Ilyenna knew Rone would be watching from the barn. If he saw Darrien hauling his mother to the beating pole, he’d interfere. Then they’d all die. Ilyenna jumped between Darrien and Narium. “The Shyle wanted to know what was expected of them.”
“And what was your answer?” Darrien growled.
“I told them to obey and keep their honor.”
Darrien rotated his axe in his hands. “Perhaps that’s so, perhaps not. Either way, tiams do not meet. They do not discuss. They obey!” He glared at each face in turn. He moved so close to Ilyenna that his shirt brushed against her breasts. “Choose one for the beating pole, Ilyenna.”
She closed her eyes, willing her tears to stay at bay. “I choose myself.”
Darrien looked surprised.
Narium gathered herself up from the floor and straightened to her full height. “I’ll go in her place.”
Larina jutted out her chin, tears streaming down her cheeks. “No, I will.”
Within seconds, the whole house erupted as women volunteered to be strapped.
Ilyenna fought to keep the triumph off her face. The Shyle and Argons had just won a battle.
Darrien glared at the women. “Silence!”
The clatter died like a capped candle. Darrien circled Ilyenna, his axe balanced in his hands—the same axe that had nearly killed her before the fairies’ healing. At her back, he stopped. Her skin crawled, but she didn’t dare turn. He rested the sharp point on her shoulder. “I wonder,” he said as he began drawing it down.
The axe dragged along the length of her back. Ilyenna’s still-tender skin flamed. Darrien came around her. His axe probed open the ripped belly of her dress. Fear rose in her throat till she nearly choked on it.
“I wonder if you aren’t the cause of such . . . rebellious thoughts.” He stroked his jaw as he exchanged glances with his men. “What do you think, clanmen? Shall we keep a closer eye on this one?”
“I’ll watch her for you,” one of the men jeered.
Ilyenna fought the urge to wrap her arms around herself as Larina had.
Darrien chuckled and began pacing in front of her like a wolf before the barn door. “I’m not sure I would trust you with her, Ondeb. She’s as tricky as a mountain goat. No, I think she must stay in the clan house.” He paused to watch her reaction.
She clenched her fists at her sides to keep them from shaking. She wouldn’t allow him to see her despair. “I am a Shyle,” she said softly.
He backhanded her. She fell to the floor, dazed. “No. You are a tiam,” he said, “and tiams don’t have a clan.” He chuckled. “My room will do. I can keep a very close eye on you there.”
The men snickered.
Ilyenna lay stark still. She was afraid if she shifted at all, she’d black out. “I am a Shyle,” she repeated. “A Shyle is strong as stone and supple as a sapling. You cannot hurt me, Darrien of the Tyran clan.”
He stopped laughing and booted her in the stomach. Air fled her lungs, and her stomach cramped. He crouched before her as she coughed up blood. She lifted her face and glared at him.
“I can hurt you plenty, Ilyenna.” He moved to his feet, staring down any woman who dared meet his gaze. “There are no Shyle or Argons in this room. Only tiams. And tiams obey. Any who wishes to ease her burdens, has only to . . . keep an eye on things.”
Ilyenna knew she should keep her mouth shut, but she said it anyway. “You won’t find traitors here.”
He kicked her thigh. She felt it all the way to her bone. Her muscle seized up and she grunted, her body straining against the pain.
“You see? Plenty of pain.” Thrusting his axe through his belt loop, he headed for the door. “I won’t wait, Ilyenna.”
Narium was there in an instant to pull her to her feet. “You’re a Shyle,” she whispered fiercely. “He cannot take that from you. If he did, all honor would be lost. No clanmen can do such a thing.”
Ilyenna limped toward the door. She didn’t trust Darrien’s honor any more than she trusted a pig to stay out of the slop, but she nodded anyway. With her head down, she followed Darrien toward the house, rubbing her thigh as she went. Was Rone watching? She tried to force her steps to fall evenly.
Please stay away, Rone. He’ll kill you. He’ll kill us all, she begged silently.
In the kitchen, Metha looked up from her blankets before the fire. When she saw Ilyenna with Darrien, she glared so hotly Ilyenna wanted to slap her. Could the woman actually think she wanted to be here? Darrien led her to the second floor and opened a door. Inside was a wide bed covered in furs.
