The Truth of Things Unseen

There were fields behind the house. Tents and wooden buildings ranked in orderly rows. The monster heard a crash of arms and a cry of men sparring. Other men cooked and ate, or sat at long tables drinking from big glasses.

Gintas was powerful, anyone could see that by the nods of respect the men gave him as they passed by. They entered a field where there were targets. Several men and at least two women ranged up and down with bows. Despite herself, her heart beat faster at the sound.

Twang, thud.

Twang, thud.

The archers called out to one another, then walked down the field together to collect their arrows.

"You like to shoot?" said Gintas.

Stupid idiot thought he could bribe her to stay with arrows. She liked to shoot, but she wasn't going to tell him that.

"Your father never approved, did he? He had certain opinions about what a woman should be. I watched you sometimes, you'd take your mother's bow and go into the woods. You used to shoot in your dreams. Your fingers used to curl around the fletchings in your sleep."

Bastard was still talking. She would wait until he had done bleating, then take her heart and leave, and then she’d get her bow and come back at night and shoot him. She could see the nobbly place on the back of the neck. That’s where she’d shoot him. One of Father’s men had hurt himself like that once. They had carried him upstairs still alive but with his arms and legs all floppy. She had snuck in afterwards, sat at the bottom of his bed and watched him trying to breathe. She would shoot him there, and then... And then what? Go home? Back to Father?

"I’m going to kill you," she muttered, but she wasn’t sure if she meant it.

He ignored her. "Would you like a turn on the range?"

She laughed in his face. "You think I'll stay with you because you have targets? I have targets."

"Your mother shot very well. She used to ride up here in the summer evenings to practice with her bow and drink wine."

"I don't want to talk about my mother," she growled. "Now give me my heart."

"Oh, it is not quite so simple as all that," he said. "You were bought and paid for, you must repay your price."

He pulled a little bag and a pair of silken gloves from his pocket. He slipped on the gloves, reached in and withdrew three copper pennies. They jingled as he tossed them in his palm.

"I gave these to your father ten years ago, but he would not take them. He hurled them back at me and left them on my doorstep. I have not touched them with my hands. They are still his, although I carry them."

"Three pennies? Seriously?" she patted down her sleeves, looking for a purse, but found none.

"All magic is trade," he said. "With these coins, you can buy back your heart, if you want it."

"So give me the dumb coins then," she said, holding out her hand.

He jingled them together in his palm. "Can you hear them calling to you?"

"They're coins. They don't call."

"Ten years ago they were just coins. Now they are your heart's price. Listen, I want you to learn their voices."

She shook her head "They don't have voices," but now that he mentioned it, she could hear something, like a whisper behind a wall. She ignored it, it was stupid, it was all stupid.

"Your father thinks you will return tonight," he said. "He has big plans for you."

Her Father. Her fat little father who had traded her for a house. Her heart rested on Gintas' palm, quite still, as though listening.

"I know what you’re thinking," he said after a minute. "You’re wondering if your pride will allow you to return home. I can tell you the answer now. It won’t. Not one piece of your nature will allow you to crawl back and beg."

It was true. Her stomach turned at the thought of it. She’d die in a ditch first. Maybe she would do just that. Who would care anyway? That would show them all, finding her frozen and drowned in a ditch. They'd have to drag her out, all wet and dead, then dig a big hole to put her in. They'd probably all be crying.

But her heart turned and turned, comfortable in his rough hand. It did not call out to her. The hollow place inside her chest was still and silent.

"There are other options of course," he continued. "Maybe you’ll go to Teleth Kier, find a rich husband with floppy hair and silly shoes. Put on a pretty dress and spend your days going to parties. Can you picture that? Leola’s daughter, old and wrinkled, and what would it have been for, eh? What is your life for? I’ve carried your heart for ten years. I know it better than I know my own. I can tell you what your life is for, if you’ll listen. I can tell you what you were always meant to do."

