"Constance, look, you're already past the age. About the bride-price we discussed before, maybe…?"

I stared at those bright, clear eyes I'd longed for through my entire youth,

and in a single instant, I was simply tired of them.

So I answered him flatly,

"There's no need."

A flicker of triumph crossed Jason's face, the look of a man whose scheme had paid off, and he smiled.

"Good, Constance. You've always been the sensible one."

"Don't worry. Once you're married in, I'll treat you right."

Jason left with his buddies, all of them laughing and talking,

their chatter drifting into the courtyard.

"Jason, you're really something. You just wore Constance down a few hours and saved the whole bride-price!"

"Jason, you've got nerve. Weren't you afraid she'd get hurt and actually marry someone else?"

His voice carried into the courtyard on the cool morning breeze.

"Afraid of what?"

"Everyone in town knows Constance only ever thinks about me."

"Besides, once she's past the age, she's the kind of woman even the dogs in town turn their noses up at. Other than me, what man here would take her?"

He waved a hand as he spoke.

"All right, enough about Constance. She doesn't matter."

"Hurry up and tell me, how's Laurel Simmons doing? I just fixed up her house earlier this year, so how could there be rats in it? She must be scared out of her mind!"

A boundless bitterness rose from somewhere deep and filled my chest.

Yes,

I didn't matter.

But it didn't matter anymore. Jason, you don't matter to me anymore either.

When a woman in town married,

she had to climb to the mountain shrine at the summit and pray for an early pregnancy.

It was something you were supposed to do together with your husband,

but I worried the Sanchez family in the city had no such custom.

Agreeing to the marriage at the last minute, right before the wedding date, was already trouble enough for him.

So I gathered up my whole dowry and went up the mountain alone.

The moment I reached the shrine, I saw two familiar backs.

Laurel was kneeling on the ground, her shoulders rising and falling, weeping bitterly.

"I don't want to pray to the mountain god for a child, Jason. He doesn't treat me well…"

"You saw it yourself. On our wedding day, he wouldn't even prepare a decent veil for me…"

Jason looked at her with his eyes full of heartache, at a complete loss for what to do,

and then, at last,

he dropped to his knees before the mountain god with a heavy thud.

In this town, a man was allowed to kneel only twice in his whole life.

Once, to pray for his parents' blessing,

and once, to pray to spend his life with the one he loved.

Three years ago, the day Jason and I confessed our feelings, I pulled him to this very shrine,

wanting to kneel with him and pray to the mountain god that we'd be together for life.

Jason hemmed and hawed and never would.

In three years, we came here countless times, and countless times he found an excuse.

But today, just like that, he knelt without a second's hesitation.

"Laurel, it's all right. I'll always treat you well. For the rest of my life."

"But you're married now…"

"What does being married have to do with anything?!"

Jason suddenly grew agitated.

"Even married, I'll treat you exactly the same. The moment Constance dares say a single word against it, I'll divorce her on the spot!"

As he spoke, Jason seized Laurel's shoulders and pulled her into his arms.

In the gap as he turned, Laurel's eyes met mine,

and those soft, tear-brimmed eyes, when they looked at me, held nothing but triumph…

"Constance, you came…?"

Jason's head snapped around,

and the instant he saw me,

his whole body went rigid.

But the next second he stepped in front of Laurel, shielding her, and the look he gave me was the look you give an enemy.

"Constance, what are you doing here?!"

I took a step forward, my voice flat.

"What do you think? Praying for fertility."

The words had barely left me when Laurel began to cry behind him.

"Jason, see? I should have known. The moment you marry, you won't be able to spare a thought for me. Look, the wedding isn't even done and she's already chased me all the way up here to glare at me…"

The look Jason turned on me changed in an instant.

"Constance, are you ever going to stop?!"

"I said I'd marry you, so I'll marry you. What are you following me here for?!"

"Can't you see Laurel's upset? Let me tell you something. Even after we're married, you'll have no say in how good I am to her!"

"I don't care."

I stepped around him, walked up to the mountain shrine, and with my back to Jason I said quietly,

"Because my husband isn't you."

Clutching the red wedding veil my mother had embroidered for me by hand, I knelt slowly before the shrine, pressed my palms together, and prayed in earnest.

