For a week, she hardly slept. All she could think about was how Odele had made her pluck Gilbert and Gissy and then roast them for supper the next day. She had managed the horrifying task, choking on her tears as she stumbled about the kitchen in a stupor. When she placed the meat on a platter and carried it to the dinner table, Sybil licked her lips and gave Issina a vicious smile. After that, Issina completely lost her appetite. She ate only crumbs when food appeared in the forest, turning her nose up at the delicious smells. She did not speak to her sisters. Her chores became nothing but movement and sound, a broken dance without meaning.
Braeden was in the sitting room when she returned from fetching water early one evening. This was no surprise, since he spent almost every day at the house now. He had replaced Issina as Sybil and Edryn’s audience whenever they wanted to practice their singing. He often sat on the edge of the sofa, his hands clasped in his lap as he stared intently at Edryn. Issina walked quickly past the doorway and caught a glimpse of him. Her heart beat fast. She wished she could stay and watch him, but she couldn’t linger around Sybil and Edryn’s singing.
Instead, she went into the kitchen and set about cleaning a pile of dishes. Someone had left her a plate of scraps. She stopped cleaning and stared at the food, her stomach rumbling angrily. She hadn’t eaten anything but a few crumbs for a week. The fragility in her limbs had turned numb. Her thoughts were limp fish flopping inside her head. Just one bite. She wasn’t sure she could hold back any longer, but her grief over Gilbert and Gissy still pressed heavily on her shoulders. She couldn’t eat scraps, let alone so many, when she was still in mourning. She turned away from the plate, then turned back to it and snatched a boiled potato coated with herbs. It melted like butter in her mouth. Edryn’s singing floated into the kitchen and she wondered if her sisters could read her thoughts from a distance. She guessed they could not, or they were at least distracted enough with Braeden that they didn’t care what she was thinking.
She ate the rest of the scraps and leaned against the table, guilt rushing through her limbs as they slowly gained more feeling from the nourishment. She felt terrible about Gilbert and Gissy, but it was more than that. She was disturbed by the silence from her sisters and mother, their obsession with the festival and Braeden. Lately, they didn’t seem to care if she left her chores unfinished. They were leaving her more and more scraps, and this made her not want to eat anything. Everything was off balance and sour, like Cassia’s milk if she ate bitter leaves in the forest.
“I have to eat,” she whispered, and licked her fingers clean. “I’ll waste away into nothing if I don’t eat.”
When she went outside to feed the chickens, she heard Edryn’s voice from the garden. Braeden was guiding her along with a gentle touch on her shoulder.
“We shouldn’t go too far from the house,” she giggled. “You’re supposed to be a proper gentleman.”
Braeden laughed. “Your mother knows I won’t take you far or compromise you in any way. I only need to speak with you.”
Issina dropped the feed bag and walked toward the garden as the chickens clucked behind her and swarmed the bag. An invisible string tugged her forward. Her head swam at thoughts of being led away by Braeden. Was he going to ask Edryn to marry him? That seemed unlikely given the short amount of time they had known each other.
Despite the rigid rule she was not allowed in the garden, she stepped through the vine-covered entryway and breathed in the sweet aroma of flowers and moist soil.
She made her way to an uncovered part of the garden and stopped behind a tree where she peeked through the branches of a leafy bush. Braeden and Edryn had seated themselves near a boulder. Mint thyme covered the ground around the base like a carpet, and Braeden’s fingers slowly caressed the tiny leaves. Issina stared at his fingers and smiled.
“You’re stunning,” Braeden said as he leaned forward. “More stunning than Genevieve, whom everyone agrees is the epitome of beauty. I don’t agree with them.” He lifted his hand from the mint thyme and took her chin in his fingers, tilting her face to his. “I’ve served on the festival council for years and I’ve never once met a magical entrant as gifted... as uniquely exquisite as you.” He laughed and lifted her face closer. “Every time I look at you I want to embrace the world and sing.”
