Could they be true? Or were they just the words of a madwoman?
Ceres looked over and saw Sartes holding a basket of food, his mouth already stuffed with more than enough bread. He held it out for her. She saw the baked good, fruits, and vegetables, and it was almost enough to break her resolve. Normally, she would have devoured it.
Yet now, for some reason, she had lost her appetite.
There was a future before her.
A destiny.
The walk home had taken almost an hour longer than usual, and they had all remained silent the entire way, each lost in their own thoughts. Ceres could only wonder what the people she loved most in the world thought of her. She hardly knew what to think of herself.
She looked up and saw her humble home, and she was surprised she had made it all the way, given how her head and back ached.
The others had parted with her some time ago, to run an errand for her father, and Ceres stepped alone across the creaky threshold, bracing herself, hoping she did not run into her mother.
She entered a bath of heat. She made her way over to the small vial of cleaning alcohol her mother had stored under her bed and uncorked it, careful not to use so much that it went noticed. Bracing herself for the sting, she pried her shirt and poured it down her back.
Ceres cried out from the pain, clenching her fist and leaning her head against the wall, feeling a thousand stings from the omnicat’s claws. It felt as if this wound would never heal.
The door slammed open and Ceres flinched. She was relieved to see it was only Sartes.
“Father needs to see you, Ceres,” he said.
Ceres noticed his eyes were slightly red.
“How’s your arm?” she asked, assuming he was crying from the pain of his injured arm.
“It’s not broken. Just sprained.” He stepped closer and his face turned serious. “Thank you for saving me today.”
She offered him a smile. “How could I be anywhere else?” she said.
He smiled.
“Go see Father now,” he said. “I’ll burn your dress and the cloth.”
She didn’t know how she’d be able to explain to her mother how her dress had suddenly vanished, but the hand-me-down definitely needed to be burned. If her mother found it in its current condition – bloodied and riddled with holes – there’d be no saying how severe her punishment would be.
Ceres left and walked down the downtrodden grass path toward the shed behind the house. There was one tree left on their humble lot – the others had been chopped into firewood and burned in the hearth to heat the house during cold winter nights – and its branches hovered over the house like a protecting energy. Every time Ceres saw it, it reminded her of her grandmother, who passed away the year before last. Her grandmother had been the one who had planted the tree when she was a child. It was her temple, in a way. And her father’s too. When life was too much to handle, they would lie underneath the stars and open their hearts to Nana as if she were still alive.
Ceres entered the shed and greeted her father with a smile. To her surprise, she noticed that most of his tools had been cleared from the worktable, and that no swords waited by the hearth to be forged. She couldn’t ever remember seeing the floor swept this clean, or the walls and ceiling so lacking in tools.
Her father’s blue eyes lit up, the way they always did when he saw her.
“Ceres,” he said, rising.
This past year, his dark hair had turned much grayer, his short beard, too, and the bags under his loving eyes had doubled in size. In the past, he had been large in stature and almost as muscular as Nesos; yet recently, Ceres noticed, he had lost weight and his formerly perfect posture was sagging.
He joined her at the door and placed a calloused hand to the small of her back.
“Walk with me.”
Her chest tightened a little. When he wanted to talk and walk, that meant he was about to share something significant.
Side by side, they meandered to the back of the shed and into the small field. Dark clouds loomed in the near distance, sending in gusts of warm, temperamental wind. She hoped they would produce the rain needed to recover from this seemingly never-ending drought, yet as before, they probably held just empty promises of showers.
The earth crunched beneath her feet as she walked, the soil dry, the plants yellow, brown, and dead. This patch of land behind their subdivision was King Claudius’s, yet it hadn’t been sowed for years.
They crested a hill and stopped, looking across the field. Her father remained silent, his hands clasped behind his back as he looked up into the sky. It was unlike him, and her dread deepened.
Then he spoke, seeming to select his words with care.
“Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of choosing our paths,” he said. “We must sacrifice all that we want for our loved ones. Even ourselves, if needed.”
He sighed, and in the long silence, interrupted only by the wind, Ceres’s heart pounded, wondering where he was going with this.
“What I wouldn’t give to hold onto your childhood forever,” he added, peering into the heavens, his face twisted in pain before it relaxed again.
“What’s wrong?” Ceres asked, placing a hand on his arm.
“I must leave for a while,” he said.
She felt as if she couldn’t take a breath.
“Leave?”
He turned and looked her in the eyes.
“As you know, the winter and spring were particularly hard this year. The past few years of drought have been difficult. We haven’t made enough money to get through the next winter, and if I don’t go, our family will starve to death. I have been commissioned by another king to be his head bladesmith. It will be good money.”
“You will take me with you, right?” Ceres said, a frantic tone in her voice.
He shook his head grimly.
“You must stay here and help your mother and brothers.”
The thought sent a wave of horror through her.
“You can’t leave me here with Mother,” she said. “You wouldn’t.”
“I have spoken to her, and she will take care of you. She will be kind.”
Ceres stomped her foot in the earth, the dust rising.
“No!”
Tears burst from her eyes and tumbled down her cheeks.
He took a small step toward her.
“Listen to me very carefully, Ceres. The palace still needs swords delivered from time to time. I have put in a good word for you, and if you make swords the way I have taught you, you could make a little money of your own.”
Making her own money might possibly allow her more freedom. She had found her small, dainty hands had come in handy when carving intricate designs and inscriptions on the blades and hilts. Her father’s hands were broad, his fingers thick and stubby, and few others had the skill she had.
Even so, she shook her head.
“I don’t want to be a smith,” she said.
“It runs in your blood, Ceres. And you have a gift for it.”
She shook her head, adamant.
“I want to wield weapons,” she said, “not make them.”
As soon as the words had left her mouth, she regretted speaking them.
Her father furrowed his brow.
“You wish to be a warrior? A combatlord?”
He shook his head.
“One day it may be allowed for women to fight,” she said. “You know I have practiced.”
His eyebrows crinkled in worry.
“No,” he commanded, firmly. “That is not your path.”
Her heart sank. She felt as if her hopes and dreams of becoming a warrior were dissipating with his words. She knew he wasn’t trying to be cruel – he was never cruel. It was just reality. And for them to stay alive, she would have to sacrifice her part, too.
She looked into the distance as the sky lit with a jolt of lightning. Three seconds later, thunder rumbled through the heavens.