Dylas, Chanda, and I all jumped up at once, Dylas shouting “What the fuck?” while Chanda let out a prolonged stream of foreign-sounding profanity. But before I could say anything, Avani scrambled to her feet with surprising speed and darted out the back door. I chased after her, catching up to her just as she leaned over the fence and vomited. When she was done, she stood clinging to the fencepost for a moment, silent except for the sound of her ragged breathing, then still without a word, she turned to me and leaned her head against my chest. I could feel the tears as they ran down her cheek to my bare skin, and she trembled beneath my hands.

“My Lady?” I said, soothingly, as I stroked her hair. “You needn’t continue if it distresses you so much. It’s your story to tell—or not, as you and you alone choose.”

She continued staring at the ground, pale and stricken. “Do… do you even want to know more? Or have you heard enough about… about my past?”

I hesitated, uncertain how to answer. I did want to know more—I wanted to know all there was to know about this delightful enigma whose destiny was so interwoven with my own. But only if she told me willingly—I had no desire to pressure her for more than she was prepared to divulge.

Wrapping her arms around my waist and pressing her still-wet cheek against my chest, she whispered, “It’s all right, Leo. Just tell me honestly. That’s all I ever want, honesty. Whatever… whatever it is you want to say, whatever it is you’re thinking about me right now… I’ll understand.”

I paused for only split-second longer, then put my arms around her and replied in a low voice, for her and her alone to hear, “Then, my love, I want to know everything about you—the good, the bad, the silly, the serious… everything. But only when and if you are ready to tell me. I never want you to feel coerced again.”

At my reply, she gripped me tightly, trying and failing to choke back a sob. Then she relaxed, and turning her face to press her forehead against me, she said, laughing shakily, “You always seem to know just exactly what I need to hear, Leo.” Then she looked up at me, her smile like a ray of sunshine breaking through the storm clouds, and she led me back in.

Avoiding the others’ eyes as she resumed her seat on the rug, she again wrapped her arms around Baldur, leaning into his soft fur as he whined and licked her, sensing her distress. I sat down close to her, put my arm around her, and waited.

Dylas, still standing, spoke first, his face and voice both shocked and disbelieving. “I don’t get it. Why… why did you let him get away with that? That’s not like you at all! Why didn’t you kill him, or at least give him a good beating? Or use that… that teleport spell thing to get away? Why didn’t you—”

Before he could say another word, though, Baldur slowly rose to his feet, hackles raised, and growled a low, menacing snarl at the startled  young man. Avani, looking as surprised as everyone else, murmured soothingly to the wolf as she pulled him back down. He lay, reluctantly, but placed himself between the two of them as he continued to stare fixedly at Dylas, a barely-audible growl still escaping his throat.

Chanda recovered first, turning to glare at Dylas. “Who the hell do you think you are, anyway, talking to her like that? I don’t know what her reasons are, but I know her well enough to know they have to be damn good ones. I didn’t even know… she never said anything to me, or I-I would have—”

“That’s precisely why she didn’t tell you, Chanda,” Rishi interrupted. “She didn’t tell anyone what he put her through. Only… only I knew….” His voice trailed off, and I realized with shock what he was implying.

Apparently Chanda caught on, too, as her face turned white. “You mean… you mean that you….”

Sharmila nodded. “Yes, Rishi was… was there. He didn’t yet know how to cut off communications with her, since no one knew about their link. He… saw, heard, felt… everything. And he was helpless to do anything to help her. He tried to tell their father, finally confessing to the link between them. His father was too shocked by his admission of telepathy—which he referred to as witchcraft—to even pay attention to what Rishi was trying to tell him. The day after the wedding was over, he sent his son to the temple, to be ‘cured’. That was when we first learned of his ability—and when we began to teach him to control it.”

