Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Rust

"What? You have the match to my Trinket," I said.

"I was willing to entertain the idea that perhaps it's true," he said, harshly. "But I will entertain nothing for a foundling who isn't even certain of her species."

"But—" My soul gasped and flopped strangely. All of two minutes, and the prospect of losing him sent a shudder and shriek through every instinct. "It's the Chamber and the Churn. You can't just walk away from it because you don't like it!"

"This? This is not a match," he shoved his clenched fist towards me. "The Trinkets are made. Your Trinket and mine were likely cast from the same hand, and yours is whole and mine is not, but it does not mean we are the same."

"But we are," I whispered. "You know we are."

"No, we are not, and you will never prove otherwise. I am a Captain of the Lord's Guard. I can't marry a foundling, and that's exactly why your male friend's family had him come here after he got caught with you."

"And that is where you are wrong, Captain. We were together for two years." The hollow waste of that two years echoed in my words, but I was no stupid skirt. I had never been that foolish, and I'd have left him otherwise. Tynn had gone to formal events without me, but those women on his arm had just been decorations. The same as the formal attire he'd been compelled to wear for the same events, when he was more comfortable in his fur and hunting leathers. I was the one he'd chosen.

Asund put his free hand to his head. "By the gods, you are foolish. His family put up with it because the damage had been done and he was young. I assure you, they told him to leave you be. It was his idea, was it not, for this to happen? So he told you?"

Words twisted my tongue. No sound came.

"Exactly," Asund leaned closer. "They told him to come here to wash himself clean with his divine-ordained mate. This is how it is done with high-breds who have consorted with someone far below their station, ruined themselves, and need redemption."

Tynn had told me exactly that... but not exactly in that way. "I didn't ruin him."

His voice lowered, tone unkind and raw, "You were grime he had to wash off. Do not be so blissfully naïve to think he was here hoping you would be the one. He was here praying you would not be."

"The Churn may have had something else to say about that," I snapped, still reeling. This asshole talking down to me like I was nothing!

"Do you think any high-bred family likes the idea of the Churn? Younger brothers like myself get told we'll honor the gods, but the only thing we're honoring our family's coffers," he said, his words sliding over me like a toxin that burned my skin. "If you'd been the one they'd be wailing in private and pulling at their hair, and he wouldn't have been in bed with you, he'd have been drinking himself stupid."

My Trinket's points dug into my hand. Blood dripped onto the dusty sand and parched stone.

"You would have been kept out of sight by a handler like myself. Anytime you had to be in public, you'd have had rehearsed scripts and handlers," he went on. "You'd be praised for your modest silence and gentle smile, and your focus on you rearing your children. You would never speak at formal dinners. You would never meet diplomats. You'd never be at your husband's side for anything of merit. Be glad you haven't been placed higher up. Your new family would have dragged you to the bottom of the ocean where no one could ever see you."

Tears cut through the sweat on my cheeks. "It's not true."

"It is," he said, not entirely without pity. "And a bodyguard like myself would be charged with being your handler. More to protect the family than you. You wouldn't be worth killing. It'd do your husband and his family a favor. Oh, he'd be heartbroken, but he'd remarry into as loveless a marriage as he would have had without you."

He patted his pocket where his own Trinket had gone, and turned.

"Asund, wait," I croaked.

Asund looked over his shoulder, the muscles along his spine tightening. "My Trinket is not a match for yours. I am not going to stand here and insult my enclave and family speculating with a foundling over such matters. I've done you a favor educating you."

Gnats settled onto my face and hand to sip blood and tears. "It is. You're the one. You know it. I know it. I'm not dumb enough to not realize you were just telling me why no one like you would choose me."

"Go find who holds your Trinket, Theia. It's not me."

"You know it is!"

He walked out of the square.

"You coward!" I shouted, voice tearing out of my throat. "You coward! You know our Trinkets match!"

Asund spun around. "You know our Trinkets do not. Do not besmirch my honor, foundling. You won't like what happens to you."

"I don't like what's happening now!" I rasped. "I'm a foundling. I have nothing left to lose!"

"Except that pretty little head of yours. Or your tongue when I cut it out and stitch your lips shut. Nobody will stop me. Certainly not him," Asund pointed at Tynn, who had lingered to watch the circus with his family.

Asund pulled his Trinket from his pocket. He gripped it between thumb and forefinger, clearly showing the gold shard. He raised his voice and shouted, "My Trinket! For all to see!"

I miserably did the same with my Trinket. The spherical pointy burr shape cast a shadow on the sand.

Asund re-pocketed his Trinket and left without a word. I hung my head and stared at the bloody, dry dirt while the enclave stared at me. Ripples of sound and laughter went through the onlookers.

Lucetia's little footsteps hurried into the square. She grabbed my arm. "Come on, Theia. We've got to go."

"It is him," I said miserably. "It's him, Luceita. I don't know why his Trinket is different. It's like a piece of my Trinket."

"Come on. Come on," she coaxed, pulling me towards the exit. I stumbled over her, blind with tears and looking for Tynn, Asund, some random god that might be around to offer explanation.

Instead, it was just a scribe that took my Trinket from me. With deft fingers, he wrapped a length of cord around the burr's spikes, and handed it back to me. Lucetia tied it around my neck. "There," she said. "Now just think about who the gods will eventually send to you."

"No one," I said miserably.

She chirped, "If that's the case, you wouldn't have a Trinket at all! Oh no, your hand."

She pulled at my hand. I noticed for the first time the puncture wounds on my palm. Deep gouges. The Trinket against my chest poked into the soft skin there too. Small stains of blood had started.

"No," I said, pushing her hand away when she went to remove it. "leave it."

"But it's hurting you, you'll get an infection and—"

"I'll be fine," I said. I'd never had a festering wound in my life, and if I started festering now, I wouldn't be sad. The wounds in my heart and soul were going to fester anyway. So what if it spread to my body? 

Lucetia gently pulled me towards our shared flat. "Come on, I'll take care of you." 

"I'm such an idiot," I croaked. "He rejected me, Luc. Both of them did." 

Everyone was looking at me. Bloody, tear-stained, sobbing, foundling idiot me. I looked around, and saw nothing but faces. Unsympathetic faces. A few of them sneered at me. 

Luc hauled me into the shadows.