But before my forehead could even touch the cushion, two large hands clamped down hard on my shoulders.

"Constance, what is that supposed to mean?!"

"What do you think it means—"

Laurel cut in ahead of me, her voice thick with tears.

"She's just angry about what you said before. She just doesn't want you being good to me…"

"Jason, I'm the one who doesn't belong here. It hurts so much…"

The hands on my shoulders tightened, as if to crush the bone.

"Constance, why are you always so snide with Laurel?!"

"Get up! Apologize to Laurel!"

The prayer to the mountain shrine couldn't be stopped. Gripping the red veil in my hands, I fought to wrench my shoulders free of him. Jason lost his temper and shoved me forward, hard. My head hit the iron corner of the table by the cushion with a loud crack. Warmth spread across the top of my head. I gritted my teeth and finished the prayer.

I stood, stepped past Jason, and headed for the door. But I'd taken only two steps when he seized my wrist, his voice angrier than before.

"I told you to apologize to Laurel. Are you deaf?!"

I turned my head slowly to look at him.

"I did nothing wrong. I won't apologize."

"Jason, I wasn't being snide, and I'm not marrying you. So whoever you're good to, whoever you kneel to the mountain god for, none of it has anything to do with me."

"Let go of me."

Something uncertain flickered in his eyes, and in that moment of distraction his grip loosened. I shook him off and turned to leave.

Then Laurel suddenly stepped in front of me, eyes brimming with tears, her voice all wounded grievance.

"Constance, these little tricks of yours only work on Jason. Anyone can see it. You're using the marriage as a threat on purpose, just to push him away from me!"

"You've looked down on me since we were children! Fine, I'm not lucky enough to marry Jason. But did you have to corner me like this?!"

"You know perfectly well I didn't even have a proper veil on my wedding day, and today of all days you come up here with the veil your mother embroidered for you. What are you trying to do? You just want to hurt me, don't you?!"

"Fine. I'm the one who doesn't belong. I'm just in the way for even being alive!"

With that, Laurel suddenly threw herself against the wall behind her.

She put no force into it at all. Her head met the wall without so much as a sound. And yet she crumpled straight to the ground, clutching her head, moaning in pain.

Jason lunged forward two steps and swept Laurel into his arms.

His eyes were frantic.

"Laurel, are you all right?"

"Jason, don't worry about me. Just take Constance home and live your life with her..."

Laurel's tears poured down her face.

Jason lifted her up gently, then turned on me like a beast gone mad and charged.

"Constance, won't you be happy until you've driven Laurel to her death?!"

As he spoke, his gaze landed on the veil in my hands.

His brow tightened.

"You did this to spite Laurel on purpose!"

His grip clamped down, and he ripped the veil out of my hands and ran straight for the altar where the incense burned.

The instant I understood what he meant to do, I lost all composure.

That veil had taken my mother three years to embroider, one stitch at a time.

Woven into it was thread my late grandmother had twisted by her own hands.

In it was my mother's heart, every drop of it, paid out through fingers she had pricked countless times.

A scrap of cloth no bigger than a span, and yet it brimmed with the blessings of everyone I loved. There was only one like it in all the world...

I threw myself toward Jason like a madwoman.

"Jason, don't!"

In the very moment I lunged, Laurel suddenly stuck out a foot.

I crashed straight to the floor.

My head struck the incense table and knocked it over.

Scalding ash rained over me, and the little sparks scorched through my outer garment in an instant and seared into my flesh.

Jason just watched me with cold eyes.

He threw my veil into the fire.

I bit back the pain stabbing through me, scrambled up, and rushed for the brazier.

But Jason kicked it clear out of the shrine.

He looked down at me, his voice cold as if it had been quenched in ice.

"Constance, you're my woman, so you'll do as I, Jason, say."

"For the rest of this long life, whatever Laurel doesn't have, you don't get to have either."

"She'll have it."

A deep man's voice rang out beyond the mountain shrine.

Jason and I turned at once toward the sound.

It was Roderick Sanchez.

The back of his hand was burned raw and red, and he came toward me slowly, my veil clutched tight in his grip...