I heaved a sigh. Ember was… she was never too good at lying or hiding things. She was as innocent and naive as they came, always wanting to believe in the best of people, even if they didn’t deserve it. She never acted as if she cared about any of the boys in town, and now I started to understand why.
“Ember,” I spoke her name, causing my seventeen-year-old sister to leap to her feet and spin to face me.
She had her mouth open, like she was going to explain, but then she saw it was me. Beside her, Sorsha gave me a smile and a wave, and I waved back as Ember slowly made her way over to me. Still barefoot, too.
“Morana,” Ember spoke, her blue eyes, not unlike mine, blinking in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
I took her by the arm and dragged her away from Sorsha, away from the waterfall that, frankly, wasn’t too far off the main road. If Ember thought she and Sorsha were being sneaky… they needed to learn the actual definition of the word.
Once we were far enough away to talk without Sorsha overhearing, I whispered, “What are you doing, Ember?” We stood a good ways away from the waterfall, away from the main road, but I couldn’t stop the feeling growing inside of me, the feeling that told me something was about to change. Foreboding, a premonition of sorts.
“Nothing,” she was quick to say, too quick. “I’m just with Sorsha—”
“I can see that. Here’s a hint: if you want to keep seeing Sorsha, you two need to start watching your backs,” I told her, watching her eyes widen. “I overheard Ma and Pa talking. Aela came to Ma in the market and said she found you and Sorsha indecent.”
My sister’s cheeks turned pink, and I wondered right then if she wasn’t as innocent as she looked. “Oh, no.” The tone of her voice told me everything, and I felt my heart ache for her, just a bit.
I wanted freedom, to get away from this town, but my sister wanted something even more impossible: to be with the girl at the waterfall, and not just as friends. Oh, I could put the pieces together. I’d had a suspicion before, long before our parents had discussed it. They were with each other all the time, always hovering so close to each other, too. Talking and laughing, throwing lingering looks and gentle touches when they thought no one was looking.
But that’s the thing. People were always watching, at least here. This town… it wasn’t for anyone who wanted to be different, and it definitely wasn’t for people who simply were different without wanting to be—Ember and the girl she liked included.
I could never judge her for wanting what she did. The same people that would ridicule and call her names for who she liked would do the same thing to me for deciding I didn’t want to settle for whatever farm boy came up and asked for my hand in marriage. This village was full of people who judged for a living; my sister and I were just born to the wrong family, I guess.
“Ember,” I spoke her name, snapping her out of her thoughts as I went on, “you have to know that this—whatever’s going on between you two—isn’t going to sit right with most of the town.” And by most of the town, I meant pretty much everyone. They were not a kind, understanding people. Kind, sure, but only if you followed the rules they gave you, never deviating from them.
“I know,” she said. “And I don’t care. Sorsha and I have talked about it—we’ll run away if we have to. Start a life somewhere else—” As she went on with their grand plan of escaping this place, I was shocked. Honestly, genuinely shocked.
I had no idea my little sister was so head over heels for this girl that she would leave everything behind. In that way, she was a stronger person than me. My grand plan was to build myself a hut on the edge of the village, but to run away from it entirely? That took guts.
Ember and I were our parents’ only children. Ma nearly died when she’d had Ember, and the village doctor advised her not to try to have more, lest she die the next time. If Ember ran away… it would be up to me to carry on.
Would I do that for my sister? So at least one of us could be happy?
I opened my mouth, about to ask her more about their plan to run away—such as when, where, what they’d do, how they’d survive—but the sound of horse’s hooves on the main road caused both Ember’s and my attention to snap to our left. Though we couldn’t see the road, the trees too thick and the space too long, we both knew something wasn’t right.
An uneasy feeling settled in my gut, and I met my sister’s blue eyes, saying, “We should get back to the village.”
Ember nodded, and I waited for her to fetch Sorsha, for them to lace up their boots, and then we were on our way, emerging from the brush and onto the road whose cobblestones had just echoed with thuds from a powerful, fast-running horse.
The sun shined brightly, and even though the sun felt warm on my skin, I couldn’t fight the cold feeling creeping along me, like, somehow, deep down I knew today was about to change everything.
Though I wanted to figure out who the rider was, where they’d gone, Ember and I returned to the house, while Sorsha went back to hers. We found Ma and Pa pacing in the kitchen. At first, I thought this was because of everything with Ember and Sorsha, but then we were told to get dressed in our finest garments.
Ember’s blonde brows furrowed, and she demanded, “Why? If there is a boy here—” She was seconds from telling my parents off when Pa spoke.
“The mayor of town has summoned us all,” he told us, not looking too happy about it. “Anyone with daughters of age who are still maidens must go.”
Still maidens, as in still virgins. Because we were only as valuable as that thing between our legs. Of course. Right. Should’ve known. What I still didn’t understand was why we all had to go, but it wasn’t our place to question. Just shut up and do it, and it would be over quicker.
Ember didn’t get the memo though, for she said, “Why?” We were not at the waterfall for long, although it did take us longer to walk back than it would’ve for the horse riding as if he were running from death itself to meet with the mayor, but still. This was all happening quite fast.
Ma was busy speaking under her breath, still pacing, “I never thought he’d come here. Out of all of the villages in the kingdom, why here? Why us?”
Neither Ember nor I made a move to go change. Ember threw a worried look at me, wordlessly begging me to take charge and get to the bottom of this, so I did. “Ma, Pa, what’s going on? If you will not tell us what we’re walking into, we won’t go.”
“A few days ago, the mayor got word from a raven that he was on his way. A messenger has come to collect,” Ma said, her feet stopping as she whirled to look at us. “I told you the story, when you two were younger. The tale has it, Winter is always in search of a bride, and every twenty-five years, he sends a man to collect a human bride. I never thought…” She paused as she glanced to Pa, her watered-down eyes more grey than blue, her blonde hair lacking the luster mine and Ember’s had. “A part of me always thought it was just a fairytale.”
I remembered the story, and just like Ma, I’d always thought it was just a tale, too. A story parents told their children when they were young to get them to behave and do what good girls should: find a suitable man, get married, and save yourself from the horrors of marrying Winter.