IF THERE IS SUCH THING AS GODS AND GODDESSES
Kore is sure they do not dwell within Eluviel. For no matter how many times Callisto breathes a prayer, it is the low sigh of the wind and the chidings of the marquis' men who answer. But Callisto's belief runs much further than her own, telling those who listen that if the Goddess has forsaken them, then it is because she watches over Iomeda.
Iomeda, Kore's heart grows heavy and her mind plagued with memories at the sound of her sister's name, recalling the summers spent outside the hovel and the autumns at the base of the weeping willow, of words shared both good and evil, and promises always fulfilled. She lifts her head solemnly, looking at the slim ivory curve of the moon and wonders if Io also treks beneath it and whether she waits or walks, Kore vows that she will not be the first sister to break a promise.
'Do not look so glum,' Marquis Matthew says alas, his breathing heavy and his voice strained. He is a big man who has walked a larger distance and Kore finds herself hoping that by some divine luck that an opening will appear when the townsfolk don't encircle them and it is just her, her sister and the Marquis. They could run then, disappear into the night as if they are one of its very creatures, without worry that he could follow. 'We are almost at Bochbaille.'
It is Callisto who answers in a strangled sob. The sound is more painful than any Kore has heard before and paired with the sight of the emerging town, she becomes keenly aware of the fate she has been given.
Bochbaille is silent and still, sleeping beneath a thin blanket of ivory as they wander down its earthen pathways. In time, when both the sun and the townsfolk wake from their beds, the town will be alive. Smoke will seep in thicker billows from stone chimneys and there will be a trade of both wares and words. Kore wonders if they will tell of the night and the men it brought, of the hovel that burned and the girls they stole.
She wants to scream, to rid herself of the dread that gnaws at her stomach like a parasite griping at exposed flesh and to stop whatever horrors the dawn may bring. But even if she were to yell without being silenced by another's hand, she is sure no townsfolk will pay it any mind when they see who the Marquis has taken.
'Your sister is very fortunate for you both,' Marquis Matthew speaks alas, a saccharine smile drawn across his thin lips. 'You have saved her life and in her stead, I will have to give another.'
Bile grows in her throat. She had been so determined to save Io that she hadn't thought of who the Marquis would choose in her place. She had not wanted to think about it.
She does not give the Marquis the satisfaction of an answer and merely follows his tread, looking to the marketplace that stands before them, to the empty stalls that encompass them, waiting for the morning to approach when vendors will return to their places within and life will continue, unfazed and unchanged. Across the well that sits within the town's centre, a horse-drawn wagon waits. Beside it, a man whose features remain hidden in the shadows of the night.
'Why us, milord?' Kore asks alas, when they near the wooden wagon, torches in hand. She was not sure what answer she expected, which answer he would give. It seemed that the village did not need an answer for those it took and if they did, it bore no truth. Such had been the way when they deemed them witches, heretics, apostates; when rumours had spread and the town no longer pitied the girls who lived within the hovel but rather, loathed them. She doesn't expect the answer he finally says after a tedious moment when the Marquis looks towards her, his smile unwavering.
'Why not you?'
Callisto cries then, a weeping that causes Kore to writhe beneath the men's holds. But they are unyielding and her skin hisses with the grim promise of bruises that will brand her skin by sunrise. She glares towards them, remembering the deep brackets that settle on either side of their lips and the harsh lines of their features. The flickering glare of the torches casts wafting shadows down their faces and it takes a moment before Kore recognizes them from her passings through Bochbaille and her walks with her sisters outside of it. Willem Torsten, Bochbaille's sole blacksmith, and Alcott Edwin, a farmer down the road from the town. The man who holds Callisto is one she has yet to have seen before, he is not as aged as those he follows, his blue eyes hardened with whatever orders the marquis has given him.
'Willem, Alcott and Emerick,' The marquis gives a sideways glance to the men poised behind him. 'Put them in.'
Kore is roughly shoved into the wooden wagon, seated between her two captors and placed across from Callisto whose sobs have only just begun to soften. If the Marquis' men are annoyed by the eldest Kyteler's cries, they do not let it be known. Marquis Matthew does not share their same facade, wearing the same sadistic simper Kore is sure will haunt her dreams during the nights across the border.
When the wagon lurches forwards and begins its travel to the Marquis' estate, Kore knows there is no divinity in this white wasteland, only scattered boroughs, a burning hovel and those who travel in between.
+ + +
Dawn comes far too soon, painting the heavens in a mirage of different hues, each a varying shade of yellow and blue. But it is what lies beneath it which causes her stomach to churn and her heart to hammer against the confinement of her ribcage, the stone keep belonging to the Marquis and before it, the wooden caravan that waits by the estate's doors.
