Heir of Beasts

Ch. 2.1- Obliterate Yourself

           

"You look beautiful, Dizsa," Tovila murmurs, her voice soft as the whisperings of silk on skin. "The entire city will weep to behold you."

"Yes," Idriit echoes, though her words, unlike Tovila's, do not bleed adoration. Her compliment sounds stale the second she utters it. "You're so lovely even the goddess will shed a tear."

"If the goddess weeps, it will not be for my beauty," I tell my new attendants, grimacing under the weight of their compliment, even if I know only one was truly meant. "It will be because she knows the truth. That this marriage is nothing more than a political scam."

Idriit's mouth puckers like she's tasted the rind of a sour fruit, but before I can blink she's schooled her features back into placid submission. Her eyes don't match her smile, though. They never do.

"This marriage is a blessing to Shikkah," Tovila murmurs as she ties one of my sashes. "May the goddess let you prosper."

"This marriage is an abomination," I correct, hissing when she ties one of the strings too tight and cuts off my breath. "If the goddess exists, I hope she strikes my husband down."

"If the goddess exists?" Tovila asks, aghast. "Oh, Dizsa, you should not say such things! Of course the goddess exists!"

She's right: I should not say such things. I know I should not say such things, but they come spilling out of me when I'm behind closed doors. During all the speeches and the parties and the meetings Sholu drags me to I keep my mouth shut, but all the while words rattle around inside of me like birds trapped inside my ribcage, clawing and flapping, wildly seeking escape. I swallow their feathers and their raucous cawing as best I can, and I smile, but their sharp beaks tear up my insides. And then I get away from him at last, away from all the whispers and the watchers, and I can't keep those birds inside their cage a moment longer. They just come bursting out of me, a whole flock.

Sometimes I just curse, over and over again, spitting out every awful word I was ever taught in every language I know. It makes me feel powerful to spew such vitriol, and I march around the room with my shoulders back and my head held high, stomping out my wrath to wake the dead.

Sometimes I just talk to myself. I need to hear myself, to get the voices out of my own head and into the open air. I discuss the weather, or read aloud from a book. I deconstruct the pictures on my walls into lines and spheres and colors then describe their features over and over again, a game I played during my month-long confinement. Mostly I just repeat the same mantra, over and over again until it loses meaning: I will kill them all.

During these episodes my new maids do nothing. Early on Tovila tried to intervene, tried to calm me, but I struck her viciously and she never tried again. There was a welt on her cheek for a week. Idriit never cared enough to try and stop me.

Both of them were gifts from my betrothed, shiny new girls to replace the one I lost. Both Vasayaste daughters he has in his back pocket, women who must tell him everything I say against him as soon as I'm out of the room. Let them, I think. Let him know exactly what I think of him.

Tovila finishes tucking a silver ornament into my elaborately pinned and plaited hair, then fastens a golden lariat around my neck. The metal shines with myriad diamonds, each reflecting the light like sunbeams hitting water. Another gift from my betrothed. It's a small piece of jewelry, but it has the weight of a collar.

"There," She murmurs as she tucks a few extra pins into my braided bun for good measure. "We're done, Dizsa. You're as close to perfection as the goddess could allow in any mortal woman."