The Monster's Lover Page 8

  Ma sighed, and her dress rustled. “You don’t honestly think she ate a deathcap?”

  Jael said nothing. I bit my lip, listening.

  “I mean, she does know what a deathcap is,” Ma insisted.

  “That’s my point,” Jael whispered. “What is she doing out there in the woods, all day, every day? Ma, what if she’s looking for a way out?”

  Ma made a strangled sort of protest, but Jael continued.

  “How would any of us feel, being sold like that? And to King Nøkkyn?” His voice lowered. “You’ve heard the stories about what he did to his wife.”

  “But...we’d all starve, if she...” Ma’s voice cut off.

  “That’s why I’m saying watch her. Keep her out of the stars-damned woods!”

  There was another choked little cry. It may have been a sob, muffled in cloth.

  “Egren and I will be back soon, Ma. And it’s not that long until the Harvest Festival.”

  Another deep sigh.

  “She’ll be warm in the castle,” Ma said. Her voice sounded pinched and thin, as though it were coming from very far away.

  “That she will,” Jael replied.

  I closed my eyes, blocking out the dying fire that flickered and surged with the color of Fenris’s hair. Deathcap mushrooms grew along the base of alder trees. They were quite innocuous looking, slender and white with delicate little caps. I’d known since I was a child to never even touch a deathcap. Half a dozen deathcaps would kill the strongest man, and just one would make you violently ill. Ill enough, I supposed, to make you stumble through the door smelling of vomit and collapse under the table.

  I was awake when Jael and Egren left for the Ironwood, but I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t want to meet Jael’s eyes. Instead, I lay under the table, trying to ignore the contradictory demands of my parched throat and full bladder as I remembered the tattered fragments of my troubled dreams. They were filled with deathcap mushrooms, the flicker of diffused light on the mossy forest floor, and the pale blue eyes of my lover.

  Only when the murmur of conversation through the open door fell silent and I heard the scrape of Ma dragging her lame leg to the herb garden, did I shake off my sleeping fur and crawl out from under the table. My head still throbbed, and my stomach felt raw and exposed. I walked to the well hunched over, wincing as my abdomen cramped, and probably looking like a crone doubled over from age. Or like someone recovering from a poisoning.

  I pulled up the wooden bucket and drank deeply of the cold, clear well water before going to the outhouse. Da had built our wooden outhouse to get the first light of the morning, and Ma always planted tall, fragrant flowers along its side. It was not unpleasant, and I enjoyed the privacy its rough walls afforded.

  When I stood to clean myself, the dried moss I wiped between my legs came away shiny with blood. I blinked several times as I stared at the handful of moss covered with my menstrual flow. It wasn’t a surprise; the moon was new, and my menses had arrived just on time.

  “This is good,” I whispered to the sun-dappled walls of the outhouse.

  If I’d arrived in Nøkkyn’s court pregnant, I’d hang, and my family would starve. I wouldn’t put it past the King to take back anything he paid for me if he discovered I’d been used before he had the chance.

  So, of course this was good. I carried no child. None of the seeds Fenris planted inside me had taken root.

  Still, something dark and dangerous wrapped itself around my heart, turning the emptiness of my womb into a kind of pain. I hadn’t dared to hope for a new life from our furtive lovemaking. Still, late at night and in the safety of my own sleeping furs, I sometimes imagined holding a baby. Taking something of Fenris with me to Nøkkyn’s castle and passing it off as the child of the King himself.

  “Stupid,” I muttered, shaking my head. A pregnancy would be ruinous right now, and I damn well knew it.

  I spent the rest of the day hunched over in the herb garden, cutting and tying bundles to hang from our rafters during the winter. My dark mood dogged me; every time I closed my eyes, I saw Fenris jumping back as my vomit splattered across his chest.

  Or I saw King Nøkkyn’s pale face and cruel eyes, mouthing the words the Reaping.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Sol, look at this!”

  I rubbed my eyes and rolled over, turning toward the open door of the cabin. I’d curled up close to the fire last night, pressing a warm stone against the cramps tearing through my gut. Ma had been uncommonly gentle with me, which increased both my guilt and my black mood, and I’d spent much of the night tossing in the darkness, listening to Ma’s snores as I tried not to count all the ways I’d betrayed and disappointed my family. Or the ways Nøkkyn could punish us all for my insolence.

