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Chapter 12
Vyncent was restless. His crippled hand ached sharply against his chest beneath its bandages, his back grew stiff against the cold stone floor he laid on and he could not close his eyes without getting a headache.
Closing his eyes meant memories would come up, most pulled his insides down into an endless, deep abyss of guilt and disgust and anger, but sometimes they were good, only the longing he got from these memories hurt him as much as the bad ones.
He looked up at the slender hand of his sister, flung over the edge of the bed she slept on.
When he awoke hours ago, Adriena was not there in the room with him, the chair by the closed shutters, empty. At first, he was merely confused. Where had she gone? Was she mocking him?
But where was there to hide? The room was too small, and outside...
The realization hit him like the blow of a fist to his belly. His heart plummeted. He knew his sister well enough to know that she grew restless at night a tended to walk until her feet were cold and sore. Her walks would take her from the time the moon hung high in the velvet black sky, to when the sun just peeked over the horizon.
He heard Adriena shift in the creaky bed, the hand that had been flung over the edge was pulled back in, and the only way he knew she was there, was her breathing.
As he got up to leave to look for his foolish sister, the door creaked open, Adriena's body slipping though the opening. Finding her brother standing there, she bit her lip and awaited the lecture he was bound to give her.
An odd creature, his sister was. When they were younger, and she developed and was no longer the little girl she had been, Old Helsa's daily lessons in the female arts were the bane of Adriena's existence. It was age old custom in Hoff that when adolescence came about, a girl was put into lessons and taught how to be a woman and a mother.
As his sister sewed and cooked and cleaned and sung, she grew more and more restless at night and started walking.
"That stupid old bat is always complaining that I don't stitch right or that the animal isn't cleaned right or that I'm not right." she complained to him one night when she was eleven and he was fifteen.
His sister was not tactless completely; she could shoot a bow and had enough wit to make other children stop mocking her when she shamed herself. She could make herself look pretty if she wanted and was actually quite fair in dice games. More than once had she taken local boys for all they had. But none of these traits were what people, men (potential husbands in particular) looked at with a grin. When Adriena was twelve, he overheard Old Helsa rant that "the stupid, head-strong, and-and boyish girl" was unsuitable to be a wife.
Vyncent scoffed at himself. He had never cared for his father's or Helsa's, marriage prospects for Adriena. Who she swore her vows to and who fathered her children were of no consequence to him, as long as she was happy (if not content), safe, and could do her duty as head councilwoman. Vyncent would be chief someday, and a chief needed council with a right-minded person.
That all changed when Arwin told him of his new plans for Adriena's maidenhead.
Hoff, the night of the feast...
"I want you to ensure this plan does not go astray." his father had said with a firm voice.
Vyncent stared at his father in a potent mixture of disgust, shock, anger and slight confusion. "No. No, I won't do this to her. Not my own sister." he shook his head.
Arwin's eyes narrowed, flashing and dangerous. "You don't have a choice." his father growled. "Adriena will be mistress to the King of the North, our village will be safe, or," Arwin's eyes saddened, but hid his fears behind his cold mask, as he always did. "You will be marked a traitor, cast out, and Nara will be given to a real man."
Vyncent's crippled had twitched, the remaining fingers curling together at the slur on his manhood and Nara.
If any other man had said this, Vyncent would have taken it as a challenge. Any other man, they would have been fighting on the ground right now. Any other man, Vyncent would have broken their fingers. Vyncent, however, remained silent, his eyes burning with the need to beat the man who suggested such horrendous things. Why did he have to be his father as well?
Arwin's lips twitched up in a bitter smile. "Good. You leave on the morrow, tell your sister." Arwin called as he walked away.
This was the first time Vyncent had thought back to that horrid conversation since that night. If he failed, he lost his place, he lost Nara—the woman he loved more than the stars and moon at night—and his village and people could be destroyed. If he succeeded, his own sister would hate him for pushing her into the bed of a man she abhorred. She would hate him for turning her into a common whore.
With much hate toward his father for putting him in this terrible situation, Vyncent opted that his sister's dignity was a mere blade of grass to the rest of the forest.
He had not told her of her new duty as of yet. How could he? They had just left all they knew behind.
He would try to hold off promoting his sister to the 'King' as long as he could, and dreaded the day when he would push Adriena in the direction of Robb Stark's bed.
Just a short lil bit of insight into Vyncent's mind. More to come soon!
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