Daughter of the Marmaros
shayna grissom
Published by shayna grissom, 2020.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
DAUGHTER OF THE MARMAROS
First edition. July 15, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 shayna grissom.
Written by shayna grissom.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By shayna grissom
Dedication
Part One | Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Part Two | Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part Three | Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
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Also By shayna grissom
I'd like to thank my husband for pushing my writing career further. I wouldn't be here without him.
Part One
Chapter One
Bernadette flexed her fingers against the morning cold. It was always a challenge to get moving in the morning chill and a pain to which she had never grown accustomed. It didn’t help that the Mármaros was made entirely of frigid marble. Bernadette’s bedroom was in the tallest tower facing the ocean and, despite its height and proximity to the sun, the greedy roseate absorbed most of the heat and spared nothing for its people.
There was a knock at the door, and a jungle boy with sandy hair entered the turret room with fluid strides. He gave a wave but did not attempt to use his mouth. Bernadette couldn’t help but notice the plum-colored marks on his skin. What had he done to merit such a punishment?
His clothing was as finely loomed as her own, but the jungle people used berry juice to stain their fabrics, creating vibrant colors that her people found distasteful. This boy wore green pants and an ivory tunic, probably as an effort to conform after being so severely punished.
“Good morning,” she said.
The servant drew back the cream-colored muslin curtains that sprawled across the floor and began making her bed. The sheets fluttered as the boy flicked his arms. The soft, white linens snapped in the air before floating back to the plain, frameless bed. Bernadette watched the servant in the mirror and envied his agility. The servants could dance on their toes and swim in deep water. Bernadette often daydreamed about what it would be like to swim, to be weightless and floating.
“Those markings,” Bernadette said. “Were you punished again?”
He looked at his wrists and nodded. He used his hands to explain that he was cuffed before lifting his shirt to show Bernadette the red lines along his back. He was whipped for something.
Bernadette winced as she looked away. It was the way her people taught the servants, though she didn’t particularly care for it.
“Who punished you?”
He shook his head. Her servant wouldn’t tell her, likely fearing retaliation. Bernadette would know who did it and make sure they understood that her servants were not to be beaten. The people of the Mármaros were people of restraint and patience. Corporal punishment should be contradictory to their very nature.
“Out with it,” she said.
The boy pretended he couldn’t hear her. She supposed she would need to find answers on her own. He was cheeky but she forgave him—she would have behaved the same way if she did not speak. Bernadette would be the worst servant ever conceived. Her people would find her so useless they would toss her back into the wilderness with the wild jungle people.
“I’m going to find out,” Bernadette promised. “I should beat them with a whip if only they were capable of feeling.”
The boy tilted his head and observed her for a moment. It felt as though at any moment he would open his mouth and speak, but Bernadette had to remind herself that was impossible. Instead, he gave her a queer, closed-lip smile that made her wonder. He strode to her door and opened it, gesturing outside the door with a curved hand.
“It’s time, I know,” she said. “I just need to do my hair.”
He sighed and stood behind Bernadette to look at her in the mirror. Her pale locks hung around like ropes, and she looked to the servant. “I’m open to suggestions.”
The servant piled the locks on her head. She grimaced. “I don’t want to look like an old woman.” It was customary for the women of the Mármaros to wear their locks up with ornate designs. Perhaps on this day of days, it would serve her better to look the part of a mature woman, but it just wasn’t her.
The servant let go of her locks and they swung around like uncurling yellow snakes about her body.
She shook her head. “But this is too young.”
The servant gave a knowing smile, raked his fingers through her locks, and tied half of them back. He then created thick, braided ropes and created a sort of halo in the back of her head.
Bernadette turned her head from one side to another in appraisal. “It’s like the style your women wear,” she said. The council would see it as an act of defiance on behalf of the servants. “I think it’s perfect.”
The servant returned to the door and once again beckoned her to leave. Bernadette couldn’t help but feel as though she had forgotten something. It was too important of a day to leave things in her bedroom. She motioned for him to wait while she checked the contents of her beaded purse. There was nothing in the purse that she needed, but she looked anyway. Perhaps there would be a way out in the bottom of that purse, though Bernadette doubted it.
The boy was stomping his feet and pointing out the door.
“All right, all right.”
One final check in the mirror and she would get out the door. Her servant threw a tantrum at the door, waving and gesturing with annoyance, but Bernadette needed to make sure everything was in place. Her eyes darted around the mirror, distracted by the servant that stood behind her.
“Remind me never to wear green,” she told him.
The servant rolled his eyes and took out a pair of armadillo husked shoes from the tallboy. They were enormous and terrible to walk in, but she enjoyed them. They were a symbol of her status, much like the tower in which she resided. She needed to feel tall today.
