Daughters of Jared, page 11
“Thank you.”
Yet instead of moving away to fill another’s goblet, her touch on my shoulder tightened. She leaned closer and whispered, “It’s not right. What they are doing . . . keeping you for themselves.”
“What?” I turned to look at her, but she let go of my shoulder and moved on. I watched her for a moment as she filled goblets one after another. But she didn’t look in my direction again. I took a long swallow, letting the wine wash its sweetness over me. The lights, the music, the feast, the guests—that is what I would focus on tonight. Not some servant’s rambling words.
I danced and danced—it seemed with every man who was present. Trading one set of arms for another set, I wondered if Sara’s words when she was combing my hair would bear any weight. I hadn’t discussed who I’d marry with my sister since my father had become king. I didn’t know why I was holding back. Perhaps because all we did was talk about her—until today. Today was my day. Tonight was my night. Perhaps she’d indulge me. After all, I was eighteen now.
It was early in the morning when I finally fell into bed, but I couldn’t sleep. My mind kept replaying the events of the day, from the beautiful garden meal to the feast in the courtyard. I was too tired to paint but not ready to sleep, so I put on my robe and walked out into the gardens just as the black sky softened to purple.
I watched the sunrise, felt the promising warmth of a new day, a new year, upon my face. The goddess necklace hung against my skin, reminding me that perhaps I was watched over. Perhaps I was fortunate.
Yawning, I headed back inside. It was still early for the servants to be up and around, so I was surprised when I heard voices coming from the cooking room. I slowed as I approached and was even more surprised to hear Akish’s voice.
I stopped, waiting out of sight, not wanting to pass by the doorway and be noticed.
“She has made her choice,” Akish said.
“You haven’t given her a choice,” another man said.
My heart thumped. Levi. What were the brothers speaking about?
“A threat is not an honest decision,” Levi continued.
“You’re welcome to ask her,” Akish said, his tone triumphant.
“I plan to do that.”
Before I realized the conversation was over and before I could exit the corridor, Akish and Levi came out of the cooking room.
Levi looked surprised to see me, but Akish simply smiled. He crossed to me and planted a lingering kiss on my cheek. “My dear sister, you’re up early on the day after your celebration.”
My cheeks flushed, and I couldn’t form a reply. Akish didn’t seem to notice. He cast a glance back at Levi then strode down the hallway, leaving the two of us alone.
Levi studied me, and I tried to look anywhere but at him, feeling chagrined that I’d been caught listening. Levi remained still, and I finally looked up at him. His eyes were on my necklace. He closed the distance between us and lifted the miniature statue from its place. Confusion crossed his features as he stared at it. Then he let go, his fingers brushing my neck. My heart started again.
“Is this your choice?” he asked.
I lowered my eyes, unable to look at him. How could I explain? How could he understand the love I had for my sister and how much she needed me? With women it was different from men. “My sister needs me.”
“So this is your sacrifice?”
I looked at him in time to see his eyes turn dark. “My family is not a sacrifice.”
He continued to stare at me. “Lib told me of your discussions and why you were sent to the temple.”
Anger swept through me. How dare Lib discuss me with this man, and how dare Levi force it from him.
His voice softened, and his eyes returned to green. “Do you still want to know more about the Lord?”
I took a step back, feeling as if I’d been punched in the stomach. Levi was too late. And I was too afraid. I’d rather put up with Akish and my temperamental sister than be returned to the temple. I knew they had every power to do it.
“You’re a grown woman, Naiva,” Levi said. “You can decide for yourself.”
“Of course I can decide,” I said, resentment snaking into my tone. “I have two choices. I can choose to worship their gods and goddesses and live with my family. Or I can reject them and be forced to live in the temple, where I would serve the sun god the rest of my days.”
“There’s a third choice.” Levi moved closer, erasing the distance I’d put between us.
I blinked back tears. “I’d have no home.”
“You can stay with me.” His voice was quiet, his eyes determined.
