“Assured by who?” I ask.
She sighs like that’s a secret she doesn’t want to reveal and that tells me everything. She’s playing me again, manipulating me again. She didn’t come here to tell me any facts, and she certainly didn’t come here to actually apologise.
“Paitlyn, this whole thing is far bigger than you, far bigger than me too. It goes back generations, it goes back centuries.”
“What?” I screw my face up at her words.
“The Brethren were never meant to be like this, not originally.” She sighs. “We were taking it back, we were going to reset, to restore, to stop all this abuse. We didn’t want our daughters to continue to suffer, we didn’t want them to have to marry men they didn’t want to…”
“And yet, that’s exactly what I was forced to do.” I retort. God, can she hear herself?
“You were supposed to be the final sacrifice.”
I can feel myself trembling, I can feel my body responding, reliving those moments, reliving the horror that she was also responsible for.
“It was meant to end with you.”
I don’t know if she means it to sound the way it does, but it sounds like she expected my death, that that was the plan.
“I know it’s hard to understand, darling, but it was never meant to finish this way. Gunther was meant to be a puppet. You were meant to rule through him…”
“And then what?” I gasp. Did she really think I cared about being in charge? I just wanted a good husband, a family.
She sighs, reaching out to cup my face in what should be a loving gesture, but I know I can’t trust her.
“It wasn’t meant to…you have no idea who you are, who you really are…” She trails off. “They killed my friend. Magnus did. On their wedding day. He murdered her and no one said a thing, no one did a thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Magnus murdered Bethany. She was his wife, and he murdered her. And even her family let it go. She wasn’t the first of course, almost every friend I had, every woman I knew, was forced into an arranged marriage. Was forced to endure rape, and abuse, and God knows what else. But I knew that day that I couldn’t let it continue. I didn’t want to. So, when the opportunity presented itself, when I realised we really could change things, I had to take it, I had to.”
“So, you sold me off.” I state.
She sniffs. “I never…”
“You did. You knew what he would do. You saw it, in the cathedral and that first night, you even held me down.” I half-cry, remembering that awful moment. How he’d abused me with her witnessing it, her helping him.
“I didn’t know what to do.” She admits. “I just, I knew things were in place, that it would be only a few weeks, a month at best, and then he would be dealt with.”
“It was months.” I reply. “It was months and months of abuse, and torture and…” I cover my face, forcing the tears back down because I don’t want her to see them, I don’t want her to think that she can use this weakness against me. “He took my eyes, he took my sight.” I scream the last bit, and then realising I’m on my feet, though I don’t remember standing.
All this anger is suddenly exploding in me. I’m shaking with the amount of adrenaline flooding my body.
She hasn’t even acknowledged it.
She hasn’t even admitted she knows that part of the story.
And I realise then, that it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t my husband wielding the blade, because she is the reason I was there, she put me in that position.
“I’m so sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They promised me.” She says so fucking silkily.
“Who?” I snarl cutting across her.
She sighs again, and I decide that I don’t want to hear another word. She’s not here because she cares, she’s not here for me, she’s doing this to ease her own guilt and nothing more.
“Paitlyn, please, please wait.” She pleads.
“I have nothing else to say to you.” I mutter, trying to go back up that stoney path, trying to navigate my way like I have a clue where the bunker is.
