Page 108 of Insolence
I place my chin on my hand. “What ‘proclivities,’ Elodie?”
“Very simple ones: demuns are equipped to kill. Quickly and efficiently.” She chews a piece of bacon and sips her wine.
Stunned, I can’t begin to determine which of the seventeen questions banging around my head to ask first.
“Unintentionally sometimes,” she continues, as casually as she may. “Sometimes very intentionally, due to what they are. It’s in their nature. Demuns are largely the reasonallchangelings are distrusted.”
“I see.” The delicious fare turns to sawdust in my mouth. “Howdo they kill?”
She looks thoughtful for a moment. Finally saying, “That's a better question for another day, I think.”
“All right.” I heave a sigh and drain most of my cup. “Are the betrothed girls… I meandemuns… mortal?”
“All changelings can die, yes. Although we’re much longer-lived than natural humans. Mages will commonly live to a hundred and twenty or so. Some demuns live to see two hundred years before expiring of old age. If something more violent doesn’t kill them first.”
A gasp escapes me. “All right, that’s alotto take apart and examine, priestess!”
“Oh, there’s more,” she says and refills my wine. “All demuns possess preternatural strength and keen senses. Unfortunately for them, the ritual blunts those abilities, along with memories. The prioress keeps them sedated most times, as you’ve likely noticed by now. To keep them otherwise under control. If there’s one thing Deirdre loves,” murmurs Elodie, “it’s complete and total control.”
Gods, that’s brutal.Those poor creatures.Heartbreak wells up inside of me on behalf of the betrothed girls. “That hardly seems fair, even if they do kill. It isn’ttheirfault they are how they are.”
“Oh, I agree. But life isn’t fair. It doesn’t help that changelings always happen to be wasted women.”
“Wasted women?” I incline my head. The termalmostsounds familiar. So much so that I know if I grope, the headache will come barreling back.
“Right.” Elodie sighs. “It’s an old-fashioned term used for women who love other women”—women like you and me, she doesn’t say. But it drifts in the air between us just the same. “What it means is a woman who’s abandoned her duty to the realm—herdutybeing to keep her true desires hidden, to marry and have children anyway—instead choosing to indulge selfish cravings. More or less rendering herself a waste of flesh.”
“Oh, hell.” I slouch in my chair. Aside from revealing that horrible phrase, the Second High Priestess basically just told me that we’reallwasted women here at the temple.Then again, that does make a strange sort of sense.
She goes on to say the reverse isn’t true at all; not all wasted women are changelings. But the correlation certainly doesn’t do us any favors.
There’s another term for us, too. “Slag” is shorter and easier to say, but it’s pejorative to the point of being a slur.
“As if women in general don’t already have it bad enough,” I finally say.
She huffs in agreement and takes a long swallow of wine. “Things are slightly better for the mages who end up here. By becoming high priestesses, we somewhat redeem ourselves in society’s eyes. We prostrate ourselves before the goddess. Pledge ourselves to her mercy. We take our vows and at least keep up outward appearances.”
“Not that half the temple isn’t secretly screwing around,” I can’t help but murmur with a sardonic snort.
“Any given year.” She raises her cup and takes another sip. “But we serve a purpose, so most folks at least pretend totolerate us. Some natural humans even revere us, few though they are, so don’t fret too much.”
I frown, chewing my food along with the steaming heap of knowledge she just dumped in my lap. The next time I look up, Elodie is glancing around her beloved enclave, a look of contentment softening her features.
Rain drums on the glass. The gray, waterlogged world outside contrasts starkly against our cozy indoor picnic. The flowerbeds overflow with jasmine and viola and pansy, chrysanthemum and primrose.
But the enticing perfume that’s teased my nostrils since I first sat down wafts from the strangely familiar striped roses. They climb the trellises behind the table, scrabbling up the wooden window frames and clinging to the crossbeams directly overhead.
I haven’t had another episode like the first time I came in here, although the aching nostalgia that accompanies their floral-citrus fragrance is still strong. Closing my eyes, I drag in a deep breath, attempting to let the feeling wash over me.
Elodie makes a noise in her throat. “I’d love to paint you sometime.”
She’s gazing at me and looking half-stunned by her own words when I open my eyes.
“If you want,” she adds hastily. “Truth be told, I don’t have supplies. But I could get some. If you wanted.” She rakes a hand through her loose hair, wearing a look of raw, open longing that thrums down the incorporeal cord connecting us.
“Let me think about it,” I say. How does her attention incite so much heat, so much euphoria? After the heavy conversation we’ve had, it has absolutely no right to and is the furthest thing from fair.
Under the table, I press my thighs together against my throbbing core.Behave, Tiss.
