I amexactlywhat they say I am!” Mariah threw up her hands, taking a few paces closer to her golden-haired friend, Delaynie watching silently from where she still sat on a couch. “Do you know what that’s like? To bedespisedsimply because of who you are?”
“Yes.”
Ciana didn’t miss a beat when answering. The quickness of her response had Mariah blinking, taking a step back as if she’d been slapped.
Ciana heaved a sigh, hanging her head for a moment before lifting her chin proudly, meeting Mariah’s stare without a shred of doubt.
“I know exactly what it feels like to be hated because of who you are. I spent most of my life feeling that way. But because of you, I got out, and I refuse to let you run away. Because if you run, then I go back to where I came from, and I would soonerkillmyselfthen let that happen. Do you understand?” Ciana paused, her stare filled with burning intensity as she held Mariah’s gaze unflinchingly. “If you don’t wish to stay for you, or for this kingdom, or for the Goddess, then stay forme. Stay and fight so women like me can find the better future that I was able to find here, with you.”
All words were zapped from Mariah’s throat like a bolt of lightning. All she could do was stare at her best friend, her mouth gaping like a fish, as she processed Ciana’s words.
And the more she thought, the more her anger built again, this time like slow-moving lava instead of an icy maelstrom. Beside her, she felt Delaynie’s calm, gentle presence sidling closer, watching Mariah and Ciana with wary eyes.
“Ciana,” Mariah finally choked out, her voice raspy with her shock. “What happened to you?”
Ciana’s look of steely determination finally faltered, and behind that golden wall of resolve traces of pain flickered through. She drew in another shaky breath, her gaze darting from Mariah, to Delaynie, and back to Mariah, before she uncrossed her arms and nodded her head once.
“You’ll want to sit for this. And … we should probably get some wine.”
* * *
“Kasia, being as close as it is to Kreah, was always hot, and you needed money just to survive there.” Ciana’s voice was soft, uncharacteristically muted, pausing as she took a sip of the chilled red wine Mariah scrounged up. “Money was needed to build the houses with the best insulation, install the most innovativeallumecooling systems and fans, and, of course, pay for the necessities like water. Thankfully, my family had no shortage of money, and I never knew how deadly that heat really was.” She took another sip. “That is, until my father got sick, and then died when I’d barely turned eight years old. They said it was something that grew in him—in his heart or his lungs, I don’t remember—but it drained the life from him like a parasite until there was nothing left.
“My mother … she loved him, of that I have no doubt. But she’d always been a bit of an airhead, which was fitting considering the air magic that was exceedingly common in the men of her family. In most Kasian’s, in fact.” Another sip from her wine. “Mother’s family was also wealthy, just as Father and Father’s family had been. But … she hardly had any living family left; life was hard there on the cusp of the desert. And it was—is—even harder for a single, widowed woman who’d never worked a real day in her life, to continue to provide herself and her daughter with the lifestyle they’d always been accustomed to. So, the money soon ran out, and Mother was left with no other choice: she had to remarry.
“The man she married was from another excessively wealthy family in town, a widower whose first wife had passed away many years ago on the birthing bed. His riches were all that Mother cared about. And while he had money, he wasugly, in both personality and appearance.” Ciana stopped, a shadowed look crossing her expression. She drained the rest of her glass, and Mariah stood from where she leaned against the kitchen island to grab the bottle of wine. Her friend extended her arm, putting her empty glass within Mariah’s reach, and Mariah filled the glass back up to the brim before topping off her own. She offered some to Delaynie, but the auburn-haired girl simply shook her head once, her intense blue gaze fixed on Ciana.
Ciana took one more big swig before continuing.
“His sixteen-year-old son was just as ugly, in the exact same ways.”
Mariah’s blood ran cold at the hollow sound of Ciana’s voice, the distant look that filled her normally brilliant, shining golden eyes.
“I was ten when Mother moved us into that house with my new stepfather and stepbrother. Two new, strange men, who I was expected to now call family.”
Dread pooled under Mariah’s skin, awakening her magic in her belly. She forced the threads of light to stay beneath the surface; she had to know—neededto know—all of Ciana’s story, what had happened to her golden friend that made the mere thought of going home an impossibility.
Ciana cleared her throat before forging on.
“It started with just minor teasing: a pinch here, a flick there. Always in places where the tiny bruises that they left wouldn’t be seen by Mother or anyone else. Not that anyone was looking particularly closely.
“I complained once, just once, about the touches and marks on my skin. About how they stung, about how he washurtingme. But all Mother did was act like it was my fault, like I’d deserved it, that I had toplaynice. I was a girl, after all; nothing more than a burden to my mother, an extra mouth to feed. Girls are worth very little in a world where money and magic and power reign supreme. My accusations made Mother furious. ‘We owe them everything,’ she would say. ‘Be a good little girl for them, Ciana. Make Mommy proud.’”
Chills raked Mariah’s skin, and she was about to speak as she watched the first tear spill over Ciana’s eyes and onto her cheek, but her friend only took another swig of wine and kept going.
“It wasn’t long after that he began to visit me at night. He was seventeen; I was no older than eleven.”
Mariah thought she would be sick, and even Delaynie’s pale skin turned green as Ciana’s expression hardened into stone, her voice monotonous, as if reciting a memorized play or the instructions of a science experiment.
“He would tell me that we were just playing. That it was a silent game, and I had to stay quiet. ‘Our little secret,’ he would call it. And I played along, because I was a girl, and in this world—inmyworld—girls and women had no choice but to cope with the hand they’re dealt and do the best they can to stay alive.