Steel Maiden (7 page)

“Yes, Your Grace. She must have some kind of
magic. Shall we bring her down to the prison cells or would you
rather we take her to your chambers—”

“No.”

The high priest pushed his chair back and
stood up. In a single swift move he made his way around his desk
and stood before me. His white robes billowed behind him like great
big wings. He was taller than the two guards, and he looked like he
spent more time scribbling in his ledgers than he did eating. His
pale eyes bored into mine. I felt my heart rate accelerate, but I
wouldn’t look away. His face showed intrigue, contempt, and even
victory. He was the creepiest man I’d ever seen.

But when the shadow emerged beside him, I
flinched and stepped back.

The shadow wasn’t a shadow at all but a
horribly deformed creature with long gnarled fingers and toes. It
seemed to be made of mist. Its body had a see-through quality, as
though it was a specter, as though it wasn’t really there. Its dark
gray skin was barely covered in what appeared to be a ragged old
pair of trousers and a shirt. When it turned its large, protuberant
eyes onto me, it took all my self-control not to bolt.

What kind of priest would keep company with
such a creature? My eyes flew to Baul and Garth, but neither of
them seemed to take any notice of the vile thing. They were both
watching the priest. The smell of wet dog and rotten flesh emanated
from it, and it looked straight at me with large, wet eyes.

The high priest frowned, but then he
followed my gaze to the creature. When he turned back to look at
me, he looked satisfied.

The creature moved towards me, but the
priest shot it a look and the beast cowered behind him and nearly
disappeared altogether behind his robes.

The high priest circled around me,
inspecting every inch of me. I saw his brows furrow when he
examined my singed cloak, but then his brows rose when he inspected
my hands and face.

“Fascinating,” said the high priest. “Not
even a single burnt mark on her at all. It’s quite remarkable.”

He smiled. There was something ominous about
the way he watched me, and I felt a chill in my bones. His long
hooked nose gave him the appearance of a bird. My heart raced as I
stood helplessly while he examined me like I was his new prize. I
recognized the hunger and lust in his eyes.

My world was crumbling around me. The floor
appeared to shift, and I struggled to keep it together. I didn’t
want to show him fear.

“I won’t be your concubine,” I blurted.

My voice trembled with fear and rage. I
pulled at my restraints. “I’d rather die than become a priest’s
love toy. You should kill me. I promise I’ll find a way to kill
myself if you don’t.”

Baul and Garth fought back smiles, but I saw
their shoulders move up and down. I glowered at them.

The high priest smiled casually.

“If I want you to become one of my—as you
put it—love toys, then you will, my dear woman. And there is
nothing you can do about it. It is a great honor to share the high
priest’s bed.”

He moved towards me, and I grimaced.

“You have a pretty face, high cheekbones and
unusual almond-shaped eyes, very pleasing.” His eyes didn’t leave
my face. “Yes. Very pretty. But you are incredibly skinny and
sickly looking. Your skin has none of the qualities and softness of
my other concubines.”

“Try starving for most of your life. It does
wonders to the skin.”

He raised an eyebrow. “How old are you.”

I didn’t feel like answering, but I didn’t
feel like getting another beating. “Nineteen.”

“Hmm. The signs of aging have already
plagued you. And there’s no shine to your hair. I prefer my women
with curves, no doubt something that time and food can repair.”

He leaned forward, and the next thing I knew
he began licking my face with his wet gray tongue. I whimpered in
disgust and fear. I held my breath as I smelled his hot, putrid
breath. He licked my cheeks, the corner of my mouth, and down my
jaw.

I trembled and stifled a scream.

This is it. He’s going to rape me right here
while the other two watch. My spirit was shattered, but then he
stepped back.

“You smell like you’ve slept with the
pigs.”

My face burned with shame. I probably did
smell. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a real bath. It
seemed my unsavory smell had saved me. I almost smiled.

“No,” the priest shook his head, but his
smile returned. “Definitely,
not
a concubine.”

The guards shared a look, and then Garth
said, “Your Grace, do you wish us to
dispose
of the witch
for you? We’d thought we could—”

The high priest whirled on Garth.

“She’s not
just
a witch, you idiots.
Don’t you know what she is? Can’t you recognize it?”

The high priest paused briefly to give the
guards a chance to reply.

“No? No, of course
you
wouldn’t. An
ordinary witch would have burned in the sorcerer’s fire. But she’s
no ordinary witch. What you have here before you is something
extremely rare. Something extraordinary.”

My stomach tightened into a giant knot.

“I’m not a witch,” I said quietly.

I braced myself as beads of sweat trickled
down my temples. My heart was beating so fast I could barely hear.
What was this priest talking about?

Baul frowned. He was clearly as confused as
I was, and he looked from me to the priest.

“I don’t understand, Your Grace? What
is
she then? A demon? Djinni?”

The high priest chuckled at that. But before
I had time to react, before I even knew what was happening, in a
blur of white, the high priest reached out and grabbed Garth’s
sword.

With an ugly smile and eagerness in his
eyes, he rammed the sword through my stomach.

CHAPTER 7

I
STUMBLED FORWARD, and blood gushed
from my throat and spilled down my front. I looked down and saw the
pommel of Garth’s sword sticking out just below my left ribcage. My
breath came in rapid wheezes, and there didn’t seem to be enough
air in the chamber. I was cold, and I couldn’t stop trembling.

Tears spilled down my face from the pain.
I’d never been stabbed before, especially not with a giant sword.
The blood didn’t stop pouring out of my mouth, out of me. I knew
what that meant. I blinked the black spots from my eyes, barely
aware that a crowd had gathered around me. I grimaced at the throng
of priests and their apprentices. I was dying, and I had an
audience.

