Chapter 3 The Last Supper

The sun was setting for the last time before I had to leave, and the sky was a deep, bruised purple that made the village feel like it was holding its breath. Tomorrow morning, I would have to pack my small bag and move into the Great Hall for a week of training with the other twenty-nine girls, and the thought of it felt like a heavy stone sitting in the middle of my chest. Inside our small cottage, the air was thick with the smell of vegetable stew and fresh bread, but nobody was smiling, and the only sound was the clinking of wooden spoons against bowls.

My mother sat across from me, her eyes red and puffy from crying all day, while my little sister, Mara, sat next to me, clutching my hand so tightly that her knuckles were white. My father sat at the head of the table, his face as hard as a winter frost, and he refused to look at me as he chewed his food with a grim look on his face.

"You must eat, Kiana," my mother whispered, pushing a piece of bread toward me with a trembling hand, and her voice was so soft that it almost broke my heart. "You will need your strength for the training, and I want you to remember the taste of home when you are... when you are gone."

"Why are we acting like this is a normal dinner?" I asked, and I dropped my spoon because I couldn't pretend anymore. "Tomorrow I go to a hall to learn how to be a silent slave, and in a week, I will be standing at the Edge waiting for a beast to snatch me into the dark. We are sitting here eating stew while the village elders are preparing to hand us over like we are nothing but cattle, and I cannot understand why everyone is too cowardly to pick up a pitchfork and fight back against these monsters."

My father slammed his hand down on the table, making the bowls jump and causing Mara to let out a small, frightened cry. "Enough of this talk, Kiana!" he shouted, and his eyes were full of a dark, cold anger that I had seen many times before. "You think you are so smart and so brave, but you are just a girl who doesn't understand the world. We do not fight the beast because the beast cannot be killed by men like us, and if we even tried to resist, the King of the Beast would send his Legion to tear this village to pieces before the sun could rise. Your stubbornness is going to be the death of you, and if you do not learn to control your mouth and follow the rules, you will not even survive the first night in the forest."

"Then let me die!" I shouted back, standing up so fast that my chair fell over backward. "I would rather die fighting for my freedom than live a long life bowing down to a creature I do not even know. You call him the King of the Beast, and you treat him like a god, but he is just a kidnapper who hides in the shadows and steals girls because his own kind is dying out. How can you sit there and tell me to be submissive when you are the one who is supposed to protect me?"

"I am protecting this family!" my father roared, his face turning a deep shade of red as he stood up to face me. "By giving you to the treaty, I am keeping your mother and your sister safe from the invading human armies and from the wrath of the wolves. You are one girl, Kiana, and your life is a small price to pay for the safety of everyone else, but you are too selfish to see that. If you go to the Edge with that angry look on your face, the beast will see it as a challenge, and he will kill you slowly just to show the rest of us who is in charge."

Mara began to sob loudly, her small shoulders shaking as she reached out to grab my skirt, and her voice was a high, thin wail that cut through the room. "Please don't go, Kiana! Please don't let the beast take you! I'm scared, I don't want you to leave us!"

I reached down and pulled her into my arms, hugging her so close that I could feel the frantic beating of her heart against my ribs, and I looked over her head to glare at my father. "Look at what you are doing to her," I said, my voice shaking with a mix of love and fury. "You are teaching her that we are nothing, and you are teaching her that she should be afraid of the dark for the rest of her life. I am not selfish, Father, but I am the only one in this house who still has a soul that hasn't been crushed by fear. I will go to the Hall tomorrow, and I will go to the Edge next week, but I will not bow down to anyone, and I will not be silent just to make the elders feel better about their cowardice."

"Kiana, please," my mother begged, reaching out to touch my arm with her gentle fingers. "Your father is only scared because he loves you, and he doesn't want to see you hurt. The beasts are very fast and very cruel, and the stories say they can hear a heart beating from a mile away. If you keep this fire in your eyes, they will see it, and they will want to break you. Just for one week, try to be quiet, try to follow the rules, and maybe... maybe they will choose someone else and you can come back to us."

"They won't choose someone else, Mother," I said, my voice going flat and cold as I remembered the look the Village Head gave me when he read my name. "I am on the list, and I am a descendant of the royal line that started this whole mess, so the Beasts will want me just to prove they can take what their ancestors took. But they should know one thing before they reach for me in the dark. I am not the princess from the old stories, and I am not a prize to be won. I would rather be torn to pieces than be a willing mate to one of those monster."

My father pointed a shaking finger at the door, his voice low and dangerous. "Go to your room, Kiana. Pack your things and prepare your heart, but do not speak another word of rebellion in this house. If you want to throw your life away because you are too proud to bend your knee, then that is on your head, but do not bring the shadow of the beast down on your mother and sister before you are even gone."

I didn't say another word, but I didn't look down either as I picked up my chair and set it back in its place. I kissed Mara on the top of her head and squeezed my mother's hand one last time, and then I walked toward my small bedroom without looking back at the man who was supposed to be my hero. That night, I didn't sleep, but I sat by the window and watched the moon, which was growing larger and brighter with every passing hour. I thought about the Beasts and their red eyes that was waiting for me at the Edge, and I felt a strange, cold calm settle over me. My father thought my stubbornness would kill me, and maybe he was right, but at least I would die as Kiana, and not as a nameless girl who was too afraid to look a monster in the eye.