Bernadette went back to her vanity to get one last look. She also required her white lace shawl and her handbag which had biscuits to snack on in case the council kept her waiting too long. She thought about taking a book along as well, but the servant was now swinging his arms at the door and pleading with his eyes. If she was late, they might punish him for it.
At the base of the stairs, swirling runes with geometric patterns etched into an elaborate design were carved into each side of the marble wall. Bernadette found them fascinating and always traced the runes, though she did not know what they meant. She found no explanation in the library, and none of her people seem to remember.
Her servant motioned to the door quickly, urging her to hurry. He never walked in armadillo heels, however.
“I am coming!”
Hand in hand, they rounded the spiral staircase and to the base of the Mármaros, careful to not tangle her floor-sweeping lace white gown around her shoes. Servants were cleaning and polishing the marble and wooden doors. The vaulted ceilings gave the illusion of freedom, but Bernadette knew better.
Her kind could be seen moving at half the speed as the servants. Their marble bodies came in all different colors. Myths had it that the first man and woman were born of the marble itself. The son and daughter of the Mármaros carved the stone into the great castle for all their children to reside.
Bernadette spent far too much time in the library among myths and sciences and saw nothing that confirmed the legends of their origins. It didn’t matter if it was true or not—her people believed regardless. They were people of tradition and structure, stability, and strength, attributes Bernadette did not usually possess. Her mother said she would grow into it, but would she?
She waved off the servant before entering the council room. He lingered around the corner for several moments before disappearing. Her people punished the servants for showing affection, but Bernadette was ever so grateful. It was how her people guided them to be better, stronger people, but it never felt that way.
The furnishings were all warm-hued wood except for the high councilman’s chair, carved from the Mármaros itself. Cutouts in the walls served for lighting during the day, and on a morning like this, the light came in rays. Linen tapestries hanging on wood dowels across the ceiling blocked the light. The servants moved the tapestries with rod-iron hooks to the most advantageous places before the council meeting had even begun.
A massive blush chair with a half-foot-wide vein of white down the middle stood at the head of the table. It was carved from a great stalagmite at the edge of the room and the table stood between Bernadette and Thius, who was now seated at the high councilman’s chair. With high councilor Stevis out of the way, Thius must have made his move. His head was half-shaved, save the braid of locks down the center. His marble was pale grey with subtle light blue veins.
“Thank you for joining us this morning,” Thius said with a bow. Bernadette clicked her tongue in her mouth but said nothing.
Thius’s movements were still somewhat fluid, which meant he was still young compared to the rest of the council. He was perhaps the youngest person in the Mármaros next to her, but they had nothing in common. “You’ve moved up in chairs,” she said, nodding at the high council chair.
He looked around at the council, gauging their expressions before answering. None gave any feeling. They were too old to exert energy to move or perhaps no longer cared.
He gave a shrugging smile and said, “Yes, I was voted in after Stevis retired to the catacombs.”
High councilor Stevis was the one she was supposed to mate. Not only did she have no interest in being with a man of that age, but she also did not wish to go down to the catacombs and mate with a man among the dead. She didn’t think the council would be so morbid. She had read a book that suggested that her kind never died; they were just unable to move. They remained trapped in their marbled bodies forever. The very thought made her shudder.
Forcing away the thought, she asked, “What has the council decided?”
“All councilmembers came to the same conclusion. While it is customary for a girl of birthing age to reproduce with the eldest member of the tribe, we have decided against it,” Thius boomed as if signaling to the council to give a response.
The councilmembers gave nods and words of agreement. She had to admit, she was relieved by the decision. As the only female able to produce children, it shouldn’t have mattered who the father was, but the tension in her chest eased all the same. “I do not oppose the council’s decree.”
Thius chuckled. “We didn’t think you would. The eldest member of our tribe is the eldest member of our people in history. He is waiting in the tomb of our ancestors for his end. It would be inappropriate to try a coupling with a man on his deathbed. But instead of breaking tradition, we will wait until his passing to which you will then mate with another councilman.”
Bernadette assumed that the next in line would be the large black-skinned man with subtle gold veins and a shaved head. He was the second eldest next to Stevis. She didn’t know much about him, but he was politer to her than most. With Thius now in full control of the council, she wondered if that would still be the case.
“Will that be councilmember Xavier?” she asked, but Xavier wouldn’t look at her. She felt a cold front wash over her. It seemed Bernadette had her answer.
“We have looked into the situation,” Thius said. “We have consulted the forbidden texts and theorized that the reason so many births have been unsuccessful is not due to the females, but rather the males.”
