The Empty Ones (Fantasy Romance)

14. The other southern girl

"I swear on the graves of my sisters, may The Great God of Everything strike me if I am lying, Zara. I didn't tell anything about Salma and her very stupid affair."

"But who did it then? Nobody else knew, only you and me," I asked mortified while touching the bruises Salma left on my face.

"Likely anybody else that stumbled over her at night as you did. Next time she hits you, you should hit back. That one bruise looks quite nasty. I didn't think little Salma has it in her to do that. Respect..." said Mairi, making fun of me, while at the same time, she wet a cloth and put it over the bruise.

"Auch! What are you doing?" I flinched.

"Hold it there, so it doesn't swell."

"What should I do now? Salma hates me."

"Just wait. She will get over it eventually. As a whole, it's not so bad that the boy is gone. And don't give me that face, I told you it wasn't me."

"Please don't lie to me."

"I wouldn't. I actually trust you."

"Do you finally like me?" I asked cheekily.

"Yes, but don't tell other people." Mairi smiled. She was in a strangely good mood lately.

"Why are you so happy?" I asked intrigued.

"I was just thinking that life isn't that bad. I still need a plan to ditch this place till I come of age but there are still two and a half star circles till then. And you were right, at least here I have food,  a roof, Chioma, and well... you."

"I am glad you saw reason. But back to Salma. I apologized. A lot. She didn't care."

"Try again in a few days when she will be calmer."

So I did, but Salma didn't talk to me again. Whenever we got close to each other she walked away. All the ghazal girls were avoiding me too, throwing mean words at me and maybe spitting in my food when they cooked. They probably would have wanted to be openly mean too but they were afraid of Mairi, as ghazal weren't naturally good fighters.

Almost eight moons passed in which I tried desperately to gain Salma's forgiveness for something I didn't do. Lately, all the ghazal girls were only ignoring me, which I thought was a good sign until that dreadful morning when I found roaches in the eggs I was supposed to eat.

Mairi was right; to my core, I was still a spoiled, palace-born girl so the screams just poured out of me when I saw them.

The sister on duty came and frowned at me.

"Who did this?" she asked authoritatively.

There was only silence.

"Who did this? Tell me or you are all getting punished."

"I don't know. But Itotia was cooking this morning," said Menila, an older ghazal girl, avoiding the sister's gaze.

"No. It wasn't me," protested Itotia.

"Honestly, I don't care. I just don't want any more disturbance. The two of you, Zaretha and Itotia will dust out the books in the library. Sister Lora needs help. You go now. No food for you."

The punishments in the priory were never just but that wasn't many times the point about them either, the point was to teach you humility and that they did pretty well.

There were at least five hundred books that needed to be dusted. That would take half a day and we would miss the lessons and get punished again. Itotia didn't even look at me, but after dusting hundreds of books with no end in sight I heard her voice.