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Un malheur ne vient jamais seul. Misfortune never arrives alone. —French proverb
Her face lit with recognition when she saw me, and she lifted her good hand to her forehead in mock salute.
Our respect had once been mutual. But that was before the envy.
“If this woman is to be my wife,” he said, swallowing hard, “you will not touch her again.”
My husband must’ve been the most insipid person ever born.
“You’re my wife now, whether we like it or not. No man will ever touch you that way again.”
The sun was still beautiful. And despite everything, it was still setting.
I woke long before my wife. Stiff. Sore. Aching from a fitful night on the floor. Though I’d argued with myself—reasoned vehemently that she’d chosen to suffer in the tub—I hadn’t been able to climb into bed. Not when she was injured. Not when she might wake in the night and change her mind. No. I’d offered her the bed. The bed was hers.
No. I had made a vow to this woman. To God. I would not forsake it. If she wasn’t back in another hour, I’d go out and find her—ransack the city if I must. If I didn’t have my honor, I didn’t have anything.
. I looked around at the worshippers once more—the men and women who pleaded for mercy and cried for my blood on the same breath. How could both be in their hearts?
Our lives reflect our hearts. They might’ve all been hypocrites, but I was the biggest one of all.
He’d matched our outfits. I should’ve been appalled, but with his hand wrapped firmly around mine, I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything but excitement.
Perhaps he wasn’t so bad.
Witches and people alike. One and the same. All innocent. All guilty. All dead.
I leaned back, studying her as she finished my bun. A bit of icing covered her lip. Her nose was still red from the cold, her hair wild and windblown. My little heathen.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but you need to look in the mirror. There’s a special circle in Hell for liars and hypocrites, Your Eminence. Perhaps I’ll see you there.”
Despite what you think, he’s given me everything. He gave me a life, a purpose.” He hesitated, eyes meeting mine with a sincerity that made my heart stutter. “He gave me you.”
“‘Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from you.’” He trailed his fingers down my arm in slow, torturous strokes. My head fell back on his shoulder, my eyes fluttering closed, as his lips continued to move against my neck. “‘Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.’”
That is love, to give away everything, to sacrifice everything, without the slightest desire to get anything in return.
Would my soul remember him? A small part of me prayed I wouldn’t, but the rest knew better. I loved him. Deeply. Such a love was not something of just the heart and mind. It wasn’t something to be felt and eventually forgotten, to be touched without it in return touching you. No . . . this love was something else. Something irrevocable. It was something of the soul.
