Einin tucked in her chin. Why can he not be happy for our change of fortune? He’d given many a sermon that addressed the village’s sufferings, all blaming the great devil in the hills. Why did her victorious return fill him with anger?
Understanding came to her in a sudden flash, and she blinked, nearly raising her gaze to his, catching herself at the last second, snapping her head back down and biting her lip. But even as she hid her reaction, she could not unthink the thought that now shouted in her brain.
The priest hadn’t been able to vanquish the great devil with his many prayers. Einin’s return with the talon implied that she might be more powerful than he, and she a woman! That was why he disapproved of her so much.
“I returned but by God’s grace,” she hurried to say, keeping her voice meek, knowing as soon as she said the words that they wouldn’t help. The priest would hate the idea that some inconsequential maiden had been chosen as God’s instrument and not him.
The priest proved her right the very next second.
“You boast of your unwomanly and ungodly ways,” he accused her. “You refuse young Wilm’s offer of marriage. You think yourself too proud to be subjected to the godly correction men are called to provide women who are weak and unable to resist sin.”
Wilm was the butcher’s son, a beefy young man two years older than Einin. He beat the family dogs, the family livestock, and his sisters, as his father beat Agna, Wilm’s mother. Einin had no wish for Wilm’s godly correction.
She clasped her hands in front of her and dipped her head lower, hoping one of the matrons on the cobbler’s front steps might yet speak up for her. But the women stayed silent. Their silence hurt, even if they had their reasons.
The war had left few able-bodied men. When Einin had gone to the cave as sacrifice, it meant one fewer maiden to compete with these matrons’ daughters for a husband.
Even friends… Einin glanced at Minde, the cobbler’s wife, listening in the half-open door. But Minde looked away from her with regret in her eyes, cradling her youngest daughter to her side.
Einin cast no blame. Her hopes had been foolish. Of course none of the women dared speak up before the priest. They saw the writing on the wall as Einin herself was beginning to see. The priest was working up to an accusation of witchery. Anyone who took Einin’s side might get caught up in the net the man was weaving.
As the priest went on berating her for her unwomanly clothes and other disobediences, a few of the village men ambled over to see the source of the disturbance. Einin knew them all, as they all knew her, had known her from the moment of her birth. Yet none of the men spoke up for her either. None had been brave enough to confront the dragon, and the fact that Einin had done so and lived shamed them. Her very presence in the village was a daily reminder of their own cowardice.
Men were superior by the will of God. By God’s will did they rule their wives; by God’s will did their wives owe them full obedience. Men were, by far, stronger and braver. And yet it’d been Einin who had returned with a talon. Unnatural.
She blinked hard as she understood at last why her victory had been celebrated upon return but the victor had not. She’d volunteered as the sacrificial virgin, and the only thing anyone had expected of her was to die. She hadn’t even been able to get that right. So talon or no, she was not going to be forgiven.
Her instincts prickled—an indistinct premonition of danger—the same feeling as when in the woods she found herself watched by a wolf from the ridge.
The priest narrowed his beady brown eyes at her. “I cannot fathom why the evil beast let you leave.”
“Perhaps it is not entirely evil?” She dared offer an opinion, immediately regretting it.
His eyes narrowed dangerously. “That is precisely what an evil beast would want you to think.”
“Is it evil because it’s a beast?” The question escaped her before she could stop it. Then one more. “We keep beasts in the village and don’t call them evil.”
“Sheep, goats, swine, and cows. God put them under our dominion, for man’s benefit.”
“Only the wild beasts are evil, then?” Stop talking! She bit her lip.
The priest shook his head. “Even a wolf pup can be tamed. Even a bear. You’ve seen them at the traveling carnival.” His voice grew more frigid still, as if to let her know his pronouncement was final. “But that dragon is evil.”
Because it cannot be tamed? Because it is truly wild and free? Because it is not under the priest’s dominion and could not be trained to bend the knee? Einin dared ask no more. She was grateful that the man hadn’t struck her down already for all her impertinence.
Yet with all that she was, she wished for freedom. Did that mean that she too was evil?
“I’m told you are to embark on a journey,” the priest said, every word laden with suspicion.
Einin stole a glance.
He watched her as closely as before, but something in his gaze had changed. He no longer watched her as if examining her. His gaze had hardened, as if he’d come to a decision.
A cold shiver ran up Einin’s spine. In that very moment, she understood that she must leave, that indeed her very life might depend on a speedy departure.
“I am to go to Morganton, Father, leaving on the morrow,” she said in a voice as meek as she was capable of uttering. “My Aunt Rose had her babe, her seventh, and she’s sick with the fever. Her husband came home maimed from the war. I go to help.”
She had resolved to stay in her village as many times as she had resolved to keep her word and return to the dragon’s cave. She’d made up the tale of her aunt at one such point, since she could not tell anyone that she was returning to the dragon of her own free will. Making a pact with the great devil would mark her, in the priest’s eyes, as the servant of the devil. She would be burned on the spot.
