Hands.
Perhaps we were better off without them, for all the trouble they caused.
A twist of red robes and he was on me, his pallid face pressed to the bars. “Up, Laurel.”
I shook then, unable to stop the tears from spilling from my eyes, nor temper the sob from my throat.
“Fuck it,” a familiar voice cursed from the din.
Pietr’s head whipped left, his slender neck angled towards Demetri’s cell, to the source of the noise.
“Ashara, listen to me.” Demetri’s voice was clearer, louder, as if he’d pressed his face against the bars closest to where our cells conjoined. “It’s going to be alright. They’ll findnothing. Don’t look. Keep those eyes closed and don’t look. Don’t—”
Acolytes and monks pressed in from the shadows, yanking his bars open before tumbling into the cell. I was dragged, clutching at rancid straw as they hauled me along the floor.
Hands all over me, scuttling like ants.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
For if I didn’t look, I wouldn’t feel.
I wouldn’t feel.
I wouldn’t feel.
I wouldn’t feel.
From above, the owl wailed.
Chapter four
Ashara
The Reach of Atonement
The druids be a flaming sword, to bask the world in truths of our Lord and keep His mighty way. Through whip or knife oriron stake, each due is rendered for His sake. -3:33 - The Book of the Dendralis
“Untouched, but bruised tonsils,” a man affirmed, probably Pietr, his fingers retracting from my open mouth, forced wide by another. An acolyte? A monk? The Blood God Himself? Eyes shut, all their touches bled together like one monstrous appendage. The wooden table legs rattled with the throes of my body, every part of me shaking from the tips of my toes to the chattering of my jaw. Scrunched at the waist, no one had thought to tug my skirts down. I lay open to the room, knees wrenched apart and bound to the table’s edges with leather straps, just like my wrists.
“Twenty lashes?” Pietr again? Their voices congealed, monotonous and indecipherable.
“Five’s custom.”
“Not with the bruising. The male earnt himself another fifteen, what with his inability to observe silent reflection. It seems they both have trouble remembering what their mouths are actually for.” Their laughter rang hollow. A surge of something hot, shooting from my cheeks to my chest, stilled my trembling. Did they gaze upon me as they joked?
Don’t check. Don’t look.
“‘Tis confirmed she’s a laurel, not a cypress? Her hair be grey.” Something tugged at my scalp, a nameless hand threading through the strands.
“Unwed regardless,” another drawled with the cadence of a disappointed schoolmaster. “But indeed, a defect since birth. Scrolls state she’ll have seen twenty winters by the next phase.”
A tut.
“Careful what you call defect, Dominous. The Blood God maketh His creations as He sees fit, even if we struggle to comprehend why. Cursed be the ignorance of man.”
