I barely notice the winged stallion’s discomfort. The majority of my focus is directed downwards, trailing along the broken underbrush and rotted bones that lay scattered around my feet. I can see enough from my peripheral vision to know that he has put the pieces together—that he knows what sin city I have come from, what I have done, and the black immoralities that stain every supple curve and soft line of my skin. I lean the weight of my body backwards without actually moving my hooves, and lower my head so that my hair falls across my face, momentarily hiding him from my view.

The hot knot in my stomach twists tighter, though I am relieved when he seems reluctant to pursue that particular topic himself. It is part of a past I wish to forget and leave behind, no matter how the memories (the ghosts of a touch, the whispers of a caress long ago on nights of balmy breezes and fervent breaths) persistently cling to my mind like barbed wire. My mind feels bruised and beaten, bleeding and tired from the wounds that refuse to heal.

“I don’t know,” I murmur (almost listlessly) when Sunjata suddenly turns the conversation to me, my lips moving after a long moment of silence. My eyes are still trained on the forest floor, shadowed by the curtain of my long forelock. Through the gossamer walls, I can feel the stallion’s eyes on me, my skin prickling as it has done from the numerous stares of men before (wanting gazes of shallow emotions and carnal desires). However, when I finally force myself to meet his eye, tilting my head just enough so that my hair falls to the side, I don’t see these hollow requests within his expression.

I have almost forgotten what it’s like to hold a man’s attention without the looming requests of flesh and satisfaction.

My ears flick back—unused to holding someone’s alert, genuine attention—before I continue, breathing deeply from my nose. “I’ve only just recently come to Helovia myself…I don’t know anything of the religion or its people,” I can feel my lips trying to twist into something of a smirk, but it feels stiff even to me, unnatural. “I don’t have much faith when it comes to Gods,” the words blurt out themselves, embroiled in the chaos of my thoughts and controlled by little sense of direction. With the taste of bile on my tongue, I think of the Father, and how he had not been so different from a perverted, tyrannical god. “They tend to be little more than over-glorified people who demand to be revered for nothing else but their glory. There is nothing done that would actually merit such blind veneration,” I shake my head, disgust ghosting over my face.

Too late, I realize that maybe I have spoken too much—too boldly. For all I know, Sunjata might be a very holy man, and worship all the gods in the world for their sacredness. Nervous now that I might have offended him, I shrink into myself, my shoulders folding inward while my head falls. “But that’s just me,” I murmur tentatively, turning my face away from his reaction.


“Speech.”