***
Kali
“I’ve found you a husband,” he said, as if merely announcing a change in the weather. Kali stared at her father, waiting for more, hoping for some detail that wouldn’t make her want to pull out her hair and scream in sorrow. “He’s not too old, but he’s unsure of having a witch for a wife, so you’ll need to—”
“I am not a witch.”
“—be a little more persuasive. Give him some attention and—”
“I don’t want a husband.”
“—he’ll come around. He prefers meek girls, so he probably won’t enjoy—”
“I don’t care what he likes.”
“—being reminded of your power. And if you don’t marry him, then we’ll move elsewhere. You’ve no choice in this, girl. Forget that not.”
“I’m not ready.”
“You are. In a week, you’ll no longer be a novice. It’s time. I’ve been carrying you for too long now. You’re wasting precious time for little.”
“Carrying me? You soulless…”
His eyes found hers, and the threat within them was obvious. She tried a different tack.
“I’m not strong enough for the power, papa.”
A mistake. His obvious disgust chilled her to the bone. He didn’t see her as his daughter but as a daughter of darkness and demons, bought to appease his greed and paid for with his wife’s soul, no doubt.
“You sicken me,” she said quietly, so none other would hear. “You corrupted the magic, and bred from my mother until her body gave out. You forced her to have seven and made deals with the sort of devils that will come and ravish you upon your death. You use me so you can sell me on to the highest bidder. I hope your future is worth it. I hope the day your soul is torn from your body, and eaten up by darkness, that you will scream how worth it your life has been. Devil man to judge me. When you… you are blackness itself. A shriveled heart and hands that make the earth itself weep. May you know the folly of your sins. May you—”
“Do not attempt to sully your mouth with curse-making in my presence. A novice threatening the chovihano? I should end your life now.”
“Do it. Do it now because it would be worth your banishment. I would gladly be free of you.”
A sneer lifted his lips. “And that is exactly why you live. Because you wish for death.”
He stood, barely taller than her, but more intimidating than the tallest man because of that hollow place where his conscience should have been. “The ceremony is next week. You will be chovihani in your own right. Your wedding will come shortly afterward. Prepare yourself, for if you lose this husband, there are worse ones who can be persuaded to take you from my hands.”
The shadows closed in, and it took all of her might to ignore them as she glared at her father’s back. The worst of men, surely. If anyone deserved the words, he did. The power he had over her was worse. If he said a ceremony and a wedding were coming, she could do nothing to prevent either.
Except run.