Issina leaned closer to the tree and held her breath as Braeden pressed his lips to Edryn’s. Light seemed to radiate from their bodies, but Issina was sure it was only the sun that had broken free of the clouds.
“What’s going to happen?” Edryn said with a happy sigh when their kiss ended.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you going to... I mean, are we going to...?”
“Marry? Of course—if you’ll have me.”
Edryn’s eye widened. Her black curls tumbled over her shoulders as she lowered her head and whispered something Issina couldn’t hear.
“What’s the matter?” Braeden asked. He dipped his head to look at her face. “Did I say something wrong?”
Edryn gasped. Her hair hid her face, but Issina was sure she was crying. “Nobody has said such beautiful things to me before,” she said through her gasps and lifted her face to Braeden. A tear fell from her eye. “I don’t care about the festival anymore. I’ve never felt like this. It’s wonderful and terrible.”
Braeden laughed. “Terrible? How is it terrible?”
“You’re a noble. You’re wealthy and powerful and I’m only...”
“Shhh.” Braeden gathered her into his arms and she clung tightly to him. “Is that all this is about?”
“It’s more than that,” she said so quickly Issina was sure she had been waiting for him to ask. More than likely she was reading his corra. “My mother seems to like you, but what will she say if I marry a man with two eyes? My father had three beautiful eyes.”
Issina gripped the tree to keep herself from tumbling forward into the bushes. Hearing Edryn express her fears in such a way was something she had never experienced. Her sisters rarely spoke of their father. You’re the reason he’s gone. All you had to do was exist, they had told her once.
“What happened to your father?” Braeden asked, and Issina wanted to hug him. The mystery of her father had haunted her for so long that it had become a scar so familiar and permanent it was almost invisible. Now, to have it almost revealed spun her world upside down. She bit her lip and held on to the tree as tightly as she could.
“You haven’t met Issina,” Edryn said as she pulled away from Braeden. “She’s our sister, but she’s not worth speaking of. She has two eyes. She is horribly plain and awkward and has no magic at all—at least not any good magic.”
“Two eyes?” Braeden sat back with mock horror on his face. “What must you think of me?”
Edryn shook her head, her expression growing dim. “It’s not like that. When my parents married they lived in a very small kingdom in the far north. Hardly anyone there has two eyes, and those who do are looked down upon. We are grateful to have been accepted here among people who admire our peculiar physical traits, but I must tell you that in the north we were deeply respected because my father was a healer.”
“Oh.” Braeden’s expression changed to quiet reverence. Healers were rare and admired more than royalty. They were the ones who treated the sick and dying and could sometimes foretell the future. Issina had not known this about her father. She dug her heels into the dirt.
“Healers live very long lives,” Braeden said. “I’ve heard they often outlive their own families and move on to belong to another. How could he have possibly died so young?”
“We were his first and only family. It was Issina who caused his early death. When she was born, my mother cried for days. She complained about feeling different, but my father said it was because she was upset about having a child with two eyes. He didn’t think it was a problem... at first.” Edryn’s entire body tensed. Her delicate hands gripped the thyme, ripping some of it up by the roots.
Brae
den touched her arm. “Go on.”
“They discovered my mother’s magic had disappeared. I know that sounds impossible, but it’s true. When she was younger, she was a grower like Sybil and me. I remember her planting seeds. I remember her singing. After Issina was born, my mother lost her talents. She lost her singing as well. My father wanted to heal her, but nothing worked. When he sensed something was off with Issina, he tried to heal her too...”
Braeden pulled Edryn into another embrace when she began crying again. “Keep going,” he whispered as he stroked her hair.
