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Khala
Dawn came hard and fast.
Too fast. It always does on nights you wish would last forever.
"This is bullshit," I signed to Tyla. All right, not precisely that. The Silent Maiden's hand language didn't include a word for shit. Or bull, really. The literal translation was, 'male cattle feces.' Close enough.
Tyla grinned and signed back her agreement; gestures that loosely meant morning could go and fuck itself.
I started to laugh, but choked it back as one of the priestesses slid past the door on nearly soundless feet.
Geralda stopped to scowl at us. Her disapproving gaze lingered longer on me before she moved on.
When I first arrived in the Temple of the Goddess Breia, in Ebonfalls, I was terrified of her. We all were. For the first year.
After that, we realised her default facial expression was ‘recently sucked lemon’ and we learned to— Not ignore her, but we weren't as intimidated. Not of her glare anyway. She was quick to use the strap on any maiden if she caught us doing something she disapproved of.
Yes, I felt the sting of the leather often enough.
I pulled a face at Tyla and straightened my white, cotton dress. Not wanting to crumble the fabric by sitting down on my bed, I slipped my feet into white leather sandals and crouched carefully to tighten the straps.
"Do you think they'll let us wear another colour?" Tyla signed. "Once we leave here, I mean."
I straightened my slender silver choker, settling the amethyst pendant which dangled from the front of it, at my throat. The purple gem was the only colour we were allowed. We were never permitted to take it off.Couldn'ttake it off. There was no clasp. No beginning or end. The choker was wide enough to comfortably fit around my neck, but not over my head.
Some of the maidens referred to them as a collar. Others called it a noose.
I looked into the tiny mirror on the wall as I touched my choker with my fingertips. The amethyst winked at me in the light of the candle which burned on top of the dresser.
I turned back to Tyla. Like me, she was dressed from head to toe in white, her own choker around her slender throat. Where I had wheat-gold hair and blue eyes, she had dark hair and brown eyes like melted chocolate. Where my hair was straight, hers curled in soft waves.
"You want to dress all in purple?" I signed teasingly. "Or black?"
She shuddered. "Do I look like a Fae to you?"
I tilted my head this way and that and grinned before I was forced to dance away a couple of steps to avoid her swinging arm, aimed at me.
“You might,” I signed. I grinned and held up my hands to ward her off.
"If Geralda knew you said that, she'd make you walk all the way to Havenmoor. After she straps your ass so hard you cry." She picked up a brush and started to tug it through her hair.
I scoffed. I never cried from being strapped. Not even the time she did it in front of the whole temple, including my sister maidens. I didn't want to admit to myself that I enjoyed the way it felt. The pain made me feel alive, aroused. In the hands of one of the priests, one of the younger, handsome ones, the strap was far from a punishment.
Of course, I didn’t dare to mention that to anyone, not even Tyla. I didn’t want to know what the punishment would be for having those kinds of fucked up thoughts. It was wrong, but I kept it to myself. My personal shame.
"What colour do you want to wear then?" I picked up my own brush and attacked my tangles as best I could.
"I don't know," she admitted. "Something not white and something not black."
Signing awkwardly, with one hand curled around my hairbrush, I replied. "Grey?"
She responded with what I referred to as the maidens' laugh. Soft, low and restrained. That was all the laughter we could manage, as loud as any of us could get. We could cry, but we couldn't cryout. Couldn't shout, couldn't scream.
I eyed the amethyst again. I could do those things before the priestesses and a visiting Fae slipped the choker around my neck when I was eight years old. I barely remembered the ceremony, just the years that lurched along following that.
Chosen, they called us. Silent. I couldn't even shout out to my mother that I didn't want to be chosen anymore. I’d cried, but no words came. I had to learn to speak again, but this time with my hands. So I learned, but I chafed against this pretty cage that held us. I pushed all the limits as far as they might go, even if it meant wearing red weals on the backs of my thighs, the palms of my hands, my ass.
