Page 54 of Her Cruel Redemption

I licked my lips, my mouth as dry as the Shifting Plains. ‘Enchantment.’

Carrick nodded sagely. ‘You were enchanted into an arrangement of marriage?’

My throat seemed to narrow until I could hardly breath, but I managed to choke out one word. ‘Yes.’

The voices were loud now. People were calling out to each other, to me, some calling me a whore, a liar, others demanding an explanation, one voice shouted for everyone to shut up so they could hear what else I was going to say.

‘Enough,’ Carrick said, raising his voice only slightly, but it cut through the air and silenced the crowd. ‘I have been satisfied with the sincerity of this woman’s claims. Any who do not agree with my decision ought to ask themselves why they do not trust he who their gods have deemed worthy of trust.’ He surveyed the room again, as though seeking out any opposition, and I had to admit the display was impressive. His flock clearly respected him, for if there was any more dissent, I didn’t hear it. He beckoned me closer, gesturing to the floor. ‘Kneel child.’

I turned and faced that hostile, ravenous crowd. The probing looks, the suspicious expressions, the curled lips and pointing fingers. My shoulders were squared, spine so straight it might have been welded that way. And the idea of kneeling,kneeling, before them all sat in my stomach like acid. I focused on Gwinellyn instead, right there in front of me, and she smiled with warmth and encouragement. I’d come too far to embarrass her now by such a little thing as refusing to kneel. Carrick cleared his throat. With some difficulty, I forced first one knee, then the other to bend, sinking to the ground while my furious gaze remained turned on the crowd.

‘You ought to lift your veil,’ Carrick said quietly.

‘No.’ Absolutely not. There, I drew the line.

‘It would make you a more sympathetic figure if you revealed your face,’ he continued, his voice a low murmur. I didn’t even respond. The priest sighed but didn’t ask again. He proceeded to offer a long string of prayers referencing falling and ascending to the sky, but I had tuned him out, instead hyper focused on the movement of the seven white-robed priestesses as they formed a line behind me. I saw the one on the end out the corner of my eye as she approached holding a length of white rope. When she stood before me, there was malice in her expression.

‘Do you submit yourself to Aether’s will?’ she asked in a thin, reedy voice.

‘Yes,’ I answered through gritted teeth.

Her mouth twisted as she extended the rope, waiting for me to prove my submission by relinquishing my freedom. After a moment, I jabbed my hands towards her. She all but pounced on them, binding them together so tightly, far more tightly than necessary. I gasped as she yanked on her knot to secure it and it bit into my skin. I was so fixated on the evil woman that I almost didn’t notice the priestess on the end of the line as she scooped a hand into her bowl.

When the first handful of soil hit me, I flinched violently, ducking my head. The priest’s voice continued unabated, now reciting a verse about the blessing of Madeia’s flesh. The second handful of dirt hit me between the shoulder blades, the third on the side of the head. Dirt sprayed the air with each strike, and no matter how I tried to hold still, I recoiled each time, barely breathing through the horror of it, of the dirt pouring off me, hitting my head, my veil, my back, like I was being buried. And the crowd watched on, some nodding as though in agreement with the treatment, some leering, some looking faintly concerned, but all fixated by the spectacle of a former queen bent before them, being doused with filth, struggling against the too-tight rope binding my wrists, pulling at it to try and find some give.

Finally, Carrick himself stood before me. Slowly, he tipped water over my head from a goblet in a steady stream, turning dirt to mud, which ran in rivers down my face. When he was done he took the end of the rope from the wicked witch who’d tied me and bid me to rise, smiling like he’d just done something wonderous to me.

‘Go forth into the world as a woman unencumbered by profane magic and those who use it,’ he said, his voice loud enough to carry. ‘What is your new name, child?’

‘Tiercelin,’ I spat, and there was some relief in saying that name, because whatever my resentments of the people I‘d inherited it from, at least it was mine. ‘Rhiandra Tiercelin.’

‘Then Rhiandra Tiercelin, I return you to Aether and Madeia. Go forth in grace.’

I had the presence of mind to at least incline my head, to keep my steps measured as I took the end of the rope from him. I walked away and he continued the service. What I wanted to do was run. No, what I wanted to do was send bolts of lightning into the crowd, removing the onlookers in a blast of light and energy until there was no one left who could remember this. Shame heated my face as I kicked the door of the antechamber shut behind me and leaned against it, trying to breathe normally again. My wrists were still tied so tight my hands were changing colour. But it was done. I was no longer Draven’s wife. All it had cost me was a few minutes of humiliation.

Manoeuvring my bound hands, I swiped the veil off my head and threw it to the floor. Across the room, a tarnished mirror reflected a sight that would be burned into my memory; a dark-haired woman in a slim black dress covered in grit, clinging in places where the water had soaked the fabric, skin streaked with mud. And her face was already a challenge for me to look on with the scars ruling the left half of it, but the streaks down my cheeks looked like muddy tears. I looked like a beggar. An urchin. A spectre of my past. I snatched at a nearby curtain, rubbed the dirt from my face, not caring in that moment where I was leaving filth. Only caring that I had to get the stuff off me. I needed to find something to cut the damn cord off my wrists.

‘Rhi?’ Gwinellyn called through the door, and I immediately went to it, leaning against it to hold it shut.

‘I’m fine,’ I said, though my voice sounded too high-pitched.

‘Can I come in?’

‘I said I’m fine, Gwinellyn. Give me a few moments of peace,’ I snapped. In the silence on the other side of the door, I regretted my harsh tone. And I regretted not asking her to come in and help me. But I didn’t want anyone seeing me like this for one moment more than I had already endured. Had I really been a queen? It felt like a dream I’d had a long time ago, one where I’d been powerful and beautiful. Annulling my marriage was supposed to make me feel more powerful again, like taking one of Draven’s pieces on a game board, but I felt no different. In fact, I felt worse, because in my mind’s eye I could see him leaning against the wall, shaking his head at me. Could hear the words he would say as clear as if he was really in the room.Look what has become of you.

I waited a long time before I opened the door. When I did, the sanctum was empty, the rows of seating now standing vacant, the candles on the altar gone out. All I wanted to do was return to my room and have a long bath. What I wanted even more than that was for Leela to be waiting to draw that bath and pull up a seat beside me as I soaked, perhaps indulge in a drink with me as she had when I’d returned from the Yawn. I realised how bitterly I missed her, especially now that I was once again in a court surrounded by enemies and schemers. I missed her insights and her steadfast belief in me. The thought of her clawed back a little of my frayed resolve, doused a little of the shame. I had not just gone through the annulment for myself or because Oceatold’s king had bullied me into it. I’d done it for Leela.

‘Rhi.’ Gwinellyn stood from her place on a bench, startling me.

‘You’re still here,’ I said, surprised she hadn’t gone and found something better to do.

‘Of course. I was worried.’

‘I’m alright. You don’t need to worry about me.’ Aether’s teeth, why did she do this? Why invoke these tender feelings for her? They grew too raw as they rubbed up against my guilt for the lies I’d told and the wrongs I’d done her.

‘Well, then I thought you might need help.’ She held up a small pen knife. Shamefaced, I held out my hands. She sawed at the cord, cutting one piece at a time until it finally came loose. My hands prickled with pins and needles as the circulation returned and I rubbed at the raw skin, already shadowed with bruising.

‘How… how tight did they tie it?’ Gwin’s gaze was fixed on my wrists, her fingers touched to her mouth, eyes wide.

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