'We are almost there,' Matthew Marquis is happy, smiling as if he is one of the children who play upon his lands.
Callisto has since fallen silent, unmoving from her spot between the Marquis and Emerick. She hasn't raised her eyes from her entwined fingers since they entered the wagon, has not uttered a word to any of the men who rebuke the Goddess or Iomeda. Kore, unfortunately, cannot say the same.
Shortly after they left Bochbaille, Willem had uttered Iomeda's name in a vicious slur and though her arms had been held, Kore's legs were not. She had kicked him as hard as she was able to in his shin, ignoring any semblance of pain that hissed at her heel and relishing in the bark he gave soon after. The Marquis's hand had collided with her cheek, as harsh as the winter's winds and Kore sat in silence, unable to break from the hands that bound her or to spew whatever curses burned in her throat. For the girls were expendable, Marquis Matthew had made all too clear, deciding between the larderer or another servant to replace Iomeda.
Kore had supposed she was no different.
The Marquis' voice tears through her thoughts. He does not look to the Kytelers, only to the men on either side of them as the wagon pulls to a ragged stop beside the caravan.
'Grab the first servant you can find and place them into the back with the others.'
Kore watches every movement from there on out, eyes never faltering as she stares at the Marquis's retreating figure and his men who stand, one of them holding her wrists and the other pushing her back, forcing her out of the wagon.
She doesn't even notice how her heels dig into the frozen earth beneath her when she looks to the caravan, to the wide eyes that stare back. They are girls, someone's daughter, sister, or wife, sitting hidden in what little shadows the caravan offers. She can hear their soft whimpers, the whispered warnings one of them offers. She tells her to run, but her feet are just as unmoving as the rough hands that guide her, the same hands that unlock the iron door and thrust her upon the caravan's hay-ridden floor.
'Please,' Callisto begs, her voice strained as she turns to the men who have all shifted their attention to her. 'Please let us go.'
The men chuckle in unison, a sickening thing that makes Kore wonder how different they are than the beasts who dwell across the border. For though she has heard rumours of them, depictions of their giant statures and feral behaviours, she is sure that they cannot be as cruel as the men who push Callisto onto the floor of the caravan and laugh as they watch her scurry to Kore and the two hold each other.
Suddenly Kore finds herself listening to the sound of sobs once more, a cry that sends shivers crawling up her spine and a tightness in her chest. This time, however, they do not come from Callisto, but rather, one of the Marquis' servants.
The girl who has taken Iomeda's place.
It takes everything for Kore not to throw up then and there as she looks at the girl. She's younger than both her sister and her and the more she looks at her, at her soot-stained skin and the round hills of her face, all she can think of is how she may also be a few years younger than Iomeda. And even though she is disgusted for how she is partly to blame for the death of this girl, her repulsion comes from how thankful she is that she isn't watching Iomeda be thrown in here with them.
The cries do not stop when the barred door is closed behind her or when the covered cart lurches forward, beginning the venture toward the border and all that lies beyond.
The back of the caravan is quiet for a while, girls pressed into its sides or curled in its corners. Kore cannot help but study them, their faces unfamiliar and clothes different from one to the next. Two, she assumes, are noble-born, their features unblemished and clothes much more refined than those who surround them. The others, look worn and torn, their clothes as ragged as her own.
'We're going to die,' The serving girl clutches at her chest. She's distraught, her cries wracking her body and the hearts of those who surround her. 'They will kill us. They will hunt us.'
'At least you were not born for this,' Another rebukes, one of the two noblewomen Kore assumed. She sits a few inches away from everyone else, looking through the wrought iron bars of the door, the only thing keeping them away from the sprawling plains of Eridanul, from their demise.
'We were all chosen. My family-' A sob cuts through her sentence.
'We all had families, people we loved or belonged to. You are no different than anyone else in here.'
And it is true, at one point Kore is sure that they each knew love and family. They once belonged somewhere that wasn't the cold wooden floor of a moving caravan, poised like the goods of a travelling merchant. The truth is grim to the serving girl who does not finish her sentence or speak for a tedious while after.
Kore's voice cracks when she turns her head to Callisto, whispering. 'You can cry if you want. It does not make you weak.'
Callisto doesn't bite back the bitter laughter that leaves her mouth nor the falter in her hold. 'I should be saying that to you. I may only be a few seasons older but I should be comforting you, protecting you. You,' She drawls, 'should be the one to cry.'
She does know and she knows that if she begins, she may never stop.
'I know,' It is all Kore says, all she is able to say.
