“She’s gone.” Tressa pushed through the crowd, ignoring their keening. Granna’s death meant the end of an era. Without her first-hand stories of the day the fog fell, Hutton’s Bridge would never be the same. Without Granna, there was no solid proof. There were only legends and fears and the possibility that nothing was left outside the fog.
It was as if Granna’s death would leave them all orphans in a world that had forgotten them, had trapped them inside a barrier they couldn’t obliterate. Granna was their anchor, but the rope holding them to her had just been severed.
For Tressa it meant so much more. Granna was the only family she had left.
A hand caught Tressa’s arm. She looked up into Bastian Mercer’s emerald eyes. A shock of bright red hair stood straight up, sweat drenched his shirt. She shrugged off his hand, and continued through the crowd. She knew what was coming next and wouldn’t waste even a moment on grief when Granna’s entire legacy was about to be destroyed.
She pushed open the thick wooden door to the cottage of the man she hated most. Unlike the door to her home, this one was smooth and oiled, not a sliver in sight. It wasn’t just well kept, it was an overt sign to everyone in the village that the occupants were better than everyone else.
“She’s gone,” Tressa announced as she strode into the cottage.
A man sat at a polished stone table. He wiped his hands over his plate, then delicately licked the tip of each fingertip while glancing up at her. Tressa’s stomach turned. Every gesture he made came off as lascivious. He had offered to couple with her more than once, assuring her that he could get her belly to swell with his seed. Tressa had successfully avoided him, with the help of Granna. For an old woman, she had been formidable. Her small stature belayed her inner strength.
“Then I will call a council meeting.” Udor stood, pushing his chair away from the table with his ample arse. “Now that Sophia’s gone, we can start to make better decisions about the future of our village. No more weeping about the past. No more attempts at escape. It’s time we move away from silly tales and make a future for ourselves here.”
Tressa held back a sigh. The last thing she wanted was to be sent out into the fog, never to return. But Granna hadn’t even been dead for an hour. Surely a meeting could wait until people were given the chance to mourn her. She’d only given Udor the courtesy of a personal notification because he would be the next leader, not because she wanted to escape the fog.
“Dear Tressa.” He ambled over to her, his arms outstretched. She stood still, stiffly, not accepting or rejecting the hug he bestowed upon her. She forced herself to remain neutral. “Why did you come to me so quickly, if not to start the process of changing our laws? You don’t want to leave. I can make that requirement go away. You can stay here, live a long life with a boy you fancy.” He leaned over, his lips tickling the edge of her ear. “Or with me. You cannot be my first wife, but you could be my second. No one else will have you now. Nineteen and no children? You’re too old for one of the eligible young men. Forgo the surname of Webb and take River. Just say the word, and I, and my name, are yours.”
Tressa recoiled, heaving out of his embrace. She didn’t want him, never had, but he knew, as well as everyone else in the village, that she didn’t want to put one toe into the fog. No one did.
Yet no one ever stood up to Granna’s rule.
She was a gentle woman, but crossing her was a mistake. Anyone who did paid for it with their lives. Maybe not their own, but their child, being sent into the fog. Granna was ruthless in her decisions, never second-guessing herself, never allowing anyone to question her. After all, she was the only one left, the only one who remembered the day the village was trapped behind the misty wall.
“I only thought you should hear it from me,” Tressa said. She couldn’t look him in the face. Instead, she stared at her leather slippers. The long toe with the curl at the end of his shoe nearly touched the tip of hers. She shuffled backward, putting more distance between them. “Granna’s death will mean many things to many people. As the new leader of our village, I came to you first.”
Udor had long ago declared himself Granna’s successor. Though Granna had never openly agreed to it, she privately told Tressa that no one else had the influence to lead their people into a new future. It was Udor, or it was no one, no matter how disgusting.
Maybe that’s why Granna had been so insistent on Tressa leaving during her nineteenth year. She never wanted Udor to touch her great granddaughter.
Udor stroked the length of Tressa’s long raven hair. “I am ruler now, aren’t I? And you were supposed to leave tomorrow. You don’t have to go. Say the word and I will make sure you never have to worry about leaving the safety of our village again.”