"Akwaugo?"The voice called out again.
"What is it?"Azul responded quickly, staring blankly into space as she stood.
"The Okpalaeze is here to see you."
The door opened before she could answer the guard.Somadina filled the frame, then stepped inside, water cascading down the hard lines of his exposed chest.His wrapper, slung across his left shoulder, was thoroughly soaked, clinging to his skin.
Dark, hollow eyes locked onto hers.
In return, a grin stretched on her face.
“My mother is dead.”
Azul said nothing.
“Are you happy now?”His voice was raw, as though he’d been screaming.“Your great enemy brought low.The Second wife you detest is gone by her own hand.Does it taste sweet?”
He closed the distance between them with the inevitability of the tide.The scent of rain, cold stone, and his own sharp sweat filled the space.Azul didn’t flinch; she was not one to retreat.She held her ground, her golden eyes reflecting the frantic lightning in his.
He stopped inches from her.His gaze searched her face, looking for triumph, finding only that infuriating, impenetrable calm.
“I will allow you to win,” he whispered, the admission torn from him.He sank to his knees before her, the proud prince brought low in the grave of his own making.His mother was dead, and though she left a suicide note to console the council, the man that might be his true father was nowhere to be found.
And something deep inside him knew that Azul had already hidden him; it was a knife to his throat at all times, waiting to decapitate him.
The wet linen of his trousers clung to the floor.His hands, trembling slightly, came up and found the hem of her blood-red dress.
“If you insist on being angry, be angry at me,” he pleaded, his gaze fixed on the fabric as his fingers crept upward, skimming the outside of her thighs.The touch was intimate and possessive; he pushed her to see just how much she would allow him.“Hate me.Curse me.But direct it here.At me.I cannot… I will not allow you to choose another king.Not as long as I live.”
So this is why you’re here.She found him pathetic, desiring to the point of begging.
His hands slid higher, his thumbs pressing into the softness of her inner thighs.He was offering himself—not as a contender, but as a vassal, a receptacle for her wrath, a creature of her making.He was begging her, in this twisted way, to take him back.To see him as the only viable instrument of her will.
Azul looked down at the crown of his head, at the powerful hands mapping a claim on her body, digging into her skin, unwilling to let go.
She leaned down, bringing her lips close to his ear.
How beautiful would it be if he drowned with her?
Amadioha breathed thunder and lightning across the sky that morning.
Rain fell in sheets, soaking the world, drowning sound and sight in a relentless grey curtain.Water rose around the shrine’s stone steps, reflecting the occasional glare of lightning.
Azul knelt at the centre, her feet muddied and her robes soaked through, her hair plastered to her face and neck.Something writhed in her lap, and by her side was a silver dagger.Before her, the weathered pillar loomed, its inscriptions to Ukhel barely visible in the darkness.The words were carved into her memory, written in her own malice.
Ukhel, Lord of the Seven Gates.Keeper of the dead.Giver of life.
She pressed her palm to the cold stone.
God of the Valthorne, leader of their conquest.
"Ukhel."Her voice was barely a whisper, lost in the roar of the storm."I am not your servant, nor am I your follower.This prayer is not mine, but a request on behalf of a man who dares love you."
Lightning split the sky.In its flash, her eyes blazed gold.
"Your servant, your penitent, your punishment made flesh."Her voice remained steady.Thunder rolled, shaking the very stones.
"I cannot protect him.So I beseech you, all who stand in his way, destroy."