Dread squeezed her heart. The walls were coated with mounted heads, skulls, and antlers of almost every creature she’d ever seen—boar, deer, bear, mountain lion. Above the bed, her clan belt had been nailed to the wall. Another of his trophies. Ilyenna stared at it.
Darrien pointed to a rough-hewn ladder that led to a trapdoor. “You choose. My bed or the attic.”
He wasn’t going to force her. Despite herself, she gasped in relief. She walked to the ladder and looked back at him. She placed both hands on the rungs and climbed. At the top, she opened the trapdoor and glanced around. The only light came from below, and all she could make out in the attic were cobwebs, dead insects, and dust. She pulled herself up. Even at a crouch, the ceiling brushed her shoulders. She peeked down.
Darrien looked up at her. “You’ve but to ask, and you can sleep in a real bed with blankets and pillows.”
And you, her mind finished for him. She moved away from the hole, circling the cramped room, looking for snakes or mice or any other number of things she could throw at Darrien’s head.
“Perhaps you should stay here until you’re willing to divulge the secret of your healing.” He climbed up the ladder and shut the trapdoor, plunging the attic into total darkness. She heard the ladder scrape as he pulled it away.
But as her eyes began to adjust, she realized it wasn’t pitch black after all. A shaft of moonlight filtering through a small chink in the mortar between river stones. Light. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Wearily, she curled up under it.
9. Supple as a Sapling
Tears kept blurring the frozen footprints. Ilyenna pushed them off her cheeks as fast as she could, and still they kept coming. She hated being a girl. Hated that Rone and Bratton wouldn’t let her go with them because of it. Hated that the tears came whether she wanted them to or not. Hated dresses and being smaller and weaker.
She saw the river like a dark ribbon on the snow. Argonholm was built just beyond its flood plain, past the ridge that was iced with frozen trees, and next to the lake. Ilyenna didn’t want her mother and father to see she’d been crying, so she sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve, determined to stop.
Sitting on her bottom, she slid down the slippery bank to the riverside. The layers of ice deadened the sound of the rushing water. But Ilyenna saw it below, black and colder than ice. It had taken all her courage to cross it the first time, when Rone and Bratton had been within calling distance.
Now she was alone, and she couldn’t swim. Few of her clan could. The lakes of the Shyle were fed by glaciers. They were clear as the finest glass . . . and cold as the ice that bore them.
Ilyenna was a little below where Bratton and Rone had crossed, but not much. It was less steep here. She’d find their path easily on the other side. She eased her foot out and listened for any cracks. Silence. She took another step, her arms out like a bird in flight. Her hands started sweating inside her mittens. She slid one foot forward and brought the other behind. Slowly, slowly, she shuffled across the river.
When she was three-quarters of the way across, she heard a loud crack, like the sound of an axe chopping a tree. She froze, her heart in her throat. Even slower than before, she eased her foot forward and gingerly put her weight on it. The ice cracked again.
For an agonizing moment, she waited. At the sound of the third crack, she bolted. She felt the ice splinter beneath her feet and fall away.
“Ilyenna. Ilyenna,” someone whispered.
Ilyenna struggled to free herself from the dream. She saw someone ease the trapdoor open. After leaving her locked in the attic for an entire night and a day, had Darrien come to break his word? Well, not without her putting up a fight. She lurched to her feet, a scream on her lips.
Rone’s head appeared. At the sight of her balled fists, his eyes widened. “You planning on killing me, then?”
All the fight went out of her, and she slumped back onto the dirty boards. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was weak from hunger and sore from Darrien’s fists and feet. Her head ached for want of water. Though Hannie had snuck her a little food and water, it hadn’t been enough, and Ilyenna had been sick with heat during the day.
“How did you get away?” she asked Rone now. He usually watched for her after his day’s work was done, but to sneak away in the middle of the day?
“That’s the thing about gathering river stones—you’re out of sight at the river often as not.” Rone finished climbing up and handed her a waterskin. She gulped down the liquid. Almost immediately, she felt the water traveling from her shriveled stomach outward, spreading through her chest and abdomen, to her aching joints and withered brain. She took another drink and another, until she was almost drunk with water. Suddenly drowsy, she lay her head on Rone’s lap.