“He took Issina into my mother’s garden. My mother says when he didn’t return she took Sybil and me to look for him in the garden, and that’s where we found him, dead—with Issina crying in his arms. I still remember it, even though I was very young. I still remember my mother’s screams. She loved him so much, and it’s our sister’s fault he’s gone. It’s her fault my mother has no magic. When word got out about what happened, the king ordered us to kill Issina even though she was only an infant. He feared her powers, but when her blood was tested for magic, she had none. It was unexplainable. We still don’t understand it.”
“Why wasn’t she killed?”
“I-I can’t tell you. I’ve told you too much already.” Edryn’s cries grew into wails. “We promised each other to keep our past a secret. If the king in this land knew about Issina, we might be cast away once more.”
“Absolutely not.” Braeden rocked her back and forth. “I won’t tell a soul, and besides, nothing bad has happened since then. Your sister cannot possibly be considered a threat.”
“We keep her in her place,” Edryn said with a sniff.
“Please tell me why she wasn’t killed.”
For the second time, Issina almost stumbled forward into the bushes. Her skin was damp with sweat and the sunlight filtering through the branches above felt like burn spots on the top of her head. She shifted as quietly as she could and kept hold of the tree, her mind filling with the only image of her father she had—three tiger-eyes in a face tightened like a fist.
“I shouldn’t tell you,” Edryn whimpered.
“I promise it’s all right.” He lifted her face again and kissed her on the lips. She seemed to relax when he pulled away and stroked her forehead.
“My mother didn’t want to kill Issina herself,” she said in a shaky voice. “She left it up to the king’s men to do it. They tried to kill her, but they failed. Apparently, Issina cannot die.”
3
Roots
She didn’t know how she made it out of the garden without being detected, but she found herself in the chicken yard a moment later, tears drying on her cheeks, her body trembling and cold. She watched the chickens pecking at the feed bag she had dropped earlier. Everything blurred.
She couldn’t die?
They had tried to kill her when she was a baby and failed. Something about her was evil enough to kill her own father and steal her mother’s magic, yet she had no magic herself. It didn’t make sense.
She held out her hands and stared at the scars from her mother’s whippings. She could bleed, at least. She had been so hungry at times she felt like she might die. She had eaten berries that might have killed a normal human being. Maybe she wasn’t human. Maybe she was like Genevieve—a mystical being who never seemed to age. Nobody knew what she was. As far as Issina knew, besides high growers like Genevieve, no other completely magical beings had been proven to exist. Some had magical talents like the growers and healers, and some had strange physical attributes like an odd number of eyes, but they were still human.
She had seen so little of the world, had only stepped into town a dozen times in her life, had conversed with only a handful of people outside of her family, that it was easy to believe she had been deceived into thinking inhuman magical beings were only a myth.
She kept staring at her hands. The blood in her veins felt as if it might burn through her skin. She couldn’t slow her heartbeat as she traced the scars with her vision, every dip and bump, every memory of pain Odele had inflicted on her. Now the sadness in her mother’s eyes made sense. She probably thought of her dead husband every time she looked at Issina.
Issina expected to feel guilt at this new knowledge, but something else came in its place. She curled her fingers into her palms and made two fists just as Sybil appeared from the kitchen doorway. She wore a cream gown that made her hair brighter than usual. She smiled when she saw Issina.
“There you are. Looking for your geese?”
She tightened her fists. “My geese are dead. You know that. You ate them.”
“Edryn was the one who let them out of the yard during the storm. They only wanted to find you. I guess the storm was too much for them.”
“You left me in the forest!”
“And you returned home just fine.” Sybil inspected her fingernails as her smile widened. “My singing put you right to sleep. I didn’t think it would take you so long to wake.” She looked up and laughed. “Tell me, how are you going to cope when Braeden marries Edryn? And who is that man you keep seeing in the woods?”
Issina uncurled her fist and sent a slap across Sybil’s cheek. Sybil stumbled backward and touched her face, a smile still playing on her lips. “I’ve already told Mother about the food you’ve been receiving. Who gives it to you? The man in the woods?” Stepping closer, she pushed her face close to Issina’s. “You’re full of secrets, but none of them matter.”
