Page 28 of The Maiden and Her Monster
Heat prickled up Malka’s neck. “To me, desperation and bravery are one and the same. She was desperate enough to come forward, and brave enough to deal with the consequences that would come if the Shabhe King did not accept her.”
Nimrah hummed. It was hard to tell if she disagreed, expression never changing, eyes cast upon the falling hail outside their shelter.
“In the end, she did not have to worry, for the Shabhe King treasured her more than anything and reversed the dreaded decree. She saved her people and was revered by them for it.”
Nimrah’s palm traced the wood’s bark, eerily similar to what Malka had done when she fled after healing Amnon with Kefesh.
“You say your sole duty is to protect the Yahad. Like the Shabhe Queen.”
Nimrah’s expression soured, but she didn’t remark on Malka’s comparison.
Instead, she said, “If I’m not protecting the Yahad, I have no purpose.
I know no other purpose. I don’t expect forgiveness, nor do I want it.
From you, or from the Yahadi people. All I want is to right my wrongs and stay true to the one responsibility Yohev has granted me—protecting the Yahad. ”
But she hadn’t protected the Yahad. Not like the Shabhe Queen.
Once, they could’ve both been revered. But Nimrah had not become a hero.
She had become something that left the dead leaves of winter rugged with gooseflesh and gave life to jewel-eyed creatures lurking in the shadows.
A path that had taken Chaia from Malka. That would take Imma if Malka could not deliver on her promise to the priest.
Malka traced her hand through Amnon’s hair. He was much cooler now. “Then why did you kill that poor Yahadi boy?” she asked.
Nimrah hardened, whatever vulnerability she had displayed gone. “You don’t know what happened. You weren’t there.”
“Baba told me—”
Nimrah barked a laugh. “Starting to feel like your Baba told you more gossip than truth in those stories of his.”
Malka reared at the coldness in her voice, how dangerous it felt angering her. Yet Malka couldn’t stop. She had no one else to blame. To fight.
“You have caused so much pain for so many,” Malka said. “It’s hard to look at you.”
“And yet, your eyes betray you. Do you think I don’t see you staring?” Her words echoed on the wood, sending her voice around them like the timbrels which rang in the monthly Eskraven market, gruff and sepulchral.
The blush threatened her again, crawling from her neck to her cheeks faster than Malka could tame it.
“You were created with a power I don’t understand yet have commanded.
You were made from the earth itself and brought the woods of my childhood to life with a vengeance.
It is only natural to try and make sense of you. ”
Nimrah’s jaw clicked. “Is that what I should prepare for in Eskravé? Tell me, am I to be gawked at before they kill me? Will a more gruesome death bring more or fewer people to my funeral pyre? Will their curiosity get the best of them?”
“We have a deal—”
“Oh, we have a deal, village girl,” Nimrah said, her voice dropping low. “One I promise not to forget.”
The ground below Malka’s knees grumbled, and Malka wondered if Nimrah’s anger had caused it. But the golem did not seem to notice. How much she is like stone, Malka thought. And how much she envied her contempt.
Malka had always dreamed of seeing Valón, but never thought she’d see it like this, aiding a golem in her pursuit of justice, rescuing the beloved Maharal from his unfair fate. Was she a criminal now? Was this where her sins began?
Václav’s lifeless eyes crossed her mind. She had shoved him, and he had fallen to his death, head cracking on the slick rock. Would she instead collect sins like tokens? Maybe she would become a dybbuk, her uneasy soul drifting as it searched desperately for a body to inhabit.
Malka wanted to flee—claustrophobic in this tree cave with her.
Yet the hail still came down hard. Instead, she shoved her hand in her pocket and toyed with the rest of the black perphona she had collected earlier.
What she hadn’t scattered on the earth and traced holy words on to heal Amnon with Kefesh.
Malka frowned, recalling another herb she had seen scattered on the ground.
“When I followed you from your hut that night, you had scattered devil’s alphonsa on the ground. What for?”
Nimrah raised her brow. “Observant and nosy, a horrid combination.”
The herbs began to crumble under Malka’s tight grip. “Well?”
Nimrah’s smirk faded. “I was trying to poison the tree. I thought that, maybe, if the Great Oak died, so would its hold on me. Only, as you know, it failed, because I cannot perform Kefesh the way you can. I didn’t even care it would’ve left me bondless.
All I thought about was getting to the Maharal. ”
Malka shook her head. “You knew you could not command Kefesh, but you attempted it, anyway.”
Nimrah shrugged tighter into her cloak. “Are we any different? Both seeking impossibilities out of desperation to save those we love. I try to poison the Great Oak; you leave your village in search of a monster who has spared no maiden before?”
“One maiden,” Malka responded, so faintly her voice was almost carried away with the wind.
“What?”
She swallowed. “You’ve spared one maiden.”
Nimrah stared at her through the dark.
You’ve spared one maiden and doomed the rest.
It would be so easy for Malka to add. Another accusation Nimrah deserved. Yet something held her back. Maybe she was too tired to fight; too exhausted to feed her anger.
Maybe she understood Nimrah’s desperation. Saw the wretched look in her deep-set eyes.
So, she said nothing more.
When Nimrah closed her eyes and rested her head on the wood, the sharp jut of her chin caught the shadow. Yet Malka could still make out the slight bob of her throat.
“I suppose.”