Rishi looked towards Dylas, saying sadly, “Hindsight is ever perfect, but we are only human. She was helpless against a man of his strength and skill, and she feared he would follow through with his threats—threats against Sundara, against Chanda, and even against me.” Avani looked up at him, startled, and sensing her reaction, he nodded. “Yes, I knew of it. Our link was a constant flow then, but I was only conscious of it if I focused on it or had nothing else occupying my mind. So if I was busy with my lessons, for example, I didn’t notice what you were thinking or saying or doing. But alone in the quiet of the night…. I was horrified and sickened by what he did to you, my love, humiliated by my own helplessness… and disgusted that I wanted so badly to escape it, that I couldn’t find the strength within myself to share your burden. I’d never felt so contemptible….”

Avani rose quickly and went to her brother, putting her arms around him to comfort him. “Shhh, don’t, Rishi. There wasn’t anything you could have done. It was my job to protect you, not the other way around.”

Then she stood, straight and tall, proudly lifting her chin as she looked unflinchingly at her former lover. “You ask me why—why didn’t I do this or that or some other thing, why I just lay down and took his abuse. Well, I’ll tell you why. I did it because the cost of failure was too great. He threatened those I loved most, and if I had ever harbored doubts that he’d follow through with those threats before, those doubts were put to rest before the sun rose. I was a child of eighteen, and although I had completed a decade of combat training, I was no match for his strength and skill.

“You ask why I didn’t fight—I did, with all that I had. But he easily overpowered me and forced himself onto me. That was when he made his threats—hissing them into my ear as he raped me. And he didn’t only threaten them with death—he threatened to… to do other things to them first. All while demonstrating precisely what he’d do to each of them, to make it perfectly clear to me.

“As for the teleport spell—those that learned it usually did so in the final year of their education, when they were old enough to have the wisdom and discernment to use it properly. However, my father forbade my teachers to teach it to me until long after my wedding, sensing that I might use it to escape.

“In a final act of desperation, I went to my father the morning after the wedding was over, the morning after my second night with… with him. And I told my father everything he had done to me, hoping that he might annul our marriage—he had that ability, as our leader.

“Instead of showing concern for his own child, though, he berated me. He said that all brides have a rough time the first night or so, all the more if they were virgins. Then he came right out and told me that he didn’t believe me—he thought it was a ruse in order to gain my freedom so I could marry Sundara. He gave me a cold, hard look and reminded me that I was a Princess from a long and proud bloodline, and the new matron of another. He hadn’t raised me to snivel and whine and crumble at the first hint of adversity, he said, but rather to do my duty—just as he’d always done, just as all our family had done for as far back as memory and legend could recall. My duty, he informed me, was to hold my head high, to put up with adversity and disappointment and whatever trials came my way, like the Princess that I was, and to bear my new husband sons so that his line would flourish—since if I did not bear him sons, it would instead die out with him.

“Knowing then that my last hope for rescue had failed, I straightened up, holding my head up as proudly as I could, just as he had commanded me, and I informed him that I would sooner die a thousand deaths than bear a child to that monster to whom he sold me. And then I turned my back on him and walked out the door.”

Dylas looked suitably chastened after her speech, and he quickly sat back down, avoiding her piercing gaze. After staring at him for a moment, Avani sat back down, too, and with a sigh, she leaned against me as I put my arm around her. She closed her eyes in thought for a moment, stroking Baldur’s head as he placed his muzzle on her lap, whining anxiously. Then without opening her eyes, she resumed her story.

 “After I left my father’s house, I ran as fast as I could out of town, ignoring everyone who called out to me as I fled for the woods. Once there, I made my way up the mountainside to a precipice that I knew of—I’d often gone there with Sundara, as it had an incredible view across the hills and valleys. And I stood there at the edge, and I steeled myself to walk off the cliff, believing that death was the only escape left to me. But just as I began to step out into the nothingness that awaited me, a hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me back.