I blanched. Was he serious? “Live with the soldiers? As what? A servant? Or a harlot?”
“Don’t insult me. Or yourself,” Levi said with a shake of his head. His hand closed around my arm. “As my wife.”
Our gazes locked, and when his fingers, rough and calloused, touched my jawline then slid behind my head, I realized he was serious. I closed my eyes, inhaling his earthy scent, anticipating what this closeness might bring—wondering what my first kiss would be like. My stomach quivered with nerves, but I tilted my head up, waiting.
Levi unclasped my necklace and slid it off.
I opened my eyes and stared at the gold figurine he held in front of me. The warmth that had just encompassed me fled, leaving me cold all over.
“No wife of mine will worship false idols.”
I opened my mouth, stunned. Here was another man telling me which god to worship. Ordering me into his beliefs. I snatched the necklace away. How dare he take my sister’s gift.
His eyes flashed, and a myriad of questions flitted across his face.
I stepped back, away from his towering body and bronzed skin. I raised my shaking hands to my neck and reclasped the necklace.
His face hardened, but I didn’t care. Let him find some serving girl to command.
I turned away, fighting tears but resolving to walk slowly. I didn’t want him to know how much he’d affected me. He could go back to his company of soldiers.
Levi stopped me, grasping my hand, his skin rough to the touch. I refused to turn, but he leaned down and spoke in my ear. “Naiva, someday you’ll put God first in your life. And when you do, I don’t know if I’ll still be waiting.”
I tugged away from him. “Then don’t bother waiting.” I hurried down the corridor now, hoping I hadn’t just made the greatest mistake of my life.
I DIDN’T KNOW IF I loved Levi. I didn’t know if he loved me. Marriage between a man and woman wasn’t necessarily based on love. That I knew well.
My sister and Akish were fighting again. Only one day after my birthday and I had turned down a marriage proposal then landed myself in the middle of Akish and Ash.
I was to blame, certainly, but could I truly be blamed? “Was I right to turn him down?” I asked Ash, hours after Levi had left the palace, angry and probably never to return again. I’d told her about his proposal but not about his demands that I give up worshipping my family’s idols.
“He’d take you from the palace and from me, Naiva.” Her face was pale, likely from celebrating most of the night. “You don’t want to be a soldier’s wife.” She waved her hand about her luxurious chamber. “You’d have to give up all this.”
She rose from the cushions by the window, her movements fluid and graceful. She crossed to me, where I had been pacing and ranting. Her slim hands took mine and held on firmly. “I couldn’t bear it. Who would I have if you left?”
Akish, I wanted to say but didn’t. Looking into her luminous eyes, I knew I wanted to be that person for her. I ignored the tugging in my heart, the way my pulse had hammered when Levi had stood so close to me. His words were empty to me now. I wasn’t going to live in a hut in a dirt field and be told which god to worship.
I was going to live in a palace with my family . . . and be told which god to worship.
Ash’s grip tightened as the color drained from her face. “Oh no!” she cried before she fainted.
I screamed for help, but it seemed like hours before anyone came.
When Sara rushed into the room, we carried Ash to the bed. But by the time we had laid her on the bed, a dark red stain had spread below her waist. My sister had lost another child.
I lit an oil lamp then knelt before Ix Chel, the fertility goddess, my cheeks wet with tears. “Please,” I whispered. “Please heal my sister quickly and give her the son she desires. An heir will secure the throne and keep our royal lineage strong.”
The goddess regarded me, her gaze bland, her exaggerated body unmoving. I touched the miniature replica of the goddess of heaven hanging about my neck, hoping for some sense of peace, some answer. Hoping that with the combined forces of the two goddesses something might happen.
I placed my forehead to the ground, my tears dripping onto the prayer rug. I repeated the words over and over. “My sister is queen. Blessing her is blessing the land. Grant our family your benevolence.”
Ix Chel remained in her gold-crafted encasing without a word.
