Page 9 of The Gilded Ones

“Where’s Father?” I ask.

The Elder shrugs. “He took to his bed.”

Something about his tone makes me stiffen. “When?”

“Five days ago, when the fibres of your neck stretched their way back to your body and reattached.”

Vomit rises to my throat again, and I retch loudly, emptying my stomach. There isn’t much left in it now but water and bile. Once I’m finished, I wipe my lips, mentally push back frenzied thoughts and acid guilt.

All those years, Father endured being sneered at and excluded – for me. For the promise that I would one day be proven and show everyone I belonged in the village. But I am exactly what they said I was, only worse – so, so much worse. And now look what I’ve done.

Elder Olam continues watching me. “Your friend Elfriede is pure, in the event you were wondering,” he says. “We are watching her, nevertheless. She spent a great deal of time with you. You never know how such associations can taint a person.”

The words jolt through me. “She is innocent,” I whisper, horrified. I’m the one who heard the deathshrieks. Who commanded them… “Elfriede has nothing to do with this.”

Elder Olam shrugs. “Perhaps. Time will tell, I suppose…”

The callousness of his answer is terrifying, but I can’t dwell on that now.

“Father,” I remind him. “What is his condition?”

Elder Olam shrugs again, unconcerned. “He won’t survive for long. Not if you remain undying,” he adds pointedly.

I flinch, shame and guilt roiling in my belly. Now I understand why Elder Olam is here – why the others made sure he took Father’s place. He’s good at making people see his way. Before he became head of the village, he was a very successful trader. He had a way of making his patrons believe that they wanted what he wanted.

He doesn’t have to do so with me. I look down at my veins, stomach lurching as they shimmer, the gold glittering inside them, demonic essence forever marking me impure. I want to rip them out, want to dig so deeply I empty them.

Suddenly, I think of the villagers, huddled in their homes, and Father, on his sickbed. And even Elfriede. Distinctly now, I remember the fear in her eyes when she looked at me. The disgust. What happens when the demon in me rises again? What happens if it decides to lash out? To attack the village? To call more deathshrieks?

All those dead villagers scattered in the snow…

My breath shallows, and I try to breathe, surrender myself to Oyomo’s grace. Elder Durkas told us it was always around us, there if we only reached for it – if only we submitted ourselves to His will.

I will submit. I will do anything to cleanse myself of my impurity, of my sins.

I look up at Elder Olam. “Kill me,” I whisper, the tears sliding down my cheeks. “I know you must know how. I am an abomination in the eyes of Oyomo. I am an abomination.”

A grim smile slices Elder Olam’s lips. Victory. “They say fire is cleansing for the spirit,” he murmurs, taking a torch from the wall and staring meaningfully at the flames.

Another scream rises, but I swallow it down. It’ll be all right, I tell myself. All I have to do is submit, subject myself to the flames, and perhaps then Oyomo will forgive me for my impurity.

Even as I think this, I know it’s a lie. Fire won’t kill me. Perhaps nothing ever will. Even then I have to try – have to submit and bear the pain until Oyomo gives me His grace again. Or until He grants me the mercy of death.

Click. Click. Click.

A sharp, insistent tapping penetrates my ears.

When I blearily open my eyes, there’s a woman sitting before me. She’s small and delicate, and dark robes cover her from head to toe. Even stranger, her hands are covered by white, bonelike armoured gloves – gauntlets. They have sharpened claws at the end, and they glow dimly in the darkness of the cellar. It almost looks as if she has ghostly white hands. White Hands… Perhaps that’s what I’ll call her.

When she notices me watching her, White Hands stops drumming her fingers. Her wooden half mask gleams under her hood, a gnarled, frightening demon caught mid-roar. I blink. For just a moment, I thought it was a war mask, but only men wear those. Is she really a nightmare? A fever dream? Please let her be a dream. Please, no more pain – no more blood.

Golden rivers, coiling down the floor—

Tiny daggers bite into my chin and neck. “No, no, you will not ignore me, alaki,” White Hands says in a lilting, heavily accented voice.

I jerk away from her gauntlets, gasping. This isn’t a dream; she’s really here! The scent of ice and fir trees wafts from her cloak, chasing away the ever-present stench of burning flesh, melting fat, charred bone. As I inhale deeply, savouring the smell, White Hands abruptly crouches, her eyes boring into mine. Fear shivers over me.

They’re dark – so very, very dark – those eyes. The last time I saw eyes so dark was on a deathshriek, but they didn’t have whites surrounding their pupils.

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