Her aunt gripped her small hand and yanked her along the stone corridors. Mysjenn’s smaller legs worked hard to keep up. So hard she was nearly running. The worn floor chilled her bare feet and keeping them moving meant less time on the floor freezing.
The corridors here were a maze to Mysjenn. Her aunt seemed to be taking corners at random. Up one set of stairs and down another, until Mysjenn was thoroughly lost. Tear tracks dried on her heart shaped face, her nose still dripped. She used the sleeve of her rough robe to wipe at it as she ran.
“Don’t do that. Respect your attire, girl.” Her aunt didn’t even turn her head. How did she see what Mysjenn did?
Mysjenn had arrived on the island a few hours ago. She had come by ship from her homeland of Corethe. It had been the first time she had ever been one. The hustle and bustle of sailors moving about the deck and up in the rigging like spiders, the ocean wind in her face, the bob of the waves as the ship cut through a swell made her fall in love with the sea.
Time spent on the ship helped dull the memories of her parents and what had happened to them. The wild men had attacked their farm. The bandit leader with the compass rose on his forehead above his colorless eyes and sharp featured face haunted her dreams.
Her aunt pulled her into a room and stopped. Mysjenn tripped as she ran into her and would have fallen if not for her aunt jerking her arm to keep her on her feet. Mysjenn bit back a whimper.
“Soren. Prepare her.” Her aunt thrust her forward and without a backwards glance, left the room.
A hunched man, skin pasty white except for the patch of honey brown spreading across his forehead and down his left cheek to the top of his pale blue tunic that matched his eyes, approached. His mouth stretched into a smile that gave Mysjenn the shivers and she backed away until she ran against the closed door.
“I won’t harm you. The Sea Priestess wants you prepared for a special ceremony and I am the man for that duty. All of us here must do as the Sea Priestess requests or the god will strike you down. You too. So you better do as she says.” Throughout this speech, he kept coming closer until he grabbed her tightly by her upper arm as he finished. “You want to please the god, don’t you?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He dragged her across the room to a half cask filled with water that dominated one corner of this large cluttered room. He stripped her of her robe and left her standing naked in the light of the torches around the perimeter of the room. He walked around her, examining every inch of her. She turned and tried to run away from the invisible worms that crawled in her belly at the hungry of this strange man. Soren laughed and caught her easily.
“You aren’t getting away that easily, little bird. The door be locked and anyone in this temple who sees you will just bring you back.” He lifted her into his arms and gave her a one-sided embrace before he dumped her into the cask.
She came up sputtering out a mouthful of salty water. “It’s cold! And it tastes funny.” She shivered and sniffled back snot as her nose began dripping once more.
“It’s sea water and you’ll come to love it.” One large hand descended on her head and pushed her under and held her there.
Her lungs burned and she saw stars floating through the water. A black cloud closed in, narrowing her vision to a small spot right in front of her nose when she was finally allowed to the surface again.
A hard wooden bristled brush was slapped into her limp hands, fingers reflexively closed around it. She stared at Soren, dazed, confused.
“Scrub yourself. And be thorough. Unless you want me to do it for you?”
She grabbed the brush, large in her small hands and awkwardly began scrubbing. Worried he would not approve of the job she did and take the brush from her, she scrubbed until her skin was pink and scraped raw. New tears came to her eyes from the pain but Soren never even looked at her. He busied himself with a tray near a stool. From where she sat in the water she could see shiny silver tools arranged neatly. Small jars and other arcane containers were shuffled around on a nearby shelf. All set within reach of a small battered stool.
After she had finished scrubbing every part of her body including her hair, scrubbed with ragged fingernails that made her scalp sting. She waited shivering in the water for Soren to acknowledge her.
Note: As I didn’t want to turn my attention away from my current project, I am posting the opening scene from my NaNoWriMo novel last year.
