Page 45 of Taken to Lemora
I grunt as I push the chest with all my might under the desk, right up against the door. I have to get down on my back and kick it the last few paces with my bare feet. I’m still wearing my kintarr-crusted dress from the lunar before. I thought about staying up all lunar to make new robes, but then I thought, ohr that. Raingar still hasn’t let me make him more than the one pair of pants and insists on still wearing the monstrous trousers that are generations old and look it. Who cares what I wear?
“Yeffa, you are! Did you not experience how easily I hurt you when I wasn’t even meaning to?”
“Nob! I’m not!” I kick the crate again and giggle wildly to myself, even as a shooting pain attacks my heel and shivers up the back of my leg. I gigglemadly. I feel like I’ve lost half my mind.
The voices that rang so true for so long are all quiet, incinerated, like sparks that have fizzled out. Without their guiding light, I’m not sure who’s left. Me? Essmira? The name doesn’t even belong to me, but was given to me by Igmora because she thought it was easy to pronounce in all the principle languages.
She’s not my mother. She never loved me half as much as a female I’ve only met twice called Willa. Or Librida and Merquin who took me in even though I was a stranger. Or the four clan chiefs who came together to spend rotations’ worth of kintarr to free me. On another note — is being caged not a disgrace to the sacrifice they made? And how about Raingar? The clan chief who’s shirked his responsibilities for solars just to chase me around and profess his undying frustration with me like only a clan chief would do for his miriga.
Maybe I am miriga. Notthe,buta, at the very least. These Lemoran make me feel like a queen, so why not fully act like it.
I am miriga. I do what I like.
“Are you blind, female!” He shouts. “Did you not see the size of that kintarr splinter! It would have crushed you if Jaygar hadn’t been there…”
“Ha! So you do admit that he saved my life!”
“I…you…he…pagh!” Raingar thumps against the door, shoving more of his bodyweight behind the thrust this time. Part of the door splinters and I shriek, quickly scrambling out from under the desk so I can put more of my weight into it, the little that it helps.
Through the crack left behind, I can now see him and Raingar can see me. “You don’t know enough about Lemora!” He wags his finger at me angrily, thrusting it through the broken door.
I point a finger right back, mirroring the gesture. “You don’t knowanythingabout Lemora! I am miriga! I do what I like!”
“You…you…”
“Stop babbling like a buffoon! Finish your sentences. And don’t shout all the time. It’s annoying. And don’t be mean to beings within your clan or any other. They deserve the same kindness that they show you! And stop cursing. You’re clan chief. You shouldn’t curse so much. And get new trousers made that fit!”
Raingar’s mouth has gone totally slack. Through the crack, he’s simply gaping at me. “Are you finished!” He shrieks, voice rising three octaves.
It makes me snort. “I am miriga! And I’m not finished in the slightest.” I shake my head again, curls flying wild like ravens lifting into the sun.
“Are you going to open this door?”
“Nob,my Lord,” I sneer, “I’m not.”
He starts to rattle, everything bunched so tightly together that he reminds me instantly of a kettle about to pop. “Pagh!” He bangs both fists on the door and a bolt pops free of the metal frame surrounding the wooden door. It bounces off of the table and I snatch it before it falls, then chuck it through the opening.
My aim is true and it bounces right off of his nose. “PAGH! FINE! You want to stay in there? You can stay in there forever for all I care!” He scrambles around for a moment, before I hear the unmistakable sound of a heavy lock sliding into place.
“You’re locking me in here, then? Is that it? Just like Tyto?”
“Stop saying that wretch’s name or I’ll be forced to contact Rhorkanterannu and acquire Tyto’s whereabouts so that I can go and find him and skin him alive! I’m nothing like him, but Ihateit when you say that I am. I’m just angry with you! We’re having a fight. Can’t you feel the difference?”
I can feel the difference and his words douse a small part of my flaming heart. But I don’t tell him that. I can’t. Not when I’m winning the argument. I’ve never won an argument. I’ve never even had one. And even though these words are right, he’s still wrong.
“You shouldn’t lock me away.”
“It’s for your own protection,” he wheezes, sounding broken and in pain.
“Nob, it’s foryourprotection. If I truly am your mate, then it hurts you to see me hurt. You don’t like the way it makes you feel.”
“That isn’t the half of it. I feel wretched knowing what I did to you. I hate the way that I act around you half the time. You make me crazed.” He slaps his hand against the door, but without the effort of his previous attempts. He’s slowing down, sliding down…thud. Rattle, rattle. The sound of him clunking down onto his bottom and banging the back of his head against the door.
“I never wanted a mate,” he confesses and the confession strangely hurts. It makes me feel…unwanted. “But then I met you and you threw that statue at my head and I couldn’t believe that the stars had aligned to produce such a mate for a male like me. I don’t deserve you. That’s why…”
He swallows audibly. “That’s why I get jealous when you speak to other males. I know how fine the beings of Lemora are. You could do better than me in almost any one of them, but I can’t…I won’t give you up. So I don’t want to let you out of my sight because I worry about you getting hurt, yeffa, but because I also don’t want to give you that chance.”
I brush the scar on my palm with my thumb, the reminder that I had tried for freedom even then, before I knew what freedom was. “Raingar,” I say, voice a little shaky. His words…they get to me. I understand the insecurity. I understand the angst of it. The fear. The uncertainty. I understand it all.
