Page 19 of Anathema

“Will you let me look at it?”

Absolutely not. One look would surely make her worry. It’d made me worry. “You’re not a physician. What good would having you look at it do me?”

“I’m your sister. I want to make sure you’re all right.”

“I’m fine.” I turned over in my bed, wanting nothing more than to wipe my head of the terrifying visual that still plagued me. “Please. I just need some sleep.”

“You’ll tell me if it gets worse, won’t you, Maeve? It’s like you said earlier, we need to stick together.”

“If only that were true,” I muttered under my breath.

“What does that mean?”

“You know exactly what it means. I saw you and Uncle Riftyn. And be grateful it was me and not Agatha, because you’d surely find yourself standing before that forest with the Vonkovyan soldiers prodding your back.”

An unnerving quiet settled between us, one that lasted too long, and I wondered if I should’ve kept my observations to myself. When she finally spoke, she said. “I’m sorry you saw us.”

Despite the emotion I could hear in her voice, I still couldn’t bring myself to look at her. “What are you thinking Aleysia?”

“I’m thinking that …. Well, that I love him.”

I turned over in hopes I’d see instant regret on her face for having admitted such a thing. “Are you mad? Are you so glutton for Agatha’s wrath that you can’t help yourself?”

“We’re careful.”

I didn’t have to respond to that, the way she instantly lowered her gaze from mine.

“Most of the time.”

“You can never marry him, nor have children, unless you run to the farthest reaches of this godforsaken continent, and what life would that be, beyond the reach of civilization?”

“Better than here. But we’d take you with us.” She rested a hand on my shoulder, and I wanted to grab and squeeze it into a mess as mangled as my heart. Damn her for always making complications so unbearably complex. “I’ve already spoken to Uncle Riftyn about it. He’ll take us both.”

Both? Had she lost her senses? “No. I won’t.”

“You’d stay here? And marry a man three times your age? One who undoubtedly longs for an heir, like every other man in this parish?”

The thought of that twisted my guts, but no worse than the vision of us three roaming the barren lands beyond Vonkovya and Lyveria, to the arctic reaches beyond Grimvale, or the scorching deserts of Romisir–the only place the Vonkovyan soldiers wouldn’t bother to hunt us down, because every other creature that dwelled there surely would.

“What do you want me to do? You think I asked to fall in love with him?”

“You’re the eldest, Aleysia. You’re the one who’s supposed to have the level head.”

She spat a mirthless chuckle. “So, I come live with you and Mr. Moros in your elaborate manor, staring the man in the eye every day as he rapes you for an heir? Or worse, stay and let Agatha find a man to break me?”

I agreed with her. Every option was unappealing. “I don’t have a solution. I only know that I don’t trust Uncle Riftyn to follow through.”

“You don’t know him like I do.”

“I’m certain of that.” I rolled back over, facing the window again. “Your love blinds you.”

“I suppose you’d have to know the love of a man to understand.”

As stinging as her words might’ve been, she was right. Behind my ribs stood a graveyard of empty caskets. A chest full of nameless tombstones. An emptiness which afforded me a small measure of clarity that she refused to acknowledge. “And I think you’re the greatest fool I’ve ever known.”

Another long bout of silence lingered between us, and I glanced over my shoulder in time to see her wipe a tear from her cheek. It was rare that Aleysia or I ever shed tears. Our lives, so entwined with pain and sadness, made crying seem pointless. She lifted the blanket and, despite my protesting stiffness and refusal to move, urged me over, just as when we were little, before sliding her hand over my hip and curling herself into my back. “Sing for me, Maeve. Just like you used to.”

“I’m not in a singing mood.” The stench of forbidden sex clung to her skin, clogging my throat.

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