Bernadette’s stomach turned. She knew he was reaching for the position, but Bernadette didn't think anyone would give it to him. It shouldn’t have mattered, but she didn’t like This and never had. Bernadette didn’t mean to be selfish or petty, but she always assumed she would mate with a councilmember she trusted and had at least some rapport. The word scheming came to mind when she thought of Thius. Even if his words made sense, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he imagined mating with her in the room at that very moment.
She had read enough to know that mating was an intimate affair. There were rumors that Thius had his way with some of the female servants, but none could speak of it. Bernadette lectured herself on her stupidity and focused on the situation before her, but it took considerable effort not to reveal her true feelings.
“So, am I to understand that the males were too old to produce proper offspring and that our women died attempting to birth them?” Bernadette kept her clenched fists behind her back. How many women had been lost over such ignorance? They only stopped to question their logic when only one woman was left to procreate.
Thius nodded. “You were the last to be born of a woman, and even then, they cut you from your mother’s stomach.”
She knew this to be true. Though she had no memory of childhood—it had been so long ago—Claire had shown Bernadette her stomach. A great wide-cut forever separated the skin, never to come together again. When wrapped, no one could see the damage, but Bernadette had asked her mother to show her, and show her she did.
Bernadette could not mask her fear at the thick flaps of skin that fell ajar when her mother unraveled the bandages. She could see right into her mother’s scarred stomach. The webbing of muscle had developed a thin skin to protect the liquids inside her body, but the disfigured flesh was forever severed. She didn’t care if it made her sound vain—she never wanted to look the way her mother did after giving birth.
“I am to be with you, then.”
“If you accept,” Thius replied.
Bernadette’s eyes narrowed as she looked at her would-be suitor. They both knew she had no real choice. Without solid reasoning for denying the mate the council selected, they would overrule her objection. Since Thius was head of the committee, there was no way to reject him. She was trapped, and he licked his lips as if he enjoyed seeing her caught.
The expansive marble room felt as though it were shrinking. The faces of the councilmembers were vacant. They were all so old that none of this mattered to them anymore. Her people were already extinct, but they didn’t know it. She knew Thius wanted an answer, but the rest of the council could care less.
“I am tired. I shall deliberate the proposal and return to the council with an answer.”
Bernadette smiled in triumph as the councilmembers knocked their hard fists on the oval wooden table. The council meeting was over, and everyone stood to shuffle out of the room. The disappointment on Thius’s face was visible. He moved to approach her, but Bernadette was closer to the door and faster still.
She got out before the herd of councilmen clogged the arched doorway. Bernadette’s servant was gone. Thius was weaving between the seven councilmembers to reach her, but councilman Ruffes stopped him.
When no one was looking, Bernadette ducked into a servant’s closet and closed the door most of the way. She would wait until everyone was gone before she came out. She felt safer in the dark, narrow confines of the broom closet than in the open hall with Thius’s eyes all over her.
“Do y
ou think this will make a difference?” Ruffes asked the high councilor.
Thius looked over and around the slate grey man with his shiny, balding head. He was looking for her but seemed to have lost her. Bernadette let out a sigh of relief.
“She will be much more likely to cooperate with a younger mate,” Thius said.
“The crop wasn’t good this year,” Ruffes said in what sounded like a warning. “It’s been four years since the last time. We won’t have enough Lethologica...”
Bernadette couldn’t understand what Ruffes was going on about. Her people grew crops of Lethologica plants though they never ate it. It was a small cultivation of bamboo-like plants that took great pains to grow. Only the most trusted and best-trained servants worked on that small, isolated crop. What could it have to do with her pairing with Thius? Why was Ruffes referring to the harvest as she? She supposed that in his old age, Ruffes was growing somewhat eccentric. He was asking about several matters at once. Not everything was about her.
Thius patted Ruffes on the shoulder. “Everything is being done to handle the situation, I assure you. If you’ll excuse me.”
Ruffes waved him off. Thius headed in the same direction as her bedroom, looking for her, no doubt. It seemed like ages before Ruffes left the room, or at the very least, a half-hour before he was out of her narrow line of sight.
Bernadette waited at the crack in the door for the older man to limp out of the large entryway.
Chapter Two
The door groaned as Bernadette pushed it open. The three grand chandeliers were hanging above bejeweled the walls with light that reflected on the pale palace. No one was in the hall. She slipped from the closet and made her way out of the room into a passageway off to the side that led to both the library and her mother’s room. She would need both to console her on this day.
The dull ache in her feet had grown into a sharp pain arching up her ankles. She needed to get out of these shoes. Bernadette took great care to stay on the grey woven carpets to prevent her shoes from clacking on the marble, giving her location away. She was just about to reach her mother’s room when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She let out a cry and swung her clumsy body around before striking at the body with the firm grip.
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