Slave, Warrior, Queen

“No. Sell the sword. Stay!”

He placed a hand on her cheek.

“Selling this sword might help us for this season. And perhaps next. But then what?” He shook his head. “No. We need a long-term solution.”

Long term? Suddenly, she realized his new job wasn’t just going to be for a few months. It might be years.

Her despondency deepened.

He stepped forward, as if sensing it, and hugged her.

She felt herself begin to cry in his arms.

“I will miss you, Ceres,” he said, over her shoulder. “You are different than all the others. Every day I will look up into the heavens and know you are beneath the same stars. Will you do the same?”

At first she wanted to yell at him, to say: how dare you leave me here alone.

But she felt it in her heart that he couldn’t stay, and she didn’t want to make it harder on him than it already was.

A tear rolled down her face. She sniffled and nodded her head.

“I will stand beneath our tree every night,” she said.

He kissed her on the forehead and wrapped tender arms around her. The wounds on her back felt like knives, but she gritted her teeth and remained silent.

“I love you, Ceres.”

She wanted to respond, and yet she couldn’t get herself to say anything – her words were stuck in her throat.

He fetched his horse from the stable, and Ceres helped him load it with food, tools, and supplies. He embraced her one last time, and she thought her chest might burst from sadness. Yet still, she couldn’t utter a single word.

He mounted the horse, and nodded before signaling to the animal to move.

Ceres waved as he rode away, and she watched with unwavering attention until he vanished behind the distant hill. The only true love she had ever known came from that man. And now he was gone.

Rain started to descend from the heavens, and it prickled against her face.

“Father!” she screamed as loudly as she could. “Father, I love you!”

She fell to her knees and buried her hands in her face, sobbing.

Life, she knew, would never be the same again.

CHAPTER THREE

With aching feet and burning lungs, Ceres climbed the steep hill as swiftly as she could without spilling a drop of water from either bucket by her sides. Normally she would pause for a break, but her mother had threatened no breakfast unless she was back by sunrise – and no breakfast meant she wouldn’t eat until dinner. She didn’t mind the pain, anyway – it, at least, allowed her to take her mind off her father, and the miserable new state of things since he had left.

The sun was just now cresting the Alva Mountains in the distance, painting the scattered clouds above golden-pink, and soft wind sighed through the tall, yellow grass on either side of the road. Ceres drew the fresh morning air in through her nose and willed herself faster. Her mother wouldn’t find it an acceptable excuse that their regular well had dried up, or that there was a long line at the other one a half a mile away. Indeed, she did not stop until she reached the top of the hill – and once she did, she stopped in her tracks, stunned at the sight before her.

There, in the distance, was her house – and before it sat a bronze wagon. Her mother stood before it, conversing with a man who was so overweight, Ceres thought she had never seen anyone even half his size. He wore a burgundy linen tunic and a red silk hat, and his long beard was bushy and gray. She squinted, trying to understand. Was he a merchant?

Her mother was wearing her best dress, a green linen floor-length gown she had purchased years ago with money that was supposed to be used to buy Ceres new shoes. None of this made any sense.

Hesitantly, Ceres started down the hill. She kept her eyes trained on them, and when she saw the old man hand her mother a heavy leather pouch, saw her mother’s emaciated face light up, she grew even more curious. Had their misfortune turned? Would Father be able to return home? The thoughts made her chest lighten a little, although she wouldn’t allow herself to feel any excitement until she learned the details.

When Ceres neared their house, her mother turned and smiled at her warmly – and immediately Ceres felt a knot of worry in her stomach. The last time her mother had smiled at her like that – teeth gleaming, eyes bright – Ceres had received a flogging.

“Darling daughter,” her mother said in an overly sweet tone, opening her arms toward her with a grin that made Ceres’s blood curdle.

“This is the girl?” the old man said with an eager smile, his dark, beady eyes widening when he looked at Ceres.

Now up close, Ceres could see every wrinkle on the obese man’s skin. His broad flat nose seemed to overtake his entire face, and when he took off his hat, his sweaty bald head glowed in the sunlight.

Her mother waltzed over to Ceres, took the buckets from her, and set them on the singed grass. That gesture alone confirmed to Ceres that something was severely wrong. She began to feel a panicky sensation rise in her chest.

“Meet my pride and joy, my only daughter, Ceres,” her mother said, pretending to wipe a tear away from her eye when there was none. “Ceres, this is Lord Blaku. Please show your respects to your new master.”

A jolt of fear stabbed Ceres through the chest. She sucked in a sudden breath. Ceres looked at her mother, and with her back to Lord Blaku, her mother gave her a smile that was as evil as she had ever seen.

“Master?” Ceres asked.

“To save our family from financial ruin and public embarrassment, the benevolent Lord Blaku offered your father and me a generous deal: a sack of gold in exchange for you.”

“What?” Ceres gasped, feeling herself sinking into the earth.

“Now, be the good girl I know you are and show your respects,” her mother said, shooting Ceres a warning glance.

“I will not,” Ceres said, taking a step back as she puffed her chest up, feeling silly for not having immediately realized the man was a slaver, and that the transaction was for her life.

“Father would never sell me,” she added through clenched teeth, her horror and indignation rising.

Her mother scowled and grabbed her by the arm, her fingernails digging into Ceres’s skin.

“If you behave, this man might take you as his wife, and for you, that is a very lucky thing,” she muttered.

Lord Blaku licked his thin crusty lips as his puffy eyes greedily wandered up and down Ceres’s body. How could her mother do this to her? She knew her mother didn’t love her as much as her brothers – but this?

“Marita,” he said in a nasally voice. “You told me your daughter was fair, but you neglected to tell me what an utterly magnificent creature she is. Dare I say, I have yet to see a woman with lips as succulent as hers, and with eyes as passionate, and with a body as firm and exquisite.”

Ceres’s mother placed a hand over her heart with a sigh, and Ceres felt like she might just vomit right here. She clenched her hands into fists as she snapped her arm away from her mother’s grasp.

“Perhaps I should have asked for more, if she pleases you so much,” Ceres’s mother said, her eyes lowering in despondency. “She is, after all, our only beloved girl.”

“I am willing to pay good money for such a beauty. Will another five gold pieces suffice?” he asked.

“How generous of you,” her mother replied.

Lord Blaku ambled over to his wagon to fetch more gold.