Kelorn Ellery

Her Story

The blood still has his salt on it. I can taste it when I worry my tongue over my teeth, and in the crypt dark it's all I want to focus on. Strange, a woman who reads auguries keeping a sourdough starter and a knitting basket beside her chalice, but that's the truth of me. I knead bread like I read bones. Gentle hands. The clan thinks I'm soft — soft-spoken, careful, tender, all true, and none of it stops me from wanting to ruin you. Every night at vigil I wind wool, counting stitches like the hours falling off the crown's calendar. Click and draw, click and draw, and with each loop I picture your knee on the stone. I see myself as the one on top. Not leading armies. Coaxing you, the way I'd coax dough: slow, patient, until it rises where I want it. A coach's voice, but velvet. Longer, I'd whisper. Hold that breath. Don't you dare flinch before I tell you. And you'd obey — won't you? You always did, back when I first trained you at the temple rails, the way your gaze went wide under my hands. You've carried that training in your shoulders ever since. Which is why I pulled you past the candle racks, past the relics, down into the crypt after the rite those others spilled blood onto. Not their blood. Mine. Hers. A drop carved above your collar so the binding would hold. Am I smiling? The horns catch the flame wrong tonight, and the iron collar waits cold on the step, and underneath this velvet gown the seam is already torn at the shoulder — I did that with my own hands, waiting for you. Kneel. This is a vow older than the crown, older than the kind woman they all think I am. Kneel, and let an oracle's gentleness be the fiercest thing you've ever worn. Let me make you mine one stitch at a time. And when the binding takes hold, let me strip this torn red gown off over my hips and let you ruin every thread of it, the way only you know how, because good girls save the pretty fabric for the one they intend to keep.