He doesn’t wait for an answer.
I’m not trying to embarrass him.
I never do.
I’m grateful for everything he’s given me.
I twist away, fighting his grip as he attempts to push me to my knees. More hands clamp onto my arms. Someone kicks the backs of my legs and I hit the dirt hard. Dust plumes around me, stinging my eyes, but I force them open.
There’s no point struggling. There are too many hands.
They pin me easily as he fastens the chains to the post, then to my wrists.
Rage and heartbreak fight for space inside my chest.
How can he do this to me? Again?
The first time, he’d lured me out here alone in the dead of night. I had no suspicions of what he had planned and followed beside him willingly.
Naïvely.
I knew he’d protect me.
He blindfolded me. Told me to rely on my senses.
He chained me to the post, ignoring every question as they grew more frantic.
He said it was to cleanse the stain I’d put on our training group in the eyes of the gods.
Retribution for my “mockery.”
Maybe my mouth had ruined things.
Maybe I deserved—
His voice rips through my thoughts.
“Thayla.”
He kneels before me and tilts my chin up. A single tear escapes, and he wipes it away like he always has.
Gentle, careful, like he’s the one hurtingforme.
Like he wishes more than anything I hadn’t spoken out about the gods on the Veiling Day.
“How many lashes do you believe you deserve?”
“None.”
“You let your anger get the best of you. If you’d taken a single breath, you would’ve realized everyone had backed off. Instead, you threw a punch.”
The disappointment in his tone sinks into me like poison.
Yeah…maybe I panicked.
But a punch shouldn’t warrant this.
“Mellcom,” I whisper.
