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I raised my head to drink, and a small trickle ran from the corner of my mouth.
“Yana, help her,” he snapped, and Yana moved so fast she was almost a blur.
Her nails dug into the back of my head as she held it upright, fingers quivering. I closed my eyes, trying to drink the tea without tasting it, but it left the aftertaste of dirt.
And the claws inside me faded away, the monster reduced to docility once more.
Father Borodin knelt by my bed, smiling at me. “Don’t fear, Salem. You will be made pure again, and we will finish what we started. Together we will purge this evil.”
The tea churned alarmingly, growing worse as the Father smoothed white strands of hair away from my face. His touch made my skin crawl.
Yana averted her eyes as he did this, her clasped hands white-knuckled. She looked like she was going to be sick.
Father Borodin rose to his feet, barely casting his daughter a glance. “Yana, do something about this mess.”
She nodded, lowering her head until he had passed. As his footsteps faded down the stairs, her gaze finally rose to mine. She no longer looked sick.
She looked like she shared my thoughts. Like she wanted to wrap her fingers around his throat and squeeze.
Somewhere in the fog created by the tea, I wondered what we could do together if all this hate were allowed to break free.
Chapter Three
In the church,no one would ever comment on how unnaturally fast my skin healed from the Father’s ministrations.
By the next morning, the open wounds were not just clotted, but covered with fresh, red skin. The pain had become nothing but faint twinges as I dressed, pulling on my pale white robes and a thick sky-blue veil over my face. Only my hands were exposed, the tattooed runes for purity and containment standing out stark and black.
I sat by the window for a long time, crumbling bits of bread and scattering them on the windowsill. My crow was there every morning, waiting for me. Today he strutted back and forth, and it gave me a little comfort to watch him eat as the sun rose. At least one of us was free to fly away.
Yana said nothing when I crept downstairs for breakfast. She churned the cauldron over the fire, as Ionna, her mother, sliced dense loaves of bread.
I was never expected to perform menial work in this household, one small fate I had been spared. Ionna and Yana did it all themselves, and I was meant to spend my days in prayer and supplication when I wasn’t eating the sins of our people.
It always felt uncomfortable to sit down at the table while Yana worked, her robes and veil already soaked with perspiration. She ladled up bowls of porridge, and when the Father, Augur, and Ionna sat, Yana was the last to sit.
Today there was no honey or cream for the porridge. Only a small clay bowl of coarse salt sat in the middle of the table.
It was the day of prayer.
“Dear Father, Our Lord,” Father Borodin intoned, and we all obediently inclined our heads as he invoked a prayer for purity and purpose.
The Augur ignored the salt, spooning gray porridge into his gummy mouth and leering at me across the table.
Thoughts I was forbidden to voice streaked through my mind like falling stars.
Why leer at me? Why do it at all when he could see nothing of me beneath the heavy layers of cloth? What could possibly be appealing about a woman draped to the point of suffocation?
Or… perhaps that cruelty was the point.
That he had the power to demand we do it, and we were powerless to resist.
I was not the only woman in this village with scars on my back from resistance.
Eating was cumbersome when I had to lift my veil just so, passing my spoon beneath it without allowing the sight of my impure face to put the men off their meal.
Another twist of the old bitterness rose in me, sharp as a snake’s fangs and ready to strike.
It grew and grew, until I was nearly choking on the thick porridge. Why should Yana have to eat beneath a veil soaked with the sweat of her labors? Why could we not just rip the damn things off, get up on the table and leer at the men whiletheyate—
