Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton

Author:Bree Barton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 34

Forbidden

WITH HER GRANDMOTHER SHUFFLING alongside them, Sach’a led them through the merqad, where Mia saw all the things she’d missed.

She saw a fair-skinned woman in a crisp, unstained apron, wheat-colored hair swept into a loose bun. The woman drew a bird from a wooden crate and placed it on a butcher block. Instead of wringing its neck, she laid her pale, unfreckled hands over its heart. Without a sound or a single flap of its wings, the bird stilled.

She saw a little girl with thin beaded braids crying over a skinned knee, the blood oozing dark from the fresh wound, until a stout woman with mellow gold skin and a kind face placed a hand on the girl’s kneecap and her sobs turned to hiccups. When the woman wiped off the old blood, the girl didn’t even wince. Her knee was healed, copper skin glowing warm and unbroken, as if kissed by a forgiving sun.

Was everyone here a Gwyrach?

Mia oscillated wildly between euphoria and shock. Years of lies—Gwyrach never use their powers to heal, Gwyrach are demons who enjoy causing suffering and pain—were toppled in an instant. The merqad was flooded with light and laughter and music. In the distance, Mia heard the airy strand of a viol blending with a girl’s silvery voice. Everyone seemed happy and joyous, with the exception of the woman who had killed the bird. Her face was solemn and respectful.

The more women Mia saw, the more she felt she somehow knew them, as if an invisible thread bound them all together. She saw mothers, daughters, sisters, lovers, and friends, as vibrant as they were different—young and old, fat and skinny, beautiful and ugly, and a hundred variations in between.

But what struck her most were their hands.

Growing up in Glas Ddir, she had only ever seen three pairs of hands without gloves: her mother’s, her sister’s, and her own. Here in Refúj, every woman’s hands were bare. Mia saw a profusion of freckles, moles, birthmarks, and scars set against backdrops of warm russet brown, milky white, pale bronze, and glimmering ebony. She saw long, curling fingernails and nails trimmed short; palms thatched with lines and creases; light ink etched on dark skin, dark ink etched on light skin. She saw women with their fingers laced together or their arms linked, and in one corner stall, two girls stood with their bodies pressed close, raking hungry hands through each other’s sleek raven tresses as they kissed.

And it wasn’t just the hands. Women sported silky straight locks, coarse black plaits, blond ringlets, and shaved heads—an abundance of hair coiffed, curled, and shorn. Everyone was draped in a dizzying array of fabrics, cuts and styles Mia had never seen in Glas Ddir, and as she pushed through throngs of girls, her ears drank in the sweet cacophony of languages.

“I dreamed of a place like this,” she said, remembering. During the wedding, Mia had stood in the Royal Chapel and seen these colors, heard these sounds, inhabited this place.

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