  I squinted in the morning light. Ma leaned against the doorframe with something large and round in her hands.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Ma didn’t respond but, even from across the room, I could see her wide smile. She limped to the table and set the thing in her hands down. I stood, pulled the sleeping fur over my shoulders, and joined her.

  My mouth went dry. She’d placed a large, golden loaf of white bread on the table. Someone had taken a knife to its round, crisp surface and carved the shape of a heart.

  “Well, what in the Nine Realms do you make of this?” Ma asked.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “In the herb garden,” she said. “Just by the trail, near the basil.”

  Where I’d been working yesterday, I thought but did not say.

  “But, who could have brought it?” she asked.

  I turned away from the bread and stared at my mother. Her cheeks were flushed; the wide smile hadn’t left her lips.

  “I bet it was Dagnensen,” I said, as casually as I could manage.

  Dagnensen’s wife had passed last winter, and his next spouse had been a subject of much gossipy speculation at the last Midsummer’s Festival. I didn’t recall Ma’s name ever coming up, but it wouldn’t hurt to give her a reason to smile.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Well, who else could it be?” I asked feebly.

  The flush across her cheeks deepened. For a moment, I could almost see the girl she had once been when she and my father begged for their freedom and started a new life together in the shadows of the Ironwood forest. I turned away from the loaf of bread. Had Fenris carved the heart here, in our herb garden, just steps away from our cabin, where I tossed and turned in my fur?

  Ma ran her fingers over the heart, exactly as I had done to the rye loaf along the banks of the Lucky. Her eyes shone, and my empty stomach shifted. I shrugged out of the fur and pulled the door open, blinking at the looming darkness beneath the trees of the Ironwood.

  Did you get my message? Fenris had asked me, after I discovered the first loaf.

  I turned away from the forest, shaking my head.

  The apples behind our house were beginning to drop, so Ma and I spent the day collecting those ripe, round globes, slicing them thin, and stringing them up to dry. The house filled with their tang, and the sight of all the apple slices dangling before the fireplace brought back an unexpectedly sharp memory of Da lifting me on his shoulders when I was a child so I could reach a dried apple slice from the ceiling, then spinning and spinning me as I shrieked with joy, the apple slice clenched in my little fists.

  Our apple-strung hearth blurred as my eyes welled with tears, and I took a deep, jagged breath. Ma had insisted on splitting the bread loaf, so I’d eaten my share, although my gut still felt raw and uneasy. Now my half of the white bread sat in my stomach like a stone.

  Ma’s cool hand closed around my shoulder. I shrugged her off and walked away, opening the door and taking deep breaths of the cool evening air. It had been a warm day; it would have been a good day for swimming in the Lucky. Or meeting my lover along its mossy banks. Now it was over, and I’d done neither of those things.

  “Sol?” Ma said from behind me.


  I wiped my eyes. “I’m fine, Ma.”

  I heard the scrape of her leg across the floor as she backed away.

  THE NEXT MORNING DAWNED cool and gray, with a light drizzle that obscured the dark edge of the Ironwood. I spent the morning bent over in the dirt, pulling garlic. After the sun rose high enough to warm the air, Ma and I sat at the table and braided the thin, green stalks into ropes we’d hang over the rafters, allowing the fat garlic bulbs to dry in the smoke of our cabin. On a sudden impulse, I’d collected handfuls of strawflowers to weave into the garlic braids. The flowers dried so beautifully, and the house always seemed like it could use those little flashes of color.

  Ma sighed as she added a pink strawflower to her garlic braid. “I’d always thought I would make your bridal crown with strawflower,” she said, softly.

  My hand jerked. The garlic ends I’d been braiding unfurled, spilling purple and white strawflowers across the table. I met her eyes across the table; they were shiny with tears.

  “You’ll be all right, won’t you, Sol?” she asked.

  I bit my lip, unsure how to respond. My hands trembled so badly I couldn’t get the garlic stems to cooperate. Frustrated, I hid them in my lap instead.

