Page 45 of The Maiden and Her Monster

A finger drew across her cheek. For a moment, Malka thought it was Imma rousing her as she had done so many times before. But the finger was too soft, lacking her thick callouses from a lifetime of hard work.

Memories flooded back. The sordid dungeon, the Maharal’s shriveled figure like winter’s deadened leaves. The guards and the blow to her head. She must’ve lost consciousness as they transported her.

Her eyelids fluttered, but she kept them closed and tried to even her breathing. Her face was stiff and hot. The swelling from her cheek pulsed with pain.

“Has this convinced you, my prince?” It was Sévren’s scaly voice. “Your lineage’s legitimacy has quaked so that even a peasant girl feels comfortable breaking into your fort.”

“How do you know it won’t make more martyrs of them?” came Ev ? en’s response. “We have already tried to jail their Maharal. It didn’t stop their disobedience.”

“Let them have the Maharal. Better we get the upper hand now and say we have let him go so the Yahad don’t start asking their invasive questions.

There is still the trial, after all. And no witnesses to take the stand.

Meanwhile, you have the loyalty of your fellow Ozmins, your uncle doesn’t.

He has betrayed his religion. You have embraced it. The saints are on your side… for now.”

The soft finger slid down her cheek again, this time, not as gentle. A knuckle pressed into the swelling. Malka cried out.

“Prince Ev ? en, it seems our guest is awake.”

When she opened her eyes, she stiffened.

They were in the same room where Malka had earlier eavesdropped.

She was sprawled on the velvet sofa. The prince leaned against his wooden desk, facing her.

Malka blinked against the brightness of the chandelier above them.

The flames danced across her vision and nausea climbed up her throat.

From the rooting spell or the guard’s kick, she didn’t know. Didn’t make a difference.

“If she gets sick on my carpet, Sévren, I will personally put her head on a spike.”

“Settle, my boy. Let me speak with her.” Sévren inched toward her, the way one would approach a wild dog. “This is Prince Ev ? en, son of Valski, and I am Archbishop Sévren, though something tells me you know us already.”

He smiled like a long-haired mazik cat, a creature from one of Imma’s stories.

At night, they crawled out from the woods into the village.

They jumped from house to house, scratching at doors until finally a family lamented and tossed them a chicken bone.

They settled the meat between their teeth and grizzled it down before swallowing the bone whole.

When they were full, their mouths curved up in a human-like smile and their cheeks puffed in a gloat.

For once you fed a mazik cat, it could slip inside your home and gorge itself to its heart’s content.

What would Sévren gorge on if she opened the door and answered his questions? Nothing good. She stayed quiet.

“Do you know what we do to those who betray the Ordobav Kingdom?” Prince Ev ? en chimed in. “We behead them, mostly. Or tear them limb from limb and feed them to our cannons, so that their ashes may light the night sky with their disgrace.”

What was another threat to add to her pile? Malka scoffed.

The prince raised his brow. “Please, speak your mind.”

“Why?” Malka responded. “So you can feed me to the cannons?”

With the flash of his red robe, gold glinting from his rounded cuffs, Sévren slipped behind Prince Ev ? en, resting his jeweled hand on Ev ? en’s shoulder. It was almost a loving act, if his thumb hadn’t whitened as it pressed into the divot between bone.

Malka had been on the receiving end of that stern grip too many times not to notice the way Ev ? en straightened under it, tilting his chin high. But he could not hide his tension. It bared itself in the bulging veins at his neck and in the clench of his jaw.

Sévren spoke. “I see the guard’s kick didn’t break your sense of humor. Perhaps we should have him give it another try and see what breaks next.”

Her face throbbed, and she involuntarily lifted her hand to trace the inflamed skin of her cheek.

“I didn’t betray Ordobav. It was you, Your Grace, who spread the lie of the Maharal’s illness to keep him imprisoned and suffering against Ordobavian law.

I saw his hands. I know what that means for a man like him. ”

“Ah, yes, the magic your people hold so near and dear. Tell me, is that how you freed the Maharal? Did you bring those treasonous words to life? Perhaps you can see why we made such a… precaution. A legal one, I assure you, once Valski’s lords see the true cost of your magic.”

Malka’s failure to call Kefesh forth tugged at her chest. She clenched her teeth, desperate to bury the feeling before it overcame her. “A precaution for what?”