Much later, I rose from the rug, feeling stiff and achy. My days had been spent tending to my sister’s grief and her husband’s hostility. His sporadic absences during the night had now turned into disappearing during the daylight as well, sometimes not coming home until the next day.
Although my sister hadn’t complained to me directly, I felt that my worst suspicions were confirmed. At least he was smart enough to not bring the harlots into the palace, but my sister and I knew he found comfort in other women’s arms.
The rumors didn’t necessarily reach us first, but they always reached us eventually. Akish was known as a patron at many of the taverns in the city, going from place to place, as if seeking for something he’d never find at home. Filled with drinking, games, gossip, and women who dressed in next to nothing, the taverns slowly separated husband from wife, night by night, minute by minute.
Another child lost. A marriage crumbling. But still, they formed a united, if false, front at all celebrations and festivals. Ash immersed herself in throwing the most lavish events, and Akish became obsessed with fortifying our city and building the strongest army in the land, leaving me to comfort my sister in his absence.
I would have done anything to ease her pain, to bring the sun back into her life and heal her family.
I turned from Ix Chel, dejection settling into the core of my soul. Her cold, gold face gave me no comfort, no promise.
As I made my way back to my room along the dark corridor, I thought of Lib’s faceless God—a God with no idols, a God who had warned a king of danger. Would this God have warned Ash of Akish if we had worshipped him?
I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the traitorous thoughts, but they returned again and again. When I reached my room, I discovered Ash sitting on my bed. I braced myself for another night of listening to her complaints about her husband. If she was in my chamber, then obviously Akish wasn’t home.
But there were no tears in her eyes. In fact, she smiled as I entered. “Did you make a late-night trip to the cooking room?”
“No, I was in the prayer room.”
Her face fell for a moment then brightened. “Did Ix Chel tell you about my new plan?”
I looked at her, puzzled. None of the goddesses had ever spoken to me like my sister claimed they spoke to her.
“Of course not,” Ash said with a giggle. “You’re not queen.”
I sat next to her on the bed, unease creeping through me as I wondered why my sister was here so late at night in such a pleasant mood.
She clapped her hands together. “I’ve come to tell you why Akish and I haven’t chosen a husband for you.”
My stomach knotted in anticipation. Would they send me to the temple after all?
“I was so stubborn when Akish first suggested it, but it turns out that he is right, which has only been confirmed by my losing two babies.” She smiled, but it was eerie, not comforting. “It appears that it’s Ix Chel’s wish as well.”
“What is Ix Chel’s wish?”
Ash exhaled and took my hands in hers. “I need an heir to the throne. If I don’t have a son, someone in Akish’s family will take over if anything happens to him. If I die without producing an heir, our family will lose all its power.”
“You aren’t going to die, Ash,” I said. “You’re young and will have plenty of children.”
Her strained smile was back. “I plan to have more children, and I pray constantly that I will have many sons. But the sooner the throne is secured, the stronger our power and claim to the throne will be.”
I knew all this. But Ash hadn’t even been married for a year. Why was she so impatient? Besides the fact that it was her born nature.
Ash leaned forward and said, “The heir must come through you if I fail.”
Was this about Levi and the proposal I turned down? Mixed thoughts tumbled through my mind. Even with my sister’s blessing, was I willing to marry a man who wanted to control me?
“I don’t know if I want to marry him.”
Ash barked out a laugh. “I wouldn’t allow you to marry him. You’d be his handmaiden, and the children produced would be legally mine.”
I stared at her, confused, and then slowly the horror of what she was saying sifted into my mind. “Are you talking about Akish?”
“Of course.” Her brows quirked; then she let out a full laugh. “The heir to the throne needs to be as pure as possible. Having a child through you and Akish is the next closest thing to an untainted line of authority.”
Nausea tore through my stomach, and I pulled my hands from hers. I covered my mouth, inhaling, trying to block out what she was suggesting. It couldn’t be true. I looked back at her, hoping this was a dream and she’d evaporate like a column of smoke. But she returned my gaze calmly, expectation in her eyes.