  “You’ll have food in the castle. And you’ll be warm all winter long. Think of that, warm all winter, and you won’t even have to collect the firewood!” There was a sharp, jagged edge to her voice that made me think of those dark days just after Da died, when I’d sometimes woken in the night to find her talking to him. As though he could respond.

  “I’ll be fine,” I muttered. Anger flared in me like a wild beast thrashing at its bonds. “Maybe Nøkkyn will carve a heart in my bread,” I said bitterly.

  Her eyes widened, and I turned away.

  “Sol, listen,” Ma gasped.

  I heard it. A low rumble like thunder, growing in the distance. Only it didn’t stop.

  “Hooves,” I said.

  Fear ran through me like cold water. Only one man ever rode a horse this far into the Ironwood. The taxman, who came every year to inspect our purple oak harvest.

  The taxman and King Nøkkyn.

  “Sol, the dress,” Ma said, gesturing frantically to the chest huddled against the wall.

  “But, Ma, it can’t be. It’s not the Reaping!”

  She frowned and limped to the chest, throwing it open. I started to shake as she pulled my worn, everyday dress over my shoulders.

  “Twenty days,” I moaned, almost to myself. “I still have twenty days before the harvest!”

  “Hush,” Ma hissed.

  She tugged her green dress over my head and untied my simple braid, letting my hair fall across my shoulders. That dress was cold against my skin, and its plunging neckline made me feel naked and exposed.

  The hard stamp of hooves against the earth grew until it rattled the frame of our house. Men’s sharp voices filled the air as Ma ran her hands through my hair, trying to arrange it over my shoulders. Her breath was hot and frantic against my ear, a hushed murmur of barely comprehensible pleas to be quiet and cooperate.

  A sharp whinny pierced the air, and heavy feet hit the packed dirt of our dooryard. A moment later, the door to our cabin flew open. My body went cold. King Nøkkyn’s huge frame filled the entryway to our house.

  “Ugh, this place reeks of garlic.” His icy voice cut through all my protests, real and imagined. “Come outside, whore. I want to see you in the light.”

  I turned to Ma, frantic.

  “Go!” she whispered. “Sol, you must do whatever he tells you!”

  She wrapped her hands around my shoulders, turning me toward the door. My stomach knotted and cramped as I stepped across the lintel, still trembling.

  Two horses loomed above our herb garden, stamping and blowing in the mist. King Nøkkyn stood next to his great, black stallion, his reins clenched in his fist. Behind him, a young soldier wearing Nøkkyn’s snarling bear sigil watched us with a face as impassive as stone. I wondered at the soldier’s presence. Did Nøkkyn imagine I was going to put up a fight?

  Nøkkyn’s mouth curved into a thin, cruel smile as his small, dark eyes crawled along the exposed curve of my breasts.

  “Oh, very nice,” he said.

  “I-I’m not ready,” I stammered, staring at the churned mixture of mud and shit below his horse’s hooves. “It’s not the Harvest, yet.”

  His sharp laugh made me jump. “I’m not here to collect you, stupid little whore. I’m here to inspect the barges on the Körmt. I just wanted to test you out.”

  He swung up onto his horse while I frowned, trying to puzzle out the meaning of his words. “Stay here,” he barked at the soldier. “And you, whore. You come with me.”

  King Nøkkyn turned his horse toward the Ironwood and spurred it on, leaving our dooryard at a slow trot. I took an uncertain step after him.

  “You’ll have to go faster than that,” the soldier said, “if you don’t want to make him angry.”

  A jolt of fear shot through me, and I started to run after Nøkkyn’s black horse.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  That damned horse was fast.

  I had to run to keep up with it, even after Nøkkyn turned off the path and picked his way through the trees, seemingly at random. Fallen branches tore at the dress and snagged in my hair; my legs burned with effort. I had to hold the stupid skirt bunched in my hands as I forced my numb, exhausted legs forward, and I was only too aware of my own sweat soaking into the fabric of Ma’s only fancy dress.

  Despite the fire in my lungs and the slow cramp lancing my side as I ran, my mind spun with questions. What in the Nine Realms was Nøkkyn doing here? Did he want my maidenhead? My throat rasped as I sucked in breath. I’d distilled the beetroot juice, but the little clay bottle with its tight wooden stopper was still at home, nestled in a corner with the few other things I hoped to be allowed to carry to the castle. And I’d finished menstruating.

