“Why?”
“She guides my people’s Fate.”
“You don’t decide for yourself?”
A smirk pulls at the upper corner of Gabriel’s mouth. “You’re naive if you don’t think the high gods control yours.”
I shrug. “I control my Fate.”
Mirth glints in his eyes, as if he silently laughs at me. He probably does. “So, you say.”
Father said don’t come here, and here I am. I alone prepared for this moment, and I alone will carry out my plan. Not the high gods. Never the high gods. They don’t care about me. They don’t care about anyone. If they did, they would never allow such violence to exist in the world.
The tent flap shifts, and Kassandra peers into the sweat lodge. “The purification part of the ceremony has ended.”
Relief surges through me. Finally, I can escape this man.
When she smiles and speaks, my breath catches in my throat. “It’s time for the next step.”
The next step?
There’s more?
ChapterTwelve
Kassandra leads me to another dome-shaped tent, this one without steam. My pulse thunders in my ears. It’s not empty. Gabriel entered before we did. He sits on a chair, wearing that strip of cloth.
A table occupies the center of the room. A terracotta jar perches on top. Two small braziers burn frankincense.
Surely, Olah is laughing at me.
Kassandra nods at the cloak she gave me before she led me here. “Take it off.”
Take it off? As in, in front of him?
Why? So, he can stare at me again and say, “You will do.”
I swallow through the strong urge to protest and pull the cloak free.
The hem of Kassandra’s surcoat skims the ground as she moves to the table and nods toward the jar. “This is cardamom and olive oil. You will rub it on each other’s bodies.”
My heart slips right out of my chest at those words. She wants me to rub what on Gabriel’s body? Oil?
Has she gone mad?
Heat floods my cheeks as I think of doing precisely that, rubbing oil all over his muscles. I cough and stare down at my feet.
“It will bring you closer, bonding you both physically and emotionally,” she says.
Isn’t that what bedding is for?
I cough again to the point my eyes blur, and my ears ring.
Kassandra pats me on the back. “Are you all right?”
Do I look like I’m all right to her?
I’m wearing next to nothing. I’m in another tent withthatwarrior. And he’s sitting there with a piece of cloth around his body. Thank the sky, he keeps his legs tilted away from me.
