Chapter 11
I looked straight at the old monk and said, “You are about to—”
Before I could finish, he raised one hand and pressed a seal through the air.
My voice disappeared.
It felt as though invisible fingers had wrapped around my throat and stitched my lips shut. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
Vivian’s face lit up with cruel delight.
She grabbed a wine bottle from a nearby table and brought it down on my head.
The bottle shattered.
Warm blood ran from my temple, down my cheek, and across the pale gray fabric of my robe.
The room tilted for a moment.
Then came the slaps.
Sharp, humiliating, one after another, while the room watched in satisfied silence.
Two bodyguards forced me down. My knees crashed into the floor. Vivian stood over me, breathing hard, her face glowing with victory.
“So this is all you are?” she said. “A cheap trick.”
She leaned down and hissed, “Strip her. Shave her head. Post every second online. And after that, drag her family out too. I want every last one of them finished.”
Lucas finally spoke, his voice icy.
“That sounds right. People like this are born causing trouble.”
My vision blurred with rage.
She wasn’t going to stop with me. She wanted my family dead, my temple disgraced, and every trace of us wiped off the earth.
I struggled, but the men holding me were too strong.
Rough hands tore at my robe.
Cold air touched my skin.
Laughter and excited gasps rippled through the room.
In that moment, for the first time since leaving the temple, I thought I might actually lose.
Then something broke loose at my throat.
A pendant.
The small Buddhist charm my abbess had given me before I left the mountain had been hidden beneath my robe. In the struggle, it snapped free.
And the instant it did, the pressure on my mouth vanished.
The spell shattered.
I lifted my head slowly.
Vivian froze mid-step.
Then I laughed.