The Winds of the Past [Rune Factory 4]

Chapter 63

Rishi looked towards Dylas, saying sadly, “Hindsight is ever perfect, but we are only human. She was helpless against a man of his strength and skill, and she feared he would follow through with his threats—threats against Sundara, against Chanda, and even against me.” Avani looked up at him, startled, and sensing her reaction, he nodded. “Yes, I knew of it. Our link was a constant flow then, but I was only conscious of it if I focused on it or had nothing else occupying my mind. So if I was busy with my lessons, for example, I didn’t notice what you were thinking or saying or doing. But alone in the quiet of the night…. I was horrified and sickened by what he did to you, my love, humiliated by my own helplessness… and disgusted that I wanted so badly to escape it, that I couldn’t find the strength within myself to share your burden. I’d never felt so contemptible….”

Avani rose quickly and went to her brother, putting her arms around him to comfort him. “Shhh, don’t, Rishi. There wasn’t anything you could have done. It was my job to protect you, not the other way around.”

Then she stood, straight and tall, proudly lifting her chin as she looked unflinchingly at her former lover. “You ask me why—why didn’t I do this or that or some other thing, why I just lay down and took his abuse. Well, I’ll tell you why. I did it because the cost of failure was too great. He threatened those I loved most, and if I had ever harbored doubts that he’d follow through with those threats before, those doubts were put to rest before the sun rose. I was a child of eighteen, and although I had completed a decade of combat training, I was no match for his strength and skill.

“You ask why I didn’t fight—I did, with all that I had. But he easily overpowered me and forced himself onto me. That was when he made his threats—hissing them into my ear as he raped me. And he didn’t only threaten them with death—he threatened to… to do other things to them first. All while demonstrating precisely what he’d do to each of them, to make it perfectly clear to me.

“As for the teleport spell—those that learned it usually did so in the final year of their education, when they were old enough to have the wisdom and discernment to use it properly. However, my father forbade my teachers to teach it to me until long after my wedding, sensing that I might use it to escape.

“In a final act of desperation, I went to my father the morning after the wedding was over, the morning after my second night with… with him. And I told my father everything he had done to me, hoping that he might annul our marriage—he had that ability, as our leader.

“Instead of showing concern for his own child, though, he berated me. He said that all brides have a rough time the first night or so, all the more if they were virgins. Then he came right out and told me that he didn’t believe me—he thought it was a ruse in order to gain my freedom so I could marry Sundara. He gave me a cold, hard look and reminded me that I was a Princess from a long and proud bloodline, and the new matron of another. He hadn’t raised me to snivel and whine and crumble at the first hint of adversity, he said, but rather to do my duty—just as he’d always done, just as all our family had done for as far back as memory and legend could recall. My duty, he informed me, was to hold my head high, to put up with adversity and disappointment and whatever trials came my way, like the Princess that I was, and to bear my new husband sons so that his line would flourish—since if I did not bear him sons, it would instead die out with him.

“Knowing then that my last hope for rescue had failed, I straightened up, holding my head up as proudly as I could, just as he had commanded me, and I informed him that I would sooner die a thousand deaths than bear a child to that monster to whom he sold me. And then I turned my back on him and walked out the door.”

Dylas looked suitably chastened after her speech, and he quickly sat back down, avoiding her piercing gaze. After staring at him for a moment, Avani sat back down, too, and with a sigh, she leaned against me as I put my arm around her. She closed her eyes in thought for a moment, stroking Baldur’s head as he placed his muzzle on her lap, whining anxiously. Then without opening her eyes, she resumed her story.