Since Esmera was abandoned on a stranger's doorstep as a baby, the only person who has looked out for her is herself.
Until a lark starts visiting her, leaving behind exotic flowers and iridescent pebbles that the internet doesn't recognise.
Esmera...
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Esmera's chest tightened, and her heart beat against the walls of it. She kept her breaths slow and soft and steady, kept her panic at what a god could possibly want from her contained within her.
The beautiful, enchanting land of Milatanur was a place of high prices. Tauram's love for Ghallia had cost him his throne and his siblings' lives. Yandriya had paid with her life to save Esmera's. What would be the price of a god's favour?
Oblivious to Esmera's apprehension, Nuredir took his time closing his otherworldly eyes. A ripple passed through him, sending his black curls fluttering and his golden skin stirring. When he opened his eyes, they were directly on Esmera, clear with that knowledge the deities possessed that mortals were denied.
She swallowed, awaiting his terms the way an accused anticipated their sentencing.
"Your first child will be a daughter. I want her." Nuredir dared to stand tall, unfaltering, even as a little part of Esmera's hope crumbled inside her.
Her head felt light, as though it floated some distance above the rest of her, above her friends. Esmera thought she must've misheard Nuredir, but Tauram and Anjarah's sharp intakes of breath behind her told her that she hadn't.
The god had indeed demanded a human sacrifice in exchange for rebuilding a weapon he had created.
"What do you want with her?" Esmera asked, as much because she was curious as to buy time to wrap her head around what was happening because it was the last scenario she had imagined playing out when she left the Finnaaz estate in search of Nuredir earlier that day. In fact, it was a possibility that hadn't even crossed her mind.
"It's simple." Nuredir's eyes remained unchanged as they pinned Esmera in position even though all she wanted was to shrink away from him, from the steep expense of his cooperation. "I want to marry her."
Esmera blinked, her mind emptying itself of all the questions she might've possibly answered with. Her thoughts had gone swirling again, and they took a moment to right themselves once again.
Even in a land where Esmera's own marriage had been arranged when she was just born, she couldn't shake off the sickening sense that she was using her unborn daughter as currency. She may not exist yet, but she was still a person, not an object to be exchanged for a god's aid.
Esmera was shaking her head at Nuredir when Tauram's hand settled on her shoulder, and he stepped up from behind her so he was in line with her. Lundas remained at his ankles, fixing his luminous eyes on the god before them.
Her eyes settled on the floor as Nuredir's gaze swapped over to Tauram. That tight feeling returned to her chest, worsening like an elastic band being fastened around it.
She had been currency before, or at least a means to money. Most of the foster families who had taken her in had done so for the stipend they would earn from the state for caring for her, a stipend that far exceeded what they spent on her. The last thing would've ever wanted was to submit her own daughter to such a thing.
