Behind her, one of her brothers let out a small, awkward laugh.
Something inside her pulled taut, too tight to breathe.
“Kaan,” her father said, stepping slightly forward, his voice tight. “Perhaps . . . a gentler tone. She’s still??—”
“She’s mine now, isn’t she?” the man interrupted, never taking his eyes off her. “I paid well enough. Didn’t I?”
Her father cleared his throat and rubbed his knuckles. “Well, yes, but??—”
“Then I’ll speak to her how I like. Break her in proper.” Kaan waved a dismissive hand without turning. “You got your coin. Now keep your pride out of it.”
Lyssena’s vision blurred at the edges. The sweat on her skin turned cold.
He was supposed to smile.
He was supposed to take her hand. To say her name with a kind voice, the way her family always had. Instead, he stepped closer, and Lyssena flinched.
At that, his grin stretched wider. “Scared already?”
She couldn’t breathe. Her eyes darted to her father, but he did not meet them. Her mother stared at the floor. All five of her brothers looked away.
Everyone had lied.
They had loved her, fed her, been kind to her, even as they prepared to sell her.
Those kind hands that once ruffled her hair were the same hands that handed the money and sold her like cattle.
She stepped back. Once. Then again. “You sold me,” she whispered, her voice barely a breath.
Kaan laughed. “Come now,” he said. “What good is a daughter if she can’t be turned into a bargain?”
And just like that, Lyssena understood that the gods had never listened.
The four great gods she had knelt before since childhood—Kalos, Leyeer, Jenar, Syvaar—they had turned their backs onher. Not when she shouted. Not when she sinned. But when she was quiet. When she was kind. When she begged.
When shenever lied.
Who did she belong to now?
Not her parents or brothers. Just her.
She took another step back until her spine met the wall behind her. The knight’s grin widened further, that cruel gleam in his eyes rooting her to the spot.
She shifted, slipped sideways, and turned, moving down the hall that led to her room.
There was no one left to help her. No gods left to pray to.
She was alone.
“Lyssena!” the knight’s voice barked behind her, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t turn.
There was one more god she could pray to.
Somewhere, deep inside her mind, she thought of the fifth candle. The one she had never dared to light. How do you pray to a god you do not know?
Please, she thought. You are my only chance. I beg you??—
Tears slipped down her cheeks, falling freely as her trembling fingers closed around the door handle.