“And now for the great revelation.”

I looked up. The high priest looked as if he
were crazed. His hot breath tickled my face. He smiled wickedly,
and then with one great heave he pulled out the sword.

I staggered from the force of the pull and
immediately felt the wetness gush from my left side.

I stood in a pool of my own blood. I wished
I’d left Rose on better terms, and I cursed Mad Jack as I felt
myself slip away.

The high priest raised his voice. “And now,
my brothers, watch as a miracle appears before your eyes.”

I recoiled as the high priest put his hands
on my body. Was he going to stab me a second time?

He drew my cloak to the side and lifted my
tunic, exposing my chest. I wanted to protest. I wanted to hit him,
but my hands were still tied behind my back. The loss of blood had
made me so dizzy that I could barely keep standing. I felt myself
drifting away. Soon I wouldn’t care anymore. Soon I would be
dead.

I heard a gasp from the crowd. The high
priest’s smile widened.

And I wasn’t dying.

It felt like a hundred needles pricking my
skin, and then my body was blanketed in warmth. My vision cleared,
and my dizzy spell all but vanished. I felt better. But that was
impossible. I should be dying. I didn’t understand what was
happening. I followed the high priest’s stare down to my exposed
chest, to my wound.

A golden light glowed from inside my body
and spilled through the bloody gash. I blinked. The blood stopped
spilling as though the light from inside me had cauterized the
wound and stopped the bleeding. I felt a pull, and then a tug,
inside. I stared as the pink flesh and damaged organs deep inside
the gash sewed themselves up again. Slowly, the skin around the cut
gathered and sealed itself. In seconds nothing of the ghastly wound
was left but a thin scar.

I was still standing. How was this even
possible? Maybe the guards were right. Maybe I
was
a
witch.

“Spectacular!” The high priest’s voice was
full of praise. “Utterly spellbinding.”

“But…how can this be?” asked a voice behind
me, as though he were reading my thoughts.

“She healed herself? Is this magic? Is this
witchcraft?”

The high priest pulled down my tunic and I
felt easier. I felt my strength returning, like I was slowly waking
up. He turned to face the gathered crowd of priests.

“Brothers, this woman is not a mere witch,
but something far more valuable,” he paused, capitalizing on the
moment. “She’s a creature who will never get sick or catch a cold.
She is immune to sorcerer’s fire and has a natural resistance to
magic. And as you can see, she even has the ability to heal herself
from a fatal wound.”

I met the high priest’s eyes. He held my
gaze for a long moment and sneered at my confusion. He looked
satisfied. He had known I wouldn’t die before he ran me through
with the sword. It had all been just for show. He knew I could
heal
myself. Apparently he knew more about me than I
did.

The wicked gleam in his eyes sent a chill
cascading down my spine. And then it hit me. I remembered what Rose
had said to me.

They must never find you. Never. Do you
understand? They must never ever know of your existence.

What if Rose hadn’t simply been hiding me
from the priests’ search for concubines? What if she had known what
I was all along? Did she know I could heal myself? Had my mother
known? Had she protected me for an entirely different reason? Rose
had always spoken of the oath she’d sworn to my mother. It was her
duty to keep me safe. But now, seeing how I had healed myself, I
wasn’t sure what she had been trying to protect me from.

The high priest watched me curiously. He
knew I was struggling with the truth of what had happened. His
lazy, vicious grin all but confirmed my suspicions. He had other
plans for me.

“Her kind were undefeated once,” he
proclaimed. “I thought they had been wiped out in all the
worlds…until know. She is a gift. A thing of myth and legend, a
real treasure.”

Baul and Garth stared at me intently, but I
refused to look at them.

I braced myself. If I had magic in me, was I
a witch or something else? If I could heal myself from a fatal
wound, what else could I do?

My fears were gradually replaced by
self-assurance. If swords couldn’t stop me, then maybe I could
still find a way to escape. I needed food. But I felt stronger and
more confident.

I tightened my hands into fists behind my
back and felt the rope tear into the flesh of my wrists. The skin
around my wrists was warm. Was I healing? The high priest had
guessed correctly that I’d never been sick. The sword in my chest
had been painful, but I had survived. I could do it again.

I’d promised Rose that we could get out of
the Pit. It was a promise that I wanted to keep. I was filled with
hope that we might escape.

Healing magic certainly seemed to brew
inside me. And by the way the high priest was watching me,
something told me there was much, much more he wasn’t telling
me.

He raised his hands. “Brothers of the Temple
of the Sun. I believe the Creator has handed us a unique gift.”

He smiled. “Is she a witch? Perhaps, but she
is much more than a mere witch. This woman is a—”

“Demon spawn,” called a voice behind me.

Even before I turned around, I recognized
the voice. Where had I heard it before? The voice belonged to a
middle-aged priest. He must have been handsome once, but the years
had not been good to him. With his head held high he stared down at
his brethren with a scowl. He had my dark eyes.

I knew that face. I
knew
him.

The high priest didn’t hide his surprise.
“Brother Edgar, do you know this young woman?”

The priest, Brother Edgar, stared at me.
“This unholy monstrosity is my daughter.”

I flinched. Blood pounded in my ears as the
pain of recognition overwhelmed me. I thought I had managed to
forget his face, to forget what he had done. My mouth opened, but I
just stood there stiffly. This wasn’t how I had envisioned my
reunion with my father.

In my head I had killed him—many, many times
over.

The high priest raised his hand for
silence.