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“Your meal, dashna,” the woman to his right says. Her long brunette hair hanging in braids over her shoulder. “You can eat it all here.”
The room is still watching me. What are they looking at? Why do they care what I eat?
Kane uses his fork to push my food back together. He leans into my ear, close enough so no one else can hear him.
“They don’t control you anymore, honey. Eat until you’re full.” He presses his lips to the side of my head, lingering there for a moment too long. The room jolts to life again. Silverware clanking together. Laughter. Happiness.
Kane’s words make me want to cry. The urge builds in the back of my throat. Stinging behind my eyes like I’m holding back a sea of trauma.
“Thank you,” I whisper before he pulls away. It’s been so automatic while I lived with Aurick. While I was being watched at the asylum. To show the world how much self-control I had. To show prying eyes that I didn’t need food to survive. Look how strong I am. I don’t need to eat. I can survive off of scraps. I am a woman.
But this place is different.
The Stormsages are eating together. The women are gobbling down their food like it may run out at any moment. And the men are beaming at them. How can people be so different? How can they live on the same continent and not share the same beliefs?
Kane nudges my plate to me with a knuckle and I don’t hold back my hunger. I hunch over my plate and begin scarfing it down without regret.
It’s invigorating. It’s stepping into the sun after being chained to the dark. It’s being pulled from the bottom of the ocean only moments before you drown.
And the hot, savory flavor of the roasted pig explodes in my mouth. Juicy, maple-glazed meat. I want to sing. I want to dance.
But instead, warm tears drip onto my plate. They’re pressurized behind my eyes as if someone has shaken up the carbonated bottle of my soul. The tears burst, free-falling without running a path down my cheeks. And the sound is deafening. Drip. Drip. Drip.
It’s an echo in the grand hall. A trumpet blasting my mental instability.
I swallow the meat and shove a spoonful of mashed potatoes seasoned with rosemary into my mouth.
Stop crying.
But it’s involuntary. A force far more powerful than my own restraint, like being saddled on a wild horse. I’m holding on for dear life.
A warm hand grips the back of my neck. Stroking up and down to show that he’s got me. He’s here. He’s not going to let me go.
And this small gesture has my heart in a steel choke hold. A quiet sob breaks away from my chest, from my mouthful of food.
And I hadn’t even noticed the room went quiet again until a pair of thin arms wrap around me from behind my chair. A chin resting on my shoulder. The soft motherly scent of cinnamon and roasted chestnuts.
“There you go, dashna. Let it go, now. Let it out, little babe.” Her maternal voice is soothing, like warm milk, like sitting in front of the fireplace on a winter’s night. And she holds me tightly, her soft hair against my cheek.
The gentle touch I never had from Violet. The love Scarlett never received from our mother.
The cry barrels out of me, breaking through my armor. Severing the walls I put up while maintaining a brave, unconquerable face in the asylum.
Kane’s hand is now latched on to my thigh, reminding me he isn’t going anywhere.
“I’m here now, dashna. I’m here,” the woman coos in my ear.
The grand hall is filled with my howls on this night. My agony breaking out of its leash, showing the Stormsages people my raw, battered innards.
And that cage I’ve been locked in starts to open.
~
“That was so embarrassing,” I confess to Kane.
We’re both turned away from the other, changing out of our winter gear.
Garanthian led us to our room after supper, graciously not mentioning my breakdown. The woman that held me while I cried, introduced herself as Asena. Married to Garanthian, also known as the white wolf queen. She laid out extra pelts of fur for us to sleep on, a nightgown, and a hot kettle of tea next to the fireplace.
