Frieda stopped outside the shack, suddenly unsure of herself. Hoban had let the cat out of the bag, damn it. She should have told him to keep his mouth shut. Frieda was hardly an uncommon name. The scrawny girl she’d been had vanished long ago. No one would know her, even the girls who’d taunted and the boys who’d… she felt her magic bubbling, her anger driving it on. It was hard to tap it down, to keep it under control. She knew she was brave and yet, it took everything she had to step up to the door and tap on the wood. There was no point in wasting time. Ivanov would tell her parents she’d returned shortly.
The door opened. Frieda found herself looking at a stranger’s face. The woman looked… strange. It took her a moment to realise just how much she had changed. The woman was both strong and weak, tough enough to bear and raise children while engaged in backbreaking labour and yet too weak to stand up to her husband or chart a new path for herself. A flash of horror ran through Frieda as she realised she was staring at her mother. The woman didn’t look like the giant she remembered…
“My Lady?” Daffodil, Wife of Huckeba, stared at her. “I…”
Frieda gritted her teeth. Her mother didn’t recognise her. Frieda had read a bunch of adventure stories about children who’d been stolen away and had to find their way back to their loving parents and, in all of them, the parents had recognised their children instantly. But this was reality… it had been six years since Daffodil had laid eyes on her child, six years of good food and healthy exercise and decent treatment. Frieda no longer looked like someone who belonged in the village. She looked like a visiting aristocrat. It was hard, so hard, not to turn and walk away.
“Mother,” she managed, suddenly very aware of how her accent had changed, too. “It’s me.”
Daffodil staggered. “Frieda?”
She stepped back hastily, muttering a welcoming invocation. Frieda sensed a faint tingle of magic around the doorway, too slight for her to be sure if it was anything more than a light sensation, as she stepped inside. The interior was dark and dingy, the air stinking of too many people in too close of a proximity. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted the older man leaning against the wall, the memories rising up and threatening to overwhelm her. Huckeba — her father — had once been her master, a tyrant who could never be appeased or challenged. He’d thrashed her regularly, beating her back and buttocks with his belt without even bothering with an excuse. He’d done the same to his other children, she recalled. It was no surprise to her that her oldest brother had walked off one day and never returned.
“This is Frieda,” Daffodil said. There was an airy tone in her voice that scared Frieda almost as much as it angered her. “She’s come back to us.”
Huckeba belched. He was drunk. Frieda shuddered. The villages brewed their own alcohol and drank themselves blind drunk regularly, when they weren’t fighting so savagely someone would be bound to wind up with a broken bone or cracked skull. A surge of hatred ran through her, followed by disgust and shame. She’d never really liked the tutors of Mountaintop — they’d looked down on her, for being a common-born magician — but they’d been far better than her biological father. She didn’t know, now, why she’d been so scared of him. It would be so easy to kill him with a snap of her finger.
You were a child, she told herself. Her body ached, quivering with remembered pain. Now, you’re a grown woman and a sorceress to boot.
“So,” Huckeba said. His voice was thick, his accent so strong it was hard to follow his words. “You’ve come back to us.”
“She’ll raise us up,” Daffodil said, her voice shaking. “She’ll…”
Frieda gritted her teeth. She’d wondered, from time to time, what it would be like to see her parents again. They’d beg her forgiveness, she’d told herself, and welcome her back into the family. Or she’d rage at them, demand to know why they’d sold her to a stranger who’d taken her to an uncertain fate. Or… instead, she felt an icy sensation spreading through her body. The man and woman in front of her were pathetic. It was impossible to believe they were her real parents. There were spells to check… she bit down, hard, on the temptation to check they were. It was possible, but… she studied her mother, picking out traces of her own features on the older woman’s embittered face. It was like staring into a vision of her future, or an alternate reality. The only thing she’d inherited from her father had been the eyes.
Huckeba staggered to his feet. “What do you want, girl?”
“Why?” Frieda readied a spell, just in case he tried to strike her. Again. “Why did you sell me to a stranger?”
Daffodil twisted her hands. “We had no choice. We would have died that winter, without money and food. We were promised you’d become a great lady and you have…”
Huckeba grunted. “You were sacrificed so that the rest of the family might live,” he said, stiffly. “Just like your uncle.”
Frieda frowned — her father’s brother had been a sore spot for as long as she could remember, although she’d never been sure of the details — and put the question aside for later consideration. Instead, she leaned forward. “That was it? You sent me away…”
“And now you’ve come back,” Daffodil said. “You’re our daughter…”
“There’s an aristocratic mother I met at Mountaintop,” Frieda said, stiffly. “She does everything for her daughter, from choosing her clothes to organising her courses and arranging her future marriage. The poor girl has no freedom. She doesn’t know how to cope without her mother. And yet, that mother is a far better parent than either of you!”
Huckeba stumbled forward, raising his fist. Frieda froze him effortlessly, disgust and contempt welling up within her. How could this… this brute rule his family? She looked at his uncovered arms and knew the answer. He’d brutalised everyone to the point they didn’t dare lift a hand to him, not when it would mean a week of pain. She knew she’d been lucky to survive. If she hadn’t had magic in her blood, she would have died too.
“I never want to see you again,” she said. “Either of you.”
She turned, ignoring the tears in her mother’s eyes. She felt no obligation to forgive her parents. They’d mistreated her and sold her and… she shook her head in disgust as she pushed the door open and stepped outside. She wanted to burn the shack to the ground, to erase all traces of her past, yet… what did that matter? She had made a life for herself that didn’t include any of her family. And besides, Emily would be disappointed. Frieda didn’t want to let her saviour down.
“Well,” a new voice said. “Look who’s come crawling back, dressed so fine.”
Frieda looked up, cursing herself for being lost in her own thoughts. The boys in front of her — she knew without looking there were others behind her — smiled nastily, their eyes wandering over her chest. Memories flashed through her mind, of little touches and gropes and…
She felt sick. She knew the leader. Ivanovo, Son of Ivanov.
“You think you’re better than us?” Ivanovo leered at her. “You think…?”