In the days that pass, they stop only a handful of times and only for necessity or whenever the Marquis deems it so. The girls are given only moulded cheese and told to drink from whatever body of water is closest. Each time they stop, Kore counts the guards, how close the Marquis's carriage follows to their own and how many different locations they enter. But the guard's eyes do not falter and they are too large in numbers to easily escape. Two days into their travels and Kore realizes she no longer knows where she is or how far they have travelled from the hovel, only that they draw closer to Indulivan and further from Iomeda.
It is as if Callisto can hear her thoughts.
'We will never see her again, will we?'
Kore looks to her, to the sadness that paints her features and unable to look her in the eyes, turns to look through the barred door of the caravan, to the Marquis's carriage that follows feet away. 'We will, I promised her I would find her.'
'You won't,' the one noblewoman replies and Kore's body stiffens, 'no one who has crossed the border has returned, save for the Marquis, the lords and the ladies, the kings and their consorts themselves. No Althieme has ever been seen after crossing the Veil.'
Althieme.
It is an unfamiliar word, one that Kore is sure is taught by governesses to their children as a part of a lesson on Eluvien's history or something of the sort. For a girl who does not know how to read or write, Kore finds herself strangely admiring the noblewoman for her knowledge alone. But even as she admires her, she cannot hide the annoyance that seeps through her words.
'I made a promise and I do not plan on breaking it.'
The noblewoman laughs humourlessly and looks to Kore, her almond eyes have thinned into a glare. 'I do not think many planned to be taken to Indulivan but here we are.'
It is the last sentence uttered for days to come within the caravan with the words spoken next, only regarding the cobblestone streets they find themselves venturing and the tiered homes they pass. Kore can see neither, not when two of the poorer girls place themselves at the caravan's door, blocking the other's sights as they talk about how beautiful the land is and how different it is from theirs. Outside the caravan, the guards holler ever so often, warning each other of the mountainous terrain and the thinning paths. The last holler she hears from within the caravan is of the guards telling them that they have arrived.
Callisto's hold tightens around Kore and the girls no longer crowd around the caravan's door, sinking back into the wagon's sides as they listen to the footsteps that surround them, the idle chatter made by the guards and the joyous exclamations of the marquis.
'Listen to them Kore. Do as they say. Do not fight. Do not argue. Please, not here,' Callisto is begging, her eyes pleading and as much as Kore wants to do exactly the opposite, she agrees if only to offer her sister a semblance of reprieve.
'Okay.'
Before another word can be spoken, the lock is unhinged and the guards begin grabbing the girls. The noblewomen are taken first, followed by the serving girl, then the others until Kore is the only one who remains, grabbed and dragged out of the darkness of the caravan and into the midday sun.
She winces, unused to the brightness or the strange scent that fills the air. It smells clean, of lilac and freshly baked goods, far different than the scent of the countryside, of workers and manure she has spent the duration of her life around and a stark contrast to what awaits them in the ivory building in front of them. Even at its side, poised in front of what Kore is sure as the servant's entrance, it is beautiful, made from a stone of some sort that shines beneath the sun.
Before she can be hauled off behind the others, her gaze wanders, to the snow-tipped mountains that sprawl across the horizon, the settlements that are ornaments upon their sides, made of the same white stone as the palace before her. It makes her wonder how high they are and if Eridanul and Cepheus have anything to rival it. But the moment is brief, cut short when she is dragged away from the caravan and taken into the palace's servant's quarter.
The halls are made of the same creamy-white colour, illuminated by sconces scattered throughout their length. If death comes here often, there is no evidence of it, only servants who watch from doorways, peering towards the guards and the girls they bear. The inhabitants of Indulivan look no more man than those they have brought to their land and Kore cannot help but wonder what the Marquis had meant when he referred to them as animals.
And then they stop. There is no movement from guard nor girl, only a servant much older than them all who stands before them, waiting. From the back of the line, Kore cannot see her, only hear her accented voice as she dismisses all the guards.
'Leave and join your masters. We will take them.'
There is a disgruntled murmur from one of the men but they all oblige, turning upon the palace's smooth floors and leaving through the same entrance they had entered. One by one, a girl is taken by two of the palace's servants and there is a brief moment when Kore catches Callisto's eye as she too is taken but before she can rush after her, two small hands grab either side of her. She cannot tell if it is her promise to Callisto or the weariness of her limbs that forbid her from fighting their hold. Whichever it is, leaves her silent and obedient as the servants guide her into another room, away from the crowded hall and Callisto's cries.
She does not look at either girl. Her thoughts are scattered and she is scared, not knowing what to do or where she is.
'Evall dris,' One servant speaks in her native tongue, and Kore meets her repulsed gaze. She looks to be a little older than herself with russet-coloured hair and sharp features. She is beautiful, her striking emerald eyes studying Kore intently. Unable to say anything to her, Kore just mirrors her expression before glancing around the room, to the copper basin of heated water in its corner, the mirror that stands against the length of the opposing wall, the thin fabrics of silk placed upon a nearby chair.
