Page 3 of Joy Guardian
I held the ribbons open for her, mindful not to touch her as per her request.
“Thanks.” She gave me another quick smile.
Her smiles were flitting, with sadness floating in her large brown eyes. They couldn’t be a sign of happiness. They must hold some other meaning, one that I couldn’t decipher.
She promptly slipped her right hand through the harness, then the left one. The magic in the ribbons made them snap snugly around her upper arms.
I reached to help her fasten the ribbons around her neck and chest, but she stepped away from my hands quickly.
“I’ll do it myself.” She smoothed the ribbons over her skin, then glanced up at me. “Now what?”
The Master Guardian patted the polished surface of the golden altar. “Now, we need you to lay down here.”
The altar looked like a high, narrow table made of gold. Every chapel and temple had one, normally used for offerings or for casting spells during a service to a deity. Today, the offering was her. And the spell was the one that would fuse the harness to her emotions, providing a permanent access to her joy for any shadow fae favored by the queen.
I would’ve explained it all to her, had she asked. But she didn’t ask any questions. She didn’t say anything at all, silently climbing onto the altar.
Her braids dropped around her face, concealing it from me, as she sat on the altar with her head tilted forward.
“Lay down, please.” The Master Guardian moved to place a hand on her shoulder, but I took his wrist, stopping him.
“She asked not to be touched,” I reminded.
“There is no other way. We will need to restrain her during the worst of it,” he argued.
“You don’t have to restrain me. I won’t move,” the Joy Vessel said quickly.
Tossing her braids over her shoulder, she did as she was told, laying down on the altar. She seemed calm. But the tension in her body and the stiffness of her movements betrayed that she was far from relaxed.
She stared up at the ceiling, her expression vacant, except for that faint ghost of a smile slightly curving her full lips.
Nothing about this woman or her behavior made sense to me, and I could no longer hold back the question.
“Do you care to know what will happen to you next?” I asked.
She rolled her head on the altar, meeting my eyes.
“No.” she said in a hollow voice. “I don’t care.”
Her words stunned me. But the Joy Guardians linked their hands around the table, and I had no choice but to join them in chanting the spell.
The magic used to connect theleilathasto the woman’s emotions was supposed to take her from the deepest despair and suffering to the highest euphoria.
As we chanted the first words of the spell, terror slammed into her. She choked on her breath. Her body arched and stiffened, gripped by agony.
They said the deepest sorrow was often borne in silence, and that was how this woman endured it. She didn’t make a sound, didn’t release a single word, not a cry, not even a breath.
Her eyes closed so tightly, only the tips of her long eyelashes could be seen peeking between her eyelids. Her jaw seemed to be locked open, her teeth bared. Her knuckles paled as she fisted her hands. The heels of her feet pressed into the altar with her body tensing in an arch.
I kept reciting the words of the spell along with the others,praying in my mind for the worst of it to pass quickly, for her sake.
Humans were a threat to the only thing in this world that mattered—our Joy. I vowed to fight and even to kill if necessary to protect it. I wanted humans gone out of Alveari Kingdom.
But I didn’t want this woman to suffer.
As the terror and agony eased into a lesser phase of fear and pain, she finally screamed. She thrashed on the altar, trying to get off it.
Master Arter pressed down on her shoulders. Oria trapped the human’s legs in the loops of her tendrils. The Joy Vessel punched the air, and I caught her fists, holding them between my hands.