“Sundara had seen me fleeing and followed me in concern. I’d been so distraught, I hadn’t noticed him following me. When he realized what I was about to do, he rushed forward and stopped me. He held me tightly, and he asked if it was really so terrible—so unbearable—that I couldn’t face another day.

“I… I could have told him everything then. Maybe I should have told him. But… I didn’t. I was still too raw and ashamed and full of the horror of it all to speak of it. It had been difficult enough to tell my father, and then after the reception I got…. Rape was just not something that happens among my people, so if my own father didn’t believe me, I had no reason to think that anyone else would.

“So I just told him that yes, it was awful, and I couldn’t stand to think of going on like that, living year after year with him. Then he lifted my chin and looked into my eyes, his own filling with sorrow at whatever he saw there. Then he kissed me and said that there was at least one good thing: since I’d fulfilled my husband’s requirement, I was free to seek solace and comfort wherever—and with whomever—I chose, as was customary in our tribe. And so that day, after years of waiting, we finally became lovers.

“That was all that made my life bearable. I stayed away from my new home as much as I could. I cooked meals and cleaned house, but I escaped to the woods as often as I could and stayed away as late as I dared. I tried to avoid rousing his—my husband’s—ire, for fear that he’d take it out on someone other than me. Certainly he did nothing to make life pleasant even when he wasn’t particularly wroth with me.”

Dylas, looking fearful yet determined, spoke up then, much more gently this time. “How… how long did that… how long did he continue…?”

Avani opened her eyes and looked at him, and I could see the tears sparkling in them as she replied, “Every night, often more than once, and some of the days as well, until I left on the journey that brought me here. Every single night… for almost four years.”

Dylas and I both gasped in shock. To be subjected to such treatment for so long… it was incomprehensible to me, that anyone could be so methodically brutal.

“And things got worse with time,” she continued, again closing her eyes. “It didn’t take him long to realize that I was intentionally withholding the children he insisted were his right and my duty. That was one thing that I refused to give in on, no matter what the cost. I would sooner have let the whole village go up in smoke and ashes than bring any child of his into the world. Somehow surmising that I was absolutely inflexible on that one count, he then began a campaign to try to wear me down—to break my spirit, so that I would finally cave in to him. He took great care to heal any… any marks, once he was through for the night.” I felt nauseated at the implication of her words, a convulsive shudder travelling down my spine as I tightened my hold on her.

“He went to my father, too, and complained of my recalcitrance. My father, as always, sided with him against me, telling me that I was failing my duty as a wife, daughter, and princess. When I complained of my treatment, he told me in no uncertain terms that any abuse I suffered was my own fault for my failure to fulfill my duties as I had been taught.

“Next, my husband demanded that I stop seeing Sundara. He had found out about our affair somehow, and although he didn’t really care where my affections lay, as he had none for me, he also didn’t want me to be ‘distracted’ by him. I refused at first, but the abuse became nearly intolerable. Then one day he followed us into the mountains, to that same precipice and he… he….”

I hugged her closer still and looked down at her. “Was he the one, then? The one you told me about, that you couldn’t quite remember at the time, except that you were afraid of him? Was it this so-called husband that killed Sundara?” She nodded, and our guests exclaimed in dismay.

“You mean, he killed Sundara? I thought his death was accidental, that he slipped and fell from a cliff!” Rishi cried, horrified.

Avani shook her head, burying her face in my shoulder as she sobbed, “No, it wasn’t an accident—he… he p-pushed him, and I couldn’t save him. I had him, Rishi, I had him in my hand—but he s-slipped from my grasp.” She wept as I held her, struggling to compose herself, and I barely caught her voice as she repeated in a whisper, “I couldn’t save him….”

Arthur quickly rose and hurried into the kitchen, evidently to make a pot of tea, and perhaps also needing some time to compose himself. The prince was a man of refined sensibilities, and this was certainly no easy tale to hear—nor to tell, I thought to myself, looking down at my distraught wife.