There was a time when I would have embraced being the wife of Akish, but that was before my sister had married him. Before my father had been murdered by him. He was not a man I’d ever consider marrying, let alone producing children with, no matter the reason.
“He cares a great deal for you, Naiva,” Ash continued. “I know that at one time I was jealous of the affection he showed you, but now I realize it makes this all that much more natural and easy for both of you.” She ran her hand along my arm, trying to draw me back to her. “It will be duty, yes, and a sacrifice, but it won’t be as terrifying as you think. Akish is truly a sweet man, and he’ll be gentle with you.”
Sweet. Gentle. Not words I’d use to describe my brother-in-law. Bile burned hot in my throat, and I leapt from the bed. I stumbled to the wash basin and vomited.
“Don’t make a bid for my sympathies, Naiva,” Ash said, her tone exasperated.
As I rinsed out my mouth, Ash crossed the room and put her hand on my shoulder. “You’ll get used to the idea soon enough.” Her voice held no trace of sympathy. “Understand that you’re the hope of our kingdom, of our family, and this is an incredible honor.”
“I can’t,” I gasped. The bile was back, and I hunched over the basin until my stomach muscles relaxed. I turned to her, my head throbbing, but I wanted to make myself clear. “I love you, Ash. And I’ll do anything to ensure that your children gain the throne. But I’ll not have a child with your husband.”
Her eyes didn’t even register surprise, just a tinge of sorrow. “I knew there would be some resistance. I wouldn’t expect anything less. In fact, if you’d been excited at the prospect, I probably would send you back to the temple.” She laughed at herself, the sound high-pitched and unnatural.
I turned away, unable to look at her glowing eyes. “I can’t, Ash. He’s my brother-in-law.”
Ash’s voice became hard. “It’s for our future. Do you want to hand over the kingdom to a stranger?”
“Of course not,” I whispered. “But you and Akish have many childbearing years ahead. Any child I might have would be no one compared to your children.”
“We can only hope for that,” Ash said. “But I can’t risk it right now. Ix Chel has spoken, and we must obey her, or I’ll continue to be put through the torture of losing my babies.”
You mean Akish has spoken, I wanted to say but didn’t.
“Akish will be here tomorrow night,” Ash said in a firm voice. “He has concerns as well, but he’s willing to make this sacrifice, he says, for the good of the kingdom.”
I wrapped my arms around my torso as my sister left the room, shutting the door silently behind her. I stared at the door for several minutes until my eyes started to water. I had to find a way out, but helplessness consumed me. I climbed into the bed and pulled the coverlet over my head, blocking out the world in which I lived.
I WOKE WITH A SILENT scream on my lips. My sister’s words from the night before came flooding back all at once, bringing a new wave of revulsion. Had it been a dream? A terrible dream that had encompassed my worst nightmare?
I sat up, keeping the covers pulled to my chin as I looked around my room. Everything appeared the same, unlike the tempest I had expected. When my world caved in, shouldn’t the physical things around me be destroyed as well?
Perhaps it was all a misunderstanding. Perhaps Ash would visit me today and tell me it had all been a cruel trick. She had been testing me. She had wanted to see my reaction in order to put to rest her envy about her husband’s interest in her sister once and for all.
I scrambled out of bed, my head throbbing with all the crying I’d done the night before. I had miraculously fallen asleep, even if it had only been for a couple hours.
I washed and changed then brushed my hair furiously and smoothed it into a tight knot at the base of my head. Then with trembling fingers, I fastened the goddess necklace about my neck, a symbol of my loyalty and sacrifice for my family. I hoped it would be enough. But I wasn’t above groveling.
Ash was in the throne room with Akish. I almost turned and ran, but I had resolved to face this directly. I took a deep breath and entered. Several other court members were there. They greeted me, but their words died on their lips as I ignored them and headed straight for the king and queen.