The other servant nods her head in agreement, standing beside the basin. She looks younger than the first, her eyes the same deep shade of brown as her hair. When Kore does not move, the soft corners of her mouth turn downwards and the first servant ushers her towards it, speaking in their language, strings of sentences Kore has never heard and will probably never understand.
Kore realizes what they want when she nervously reaches for her chemise, beginning to strip from it. They watch her every movement, every piece of shoddy clothing that she peels from her body and though she is uncomfortable beneath their gazes, she finds herself listening to Callisto's words.
Do as they say. Do as they say. Do as they—the moment her toes touch the water, she hisses. The air had been so cold during the journey that the warmth of the water gnaws at her skin and when she pulls away, a dull ache is left in its wake. She hadn't even noticed how cold it had been, too focused on Callisto beside her and Iomeda at the old willow. The servants do not care, though, watching her with expecting eyes.
She enters the basin slowly, ignoring the battle between her chilled skin and the heated water as she sinks within it. The water is scented, with what? Kore cannot figure it out, for the scent is soft but strong, belonging to what she guesses must be a native flora or fruit. It is when dainty fingers grab at her skin, she lurches again, pulling away from their hold.
'Calm,' The red-haired servant hisses, her accent bleeding through the word as her hands wrap tightly around Kore's shoulder, heaving her back to recline against the basin's walls. Once she has been reclined, both begin to wash her with cloths, touching every part of her whether intimate or not, careful not to damage her skin but not enough to care when she stiffens when they brush against her fresh bruises.
When they are finished with her, they stand and look down upon her, watching as she stands and steps out from the tub. They dry her, running long lengths of fabric against her body to catch wandering buds of water and gathering the moisture in the dark thicket of her hair. When they are pleased with how dry she is, the dark-haired servant grabs the silk from the chair and the gold chains that lay beneath it.
She realizes then that they plan to make her wear it, the thin ivory material bound together only by metal. And despite Callisto's words, Kore argues.
'I am not wearing that.'
The red-haired servant is annoyed when she approaches Kore, placing one portion of silk upon one shoulder and another on the other. While they may cover her most feminine parts, they do not leave much for the imagination, leaving the exterior of her hips exposed and she is sure that those to her side, will see the slope of her breasts. The gold fastens the fabrics in place upon her waist and the servant makes sure they stretch around her shoulders like vines belonging to woodlands. From the gold, ornamental laurel leaves hang, moving in accordance with her. She wonders if they have picked such pieces to distract from the contusions that mar her body.
'You have no choice,' She says once she is done fixing the shimmering accessory, reaching out for the smaller piece of silk.
It is a veil, secured to her face in wrappings of gold chain. The silk is soft against her skin and there are moments where she nearly forgets she wears anything. They leave her exposed, skin left to be consumed by the lingering eye, and vulnerable, unable to see through the swathe of silk that adorns her face.
She hates it.
It makes her skin crawl, anger flushes her cheeks and bars her jaw. If she only had her bow, her dagger, anything, she would run for it. She would find Callisto and leave this damned palace and its gilded halls. If the servants are looking at her, she is sure they dismiss the shiver that runs across her body as that of nerves.
Kore feels the familiar feeling of fingers curling around her wrists once more as the servants lead her out of the room and into, what she assumes, the hallway. There, she can hear the familiar sound of sobs, the same she had grown accustomed to during the time spent in the caravan. They do not come from Callisto. No, she is sure she recognizes them as belonging to the Marquis's servant. It is what lies underneath the sobs that cause her chest to tighten; a chorus of shrill metal, of chains and when one hand leaves her wrist only to be replaced by the cold smoothness of arm cuffs, she prays to the Goddess that she watches over both Callisto and Iomeda, no matter how far apart they may be. When both her wrists are bound by the metal, she listens to the openings of nearby doors, the shuffling of feet and the snapping of more bindings placed upon forearms.
In a few moments, her hand is softly lifted, guided by the girl in front of her, urging her to follow their lead. She does, through the distance of the hall and the doors it keeps, focusing on the coolness of the floor and the whisperings that surround her, all uttered in an unfamiliar language belonging to stranger people.
Even in the depths of the hallway, Kore can hear a distant crowd. There is a murmur of excitement held among it, too distant for Kore to know what about and too small for Kore to determine how large the crowd may be but it is prevalent and enough for Kore to believe all the stories she has been told. The details of those who dwell in Indulivan, the creatures that roam its grounds and the one who hosts it all.
How she will die before a court who cares for neither her name nor face.