Maylie nodded. She opened her mouth again to begin saying what she had come here to tell her husband – finally, after all these winters – but still the words escaped her. Instead, she asked, ‘What’s that you’re making?’
Chrisanie glanced behind him in surprise. ‘A table for the butcher’s family. Their daughter’s had a baby and they want to give her a gift.’ He bent and blew on the wooden frame, sending a spray of chippings into the air.
Maylie nodded again and took a deep breath, feeling her heartbeat quicken. She must say it. ‘Chrisanie, I need to speak to youabout …’ She swallowed, almost choking her throat felt so tight. ‘About the Maiden Sacrifice.’
Chrisanie placed his hammer carefully on the table.
Then they were both silent.
‘What do you already know?’ she asked.
‘I know that you hate it – everyone does, of course – but ’tis different for you. ’Tis like you mourn it each spring. Like the families that lost a girl to the Great Dragon.’
Outside geese honked as they flew overhead. Maylie imagined their curved, graceful forms swooping down the mountainside in the fading light.
‘You’ve never demanded I tell you what happened to me in Tormale. I thank you for that.’
Chrisanie shrugged. ‘I was just happy you came back. I told you that when we wed, remember?’
She nodded, smiling despite herself. When she had returned to Silicia eighteen winters ago, Maylie had not expected to find Chrisanie waiting for her. Most Mountain folk wed at nineteen – when a Mountain girl knew for sure that she would not be a Maiden Sacrifice – and Maylie had assumed that, since he was a little older than her, Chrisanie would be married with at least one babe in arms. It had been almost more shocking to discover that Silicia’s carpenter was still single than to learn of the death of her father in her absence.
‘When wefinallywed,’ Chrisanie added. ‘You made me ask you enough times.’
‘I thought you deserved better.’
‘What foolishness.’
‘You might not think that when you hear what I have to say.’
They stared at one another. Chrisanie’s eyes were the warm,deep brown they had always been, steady and comforting. Maylie could not bear the thought of hurting him, but she knew that she must.
‘Why do you need to tell me all this now?’ he asked.
‘Because the Hidden People have sent a warning. I need to go to Tormale.’
Chrisanie’s brow creased, his eyes widening. ‘To Tormale? The Hidden People? What do you mean?’
‘I can … I can speak to them in their own tongue.’ She paused and took a deep breath. ‘I’ve always done so. ’Tis my Gift.’
Shock rippled across Chrisanie’s features. ‘But the Sight fades after childhood. I don’t understand. I thought your Gift were healing?’
‘No, my Sight has never faded. Healing’s what I learnt from my aunt. It were her Gift and I’m not as accomplished as she, though I’ve been good enough to serve Silicia.’
‘You’re a brilliant healer, May.’
‘I’ve been doing my penance, I suppose.’ She swallowed and fiddled with the cuff of her homespun dress. ‘I’ve a tale to tell you and I’d best start at the beginning.’
Chrisanie leant against his workbench. ‘Whatever you say won’t change anything.’
‘We’ll see.’
Maylie forced herself back into the knotted recollections of her past. Those terrible memories that she always tried to repress.
‘I left someone behind in Tormale.’
An old wound inside Maylie’s chest ripped open. It was so painful that for a moment, she did not think she would be able to breathe. Suddenly she was back there, eighteen winters ago, in the squalor of the Pits, downing in guilt and grief.
‘You mean Esmelie?’ said Chrisanie. ‘But … but you always said she were dead. She died from a sickness in Tormale. That’s why you returned.’