  How could I fake the blood of a lost maidenhead? I bit my own lip, wondering if I could draw enough blood to smear between my legs. My foot plummeted through the pine duff, and I pitched forward. I yelped as my knee connected with a rock.

  Far ahead of me, Nøkkyn’s stallion pranced and whirled around. King Nøkkyn trotted back as I pulled myself to my feet, trying to brush pine needles and black dirt off my dress. He made a disapproving sort of clucking noise in the back of his throat.

  “Clumsy,” Nøkkyn said. “Maybe you’re not worth what I’ll pay for you.”

  I ground my teeth together to bite back my response. Nøkkyn’s horse was moving again, so I doubted he would have heard it anyway. I balled my hands into fists and ran after him, trying to concentrate on finding my footing.

  After we’d run for so long that I began to worry my legs would collapse under me, the great horse stopped abruptly and spun on its hooves. I staggered to a halt behind it. My chest heaved, and my legs trembled; I barely noticed King Nøkkyn swing himself down from the saddle and tie his stallion to a tree trunk.

  He walked in a slow circle around me as I wiped sweat and hair from my eyes, trying to guess where we were. We’d stopped in a little clearing. Pale light filtered through the treetops, and I was glad for the light drizzle, although I suspected I’d soon be chilled. The Lucky clattered and hissed somewhere in the distance, reassuring me. If I followed the sound of that happy little river, I could always find my way home.

  Nøkkyn made another circle around me, coming closer. Almost close enough to touch. I was careful not to look him in the eye, as Ma had instructed, but I watched the progress of his shiny black boots as they crushed the ground beneath their hard soles.

  He grabbed my breast suddenly, without warning, and squeezed my nipple until I yelped. I glanced up at him long enough to catch his hard smile. His fingers moved up, tracing a cool line along my breastbone and around the nape of my neck.

  “You smell, little whore,” he said.

  Shame burned through me, followed by the heat of a
nger. He’d made me run after his horse like a slave. I opened my mouth to speak, thought better of it, and bit my lip again. Harder this time.

  His hand plunged into my hair, yanking my head back until I was forced to look at his self-satisfied smirk. He stepped closer, pressing his body against mine. I shuddered, trying to pull away. The hard leather of his breastplate scraped against the bare skin of my chest. His horse stomped the ground behind me, snorting hard.

  “Shy, are we?” His breath was hot against my cheek.

  He released me, and I stumbled back, still staring at the forest floor.

  Nøkkyn laughed. It was sharp and unpleasant. “Whore, I own you. There’s no point to shyness now.”

  He reached for me, his hands grasping the low neckline of the green dress. With a sickening rip, he pulled the front of the dress apart. I gasped, picturing Ma’s face, remembering how she used to take that dress from the chest sometimes and just hold it on her lap, stroking it like a small, beloved animal. Nøkkyn grunted as he yanked the dress down, revealing my breasts and stomach.

  “Now, that’s better,” he growled.

  Trembling with anger, I dared to meet his eyes. “That dress was my mother’s,” I hissed.

  Pain exploded in my cheek as my head rocked back. White stars danced across my vision. I blinked away tears as Nøkkyn cracked the knuckles on the hand he’d just used to slap me.

  “I can see you’ll need some training,” he said. “That’s good. I like the ones who need to learn their place.”

  Rage flooded my body. I thought of Ma and her one beautiful dress, of Jael and Egren, forced to cut the thrice-damned purple oaks deep in the Ironwood just to load the barges and line the coffers of this man. I thought of my own Da, his body horribly bent and twisted, his face already frozen a deep, violent shade of ultramarine as Jael pulled him from the darkness of the Ironwood.

  “I hate you,” I whispered.

  Nøkkyn raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that so?”

  He moved so quickly I didn’t have time to react. His right fist connected with my jaw, knocking me backward, and pain blossomed across my face. I cried out as I landed, hard, on a jagged rock. My mouth filled with the sting of blood. I tried to push myself up with my hands, and pain surged through the leg that had collided with the rock.