"I don’t want to hear this."

The coins and the stone rested on his open palm, just out of reach. She could snatch them. She didn’t move.

"There is an old Aden motto," he said. "Otheal. Othlalioch, Khot. It can be translated as ‘Death speaks my name’. It means that there’s a clarity, right at the end when you realise what your life was always meant to be for, but by that time it’s too late. Only a few get to know their purpose when they’re still young enough to do something about it. I can tell you what your life is for. I’ve seen it."

"You don’t know what my life is for..."

"Some people are civilised." Gintas interrupted. He spat the word out of his mouth like a rotten grape. "They take whatever shit the world spits onto their dinner plate and they pretend it is what they always wanted. But you’re not like that. You’re wild."

Despite herself, Taliette felt a shiver go down her spine.

"There’s just one thing you lack. Something you’ve never had before in your civilised little life. Something only I can offer you."

She kept her chin high and tried not to look interested. "And what’s that? What do I lack?"

"Permission."

She looked at him directly for the first time. "What do you mean?"

"Tell me, why didn't you kill that servant girl this morning."

"How did you know about that?"

"Oh, I know lots of things, little one. So tell me, why?"

"I'm not playing your games."

"Your father would have been angry. That's why. When you break a rule, there is a consequence, and there are all kinds of rules. Big ones, secret ones. Subtle ones that we all just accept. You get in trouble. Would you have liked to have killed the girl this morning?"

She shrugged and pretended to yawn. "You're boring me now."

"Oh, you certainly know how to put on a show, don't you." He frowned at her. "You sit in your big house, making servant girls eat coal. Later you marry, and you sit in another big house, tormenting different serving girls while some foppish lordling uses your body to sprog out a crop of suitable heirs. Think of all the things you’ve ever wanted to do, but can’t because the world expects you to be as you appear to be, beautiful, aristocratic, compliant. But now I hold your heart. Whatever I command you to do, it’s not your fault, it’s mine. I will free you from the constraints of civility."

"You mean I can do what I want?"

He gave a short, barking laugh. "Heh, what you want, what you want. Do you even know what you want? Let me tell you this. I know what you want. I’ve seen right through your heart, and I can tell you, if you’ll listen. This is real magic, to change a destiny. Did I mention I am a wizard of sorts?"

Taliette watched him silently, fists half unclenched. His expression was harder than she remembered it. His eyes were grey steel. He was short, but his hands were strong. All her life she had been surrounded by weak men. This was not a man like her father. This was a man who could break things.

"What if I change my mind?"

"The price is fixed. Get your coins, and you can buy yourself back. One day we will go our separate ways, but until then I promise you it’ll be better than the alternative. Lots of arbitrary violence. You up for that?"

"You mean I get to kill people?"

"You think that’s all I’m offering? Killing people? Let me show you what you are, and then you’ll know."

Her heart pulsed quietly. She thought about Father, about marrying some rich idiot, birthing his children, pretending to laugh at his stupid jokes forever until she died, old and pointless and bitter.

"Tell me what I want," she whispered.

"You want the same as me, what every reasonable person wants. You want to rule the world."

A warm wave passed over her body. It was right. She had not realised before, but it was right. It was as though she had been told the rules of some secret game, and now she understood how her life fit together. It was what she was for. The world was hers, she just had to reach and take it.

"You want me to rule the world?"

"Yes."

"The whole world?"

"Yes."

"And I can do anything I like with it?"

"I will have your heart, so you can’t kill me, but yes. Anything you like."

"How will I..."

"I will show you."

Her life hung in the balance. She could fall one way, or she could fall the other, and nothing would ever be the same again. Gintas, or her father. A life of silks and comfort and mundanity, or... or something else.

"Do you still want the coins?" He was holding them out to her now. She could snatch them. She would be whole once more.

The monster shook her head, turning away from him. "You can keep them," she said. "I won't be needing them."