The heat inside her chest stabbed her so hard she thought it might bring her to her knees. She longed to strike Sybil again, but knew it would only earn her a more intense whipping.
Unless she left.
“I’m never coming back here again,” she growled, turning sharply on her heel to fetch Cassia, who was asleep in the corner of the chicken yard.
“You can’t leave,” Sybil said, grabbing her arm.
She shook her off. “Yes, I can.”
“Then you can’t take anything with you, including your stupid goat.”
“If she’s so stupid, why do you want to keep her?” She marched to Cassia and pulled her up by her collar. The sleepy animal struggled to her feet, but before Issina could drag her another inch, Sybil ripped her back by her hair. Pain tore across her skull and she shrieked. She let go of Cassia. The goat stayed by her as she stumbled back into the dirt. Sybil stood over her, hands on her hips.
“If you leave, Mother will send men out to find you.”
Issina coughed as a cloud of dirt settled around her. She wiped her mouth and looked up at Sybil, whose dress billowed in the breeze. The smell of flowers and herbs surrounded them and Issina clamped her mouth closed to keep the heat inside of her from escaping. She felt pain, like an animal writhing in her chest. It burned her so deeply she wanted to scrape her fingernails down Sybil’s cheek and leave permanent marks. She wanted to see blood. She wanted Sybil to scream. The worst part was she wanted the burning to grow stronger.
She slowly got to her feet and faced her sister’s smug expression. A thousand frigid words came to her mind, but she couldn’t say any of them. She didn’t understand why they cared if she left or stayed. Surely her servitude was not that valuable if they hated her so much.
Still no words escaping her tongue, she lowered her eyes and walked past Sybil into the house. Braeden’s smell still lingered in the hallway—a now familiar scent of lemons and sage. She breathed it in deeply and made her way upstairs where she settled herself on her blankets and hugged her knees to her chest. She supposed she should have been thrilled about her immortality, but all she could think about as she drifted off to sleep was a wall full of spindly roots.
The room was dark when she woke, but Sybil and Edryn were not asleep. The rain hadn’t begun, and this left the room quiet enough for her to listen to their hushed voices. She closed her eyes. She wanted to leave. She remembered the night she had watched her sisters and wanted to pull all of her thoughts out of her head like ribbons. She longed for a b
lank canvas, but not because she wanted to hide away her thoughts. She wanted to forget the ugliness of her life, her father’s eyes, her mother’s whippings, her sister’s words now wrapping around her.
“It’s like... I don’t even know how to explain it,” Edryn giggled. “The kiss was warm and wet. It was like lightning, but slow. I melted into him. It was wonderful.”
“It sounds divine.” Sybil let out a heavy sigh. “Oh, Edryn, you’ll have to tell me everything. Don’t worry that he has two eyes. The only reason Mother would mind is because of Issina, and that’s something completely different. Let him marry you. Let him make you happy.”
“I think I will.” Edryn giggled again, but then lowered her voice even more. “Do you think it was unwise to tell him about Issina? His thoughts weren’t disturbed by the information, but he thought the most interesting question afterward.”
“Oh?”
“He wondered if I was unable to die, like Issina. He almost wished it.”
They were quiet for a few moments. Issina held her breath as she tried to push the question out of her mind. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to think about herself as immortal. The very idea made her itch all over, and she scratched her elbows and wrists so hard that her skin broke. Dark blood beaded across her wrists.
“We don’t know that,” Sybil said. “It isn’t something I’d like to try to find out. We only know she can’t die because of what Mother told us, and we know she told us the truth.”
“I know.” Edryn’s voice shook. “Sometimes I think about what she told us about Issina, how those men who took her tried to poison her and then cut her. She must have bled.”
Issina stared in fascinated horror at the blood on her wrists. Part of her wanted to taste it to see if it was real.
Bonded: Three Fairy Tales, One Bond Page 16
