Just like in the piazza, the crowd bayed for blood, calling out their demands for penance and dues. Their voices were few, but enough…
Enough to set my teeth on edge.
The group she’d broken away from paid her no mind. Their bound hands were stretched out before them, knuckles touching in the centre of their loose circle. Eyes closed, they swayed in unison, whispering prayers through barely moving lips.
Her wail dulled to a sob, tied hands pawing at the window, as if she could claw herself free. Like the First, some part of me longed to take those hands and cradle them against my heart. To whisper into her hair that all would be well, that the sun would soon rise and chase out the dark. I yearned to tell her nothing but sweet lies and sweet nothings to quell the bitter pith of our truth. Just as I wished someone would do for me.
Padding to the window and ignoring the scoffs and sneers, I approached her from behind.
“Pay them no mind,” I said, placing a tentative hand over the top of her rattling shoulder. “What’s your name?”
She wrenched away, twisting from my touch to give Dendra her back.
I curled the offending hand into my stomach, startled by her speed. Two Ovidian eyes flickered beneath a black curtain of hair, fixed wholly on me.
“Forgive me,” I tried. “I only meant to offer some comfort.” Unmoving, those dark eyes flared with black fire, made hotter by the sheen of wet tears.
Sinking to my knees, I joined her on the floor. “Do not give them your tears,” I whispered, throwing a scathing glance of my own over my shoulder, to the paxiams and laurels alike. “Bawl into a pillow if you must.” I nudged one towards her, mercifully dry, unlike my own. “They will take everything regardless, but we must try to keep some things for ourselves.” I thought of Demetri, of his fingers inside me and his tongue in my mouth.
Take. Take. Take.
All they did was take. Yet they still weren’t done.
“Come, sit beside me.” I patted the space to my right. “Come and tell me something good, and I’ll tell you something in return,” I offered, words wobbling as I attempted to banish some tears of my own.
“No,” she replied with the conviction of a druid.
“Oh.”
“It forbidden.”
I cast my eyes down. Thromarrians were not to converse with heathens, and needless fraternising was subject to penance. But that was then, and this was now.
“It is of no consequence, is it?” I tried, fiddling with the buttons at my sleeves. My gaze drifted to her bare, pebbling arms, her dress devoid of sleeves entirely. But the rest of it… The fabrics permitted for heathen use were few, but I knew pits’ yarn when I saw it: fibres of coarse goat hair spun into uneven, open weaves. No seamstress worth her salt would work with it.
She cleared her throat, and I wrenched my eyes back to hers, chest flushing at the realisation she’d caught my appraisal.
“What’s your name?” I tried again, stilling my fingers.
Her eyes narrowed, but after a while, she said, “Esioul.”
“Es-i-oul…” I sounded it out slowly. “Esioul?”
She nodded.
“Ashara,” I offered back. “What does it mean?”
“Eh?” Her teeth bared, crinkling her straight nose.
“Your name,” I clarified. “It’s beautiful. Does it mean anything in your tongue?”
Eyes large as pits, they assessed me the way an innkeeper does the enclave drunk after all his drachmae is spent. I had the sudden urge to go sit in a corner. “I was named after the colour of ash,” I explained, wringing my hands. “Since I was born with grey hair.” I pointed to my scalp like a dolt.
Those inky orbs shifted, examining my hair. I ran a few fingers through it, trying to loosen the knots.
“No word in your tongue,” she divulged, voice serrated from screaming. Crossing her legs, her hands dropped to her lap, long fingers picking at the wayward hairs of her garment. Each nail was chipped and broken, the tips raw and red. “Brawler, maybe?” Her syllables were tight, far sharper than typical Thromarrian. I liked the way they pricked my ears.
“Do you meanwarrior?”