“You’re a curious scullery maid,” Ev ? en’s lips twitched in a sly smile.

“Too curious, some would say,” Sévren agreed. “Take a walk with me, child, for there is something you might wish to see.”

The prince exchanged a look with the archbishop, though Malka could not read what passed between them.

Sévren headed to the door, clasped hands curling behind his back. “Well, come on.”

Malka feared what game the archbishop wished to play with her.

“I can’t walk,” Malka said, and it was hardly a lie. Her leg vibrated with pain from the guard’s kick.

Sévren raised his brow. “Find a way, or you will lose both your legs the way your venerable rabbi lost his hands.”

Fear constricted Malka’s throat. Gently, she swung her legs off the couch, wincing as the blood rushed back to them.

“Don’t forget your place,” Ev ? en intoned, straightening to emphasize the full breadth of his grandeur. “Bow to your prince.”

The prince’s cheeks were rosy, his golden eyes foxlike as he stared. When he crossed his arms, the jewels adorning him glinted in a radiant flurry. Malka wondered what he would be like stripped out of his gems and dress, like any other man hunting for more power than he already held.

His eyes flickered to Sévren, and Malka knew he would not ask again.

The command was a threat to her, but a show of power to Sévren.

For Sévren. Malka recalled what the archbishop had said earlier in this same room, about Ordobav’s opinion of Ev ? en, and how it would dwindle each day unless… but Malka had not heard what followed.

Malka bowed dramatically, the way Chaia would if she were in Malka’s place. The skirts of her scullery maid uniform brushed the floor, puddling around her as she exaggerated her bow.

When she caught Ev ? en’s eyes again, they had darkened and whatever smile he had worn was gone.

Sévren led her down the hallway, guards in tow. They hovered behind, but their shadows swallowed her on the stone floor.

Each step was an exercise in placating the angry whirl of her stomach; of grasping onto anything that would help her stay grounded.

The violent nature of the rooting spell made Malka wonder: if the guard’s iron foot had caved in her skull and she had died, would Nimrah be freed from this unmooring sickness, or would it forever haunt her?

That is, if this connection plagued Nimrah the way it did Malka.

The golem had yet to admit any effect it had on her.

Sévren’s guards opened the doors to the palace’s main entrance, which led out to the castle courtyard.

As the overcast day spilled gray into the foyer, Malka blinked rapidly to adjust to the light.

The cold struck her, her cloak still hung up on one of the kitchen’s hooks.

Ahead, there were dozens of people circled around something Malka couldn’t see.

As she and Sévren descended the steps, the crowd parted, revealing the spectacle.

She brought a hand to her mouth. In the center of the courtyard, a man was splayed naked on a table.

He was bound by his hands and feet but did not try to free himself.

He was still, save for his rapid breathing that betrayed him.

Naked, there was no hiding the way his chest rose and deflated in visceral heaves.

His body was flushed an angry red, swollen, and marred by painful blisters, some oozing white-yellow pus. It was then that Malka noticed a large cauldron off to the side, steam wafting from it in ferocious waves, positioned under a hook and pulley system.

A trail of water led from the cauldron to the table. They had boiled him alive yet spared him death. What did that mean for him now?

“Come, girl. Let’s see the consequences of your actions.”

Powerless. Just as she was when Kefesh did not come to her beckoning. She had no choice but to follow.

Up close, Malka recognized the man as the knight who had allowed her and Chaia into the royal palace. A new wave of nausea seized her, one not due to the rooting spell.

Sévren nodded in greeting to a brawny, balding man with a barely-there nose—it had been flattened into his face, his nostrils opaque with old blood.

A scar from bad stitchwork crawled up the bridge of his nose.

Malka wondered where he had obtained such an injury.

He was dressed in nothing special, only a plain colored tunic and trousers which anonymized him.

He held in his hand a curved knife. Malka’s heart pounded as she watched him fix his grasp on the hilt.

“Does she look familiar to you?” Sévren asked the guard disdainfully.

She would never forget the fierce hatred in his eyes as the knight stared at her.

She was the sole cause of his strife; it did not matter if the command for his punishment was given by someone else, if another pair of hands bound him.

To him, his humiliation was Malka’s fault alone.

“She lied to me,” he spat. More a lament than an excuse.

He had been deceived by a maid, and now the Maharal was free.

What a dishonorable end for an Ozmini knight.