He grunts as I rise from my chair, fury in my blood, but he grabs me before I can take even a step away from him. Yanking me into the seat, he grips my braids and forces my head back until I look into his beady eyes, his mouth in a snarl. “Fucking bitch! You’re getting what you deserve. Do you have any idea what the beast is going to do to you?” His snarl turns into a sadistic grin. “I’m just glad I’ll get to see it. When it comes to take you, I’ll get to see you piss yourself with fear. And then, if I’m lucky, it’ll rip you apart in midair, your guts raining down on your mother’s roof. What a pretty picture.” He tightens his hold until I think my hair might rip from my head. “Or perhaps it will burn you to nothing but ash. Even better, it will devour you slowly like a snake, your mind alive while it crushes you down its gullet.”
“Let go!” I reach for his face, aiming to scratch him. I miss, but my nails glance off his throat, tearing against his flesh for a short moment before he shoves me back.
I fall over the side of the chair, then scramble to my feet, whirling on him.
“Feral rat.” He smiles and touches the scratches on his throat, his fingers coming away with a hint of blood on them. “You should pray the monster kills you quickly.” Apparently satisfied, he turns and strides away. “But I won’t.” With that, he walks out.
I wrap my arms around myself to keep from shaking. Awash in anger and fear, my heart beating so hard I can feel its wild rhythm in my ears, I stand there and drag in deep breaths. Knees shaking. Everything inside me gone tight and frail. The emotion has drained away like water from a leaf. I’m left cold and empty, too aware of all the horrid details—the pain in my scalp, the sting of Kanelden’s words, the inevitability of my fate.
Soon enough, Prioress Thani returns, her face schooled to reveal no emotion. She pretends she heard nothing of what just happened as she points to the chair. “You’ve ruined your hair. I need to redo the braids,” she says with a sigh.
I want to snap at her, to say, ‘I’m so sorry my being abused by a lordling and soon-to-be eaten by a monster is such a burden for you.’ But I say nothing. My voice is silenced, my mouth gone dry.
I sit, my shoulders shaking despite my efforts to calm myself. But I don’t cry. I refuse to let any of the people in this village see that they’ve won a single tear from me. They’re already getting plenty from this bargain without adding my sorrow onto the pile.
The prioress works quickly, her fingers nimble as she re-braids my hair into two long ropes down my back.
Once completed, she steps away and inspects her work. “This will have to do. Come, the feast is about to start.”
“I’m not hungry.” I hate the way my voice trembles.
“It doesn’t matter if you are or aren’t. You are expected. Lord Rayid demands it.”
Just as he demands my life. I rise, the blood-red gown draping down to the floor over my thin shoes. My last few hours in Raingreen will be spent at a feast where the crowd whets its appetite for my destruction.
The monster will come at midnight, its claws sharp and its teeth sharper. The Bargain was struck long ago. Every twenty years, there is a sacrifice.
This time, the sacrifice is me.
Chapter
Two
LARELLIN
All children know the stories, the rhymes, can imagine the terror of extinction humanity faced in the past. The immortals are the first things children learn to fear, their kind creeping in the dark and waiting to steal souls or feast on human blood. For eons, we were hunted, prey for those whose fear of Death is but a shadow to our own. Until the humans fought back.
In the wars of old, the humans rose up against the eternal creatures, battling against DragonKin, fae, vampires, the wolven, and myriad others. They devised fierce machines enhanced with magick, capable of destruction untold. With their creations, we drew blood from the immortals, taking lives that would’ve lasted until the end of time. The war raged for over a century, losses growing on each side in unfathomable numbers. Mutually assured destruction was only a breath away until the Peace was struck between mortals and immortals.
The Peace holds, the tenets of the agreement enshrined for all generations to come. Mortals and immortals share this world. There are many elements within the Peace, but the mostimportant one is the Bargain. The Bargain prevents immortals from taking innocent mortal lives unless there is a deal struck. Souls bartered and blood sold—this is the way of the Bargain.
“You must eat.”Lord Rayid glances at my full plate. “You’ll need your strength for the journey. The DragonKin lands of Oblivion lie far beyond the borders of our village.”
I stare up at him, his eyes bleary from drink, and simply shake my head. There’s no way I can eat a thing, not when I know what’s going to happen to me within the hour. He knows it, too, all his talk of Oblivion empty of any assurance. He knew my fate the moment my name was drawn from the chalice.
Everyone in the Grand Chamber is stuffed, the serving wenches hefting platters full of empty plates and half-eaten food as the nobles chatter and jest among themselves. The crowd is even bigger now than it was when Lord Rayid first escorted me in, the smile on his face wide and jovial as his nobles cheered.
“Come now. At least have a bite,” Lord Rayid wheedles.
“She’s too scared.” Kanelden leers at me from his place at his father’s right hand.
Lord Rayid’s face falters for only a tiny moment, then he plasters on a smile and blusters. “You have nothing to fear, young Larellin. Nothing at all.”
Kanelden snorts a laugh.
“Kan!” his father snarls.
The room momentarily quiets, but the noise starts up again when Lord Rayid says nothing further to his son. He turns to me, his voice gentling. “You’ll be all right. And the wealth this brings us will more than ensure Raingreen’s survival over the next twenty years. Your mother will be well taken care of. She will want for nothing.”
