Page 31 of Morfran, Dark Lord Reformed

As the entire camp erupted into cheers, sweat leaked down Morfran’s temple like a malevolent god from above had spat on his head and his watery saliva was dribbling down his cheek.

“And this man.” She pointed an accusing finger at Morfran. “Might be just who we need to do the job.”

Before he knew it she’d come up beside him, tucked her arm under his, and whisked him towards a nearby building. “I must speak to our dear necromancer about his skills in private. I ask all to give us a moment. Go back to your merriment, friends. We deserve it after our victory!” She thrust her hand in the air again, and everyone cheered once more.

He scowled. He missed that—being cheered by his men. He couldn’t miss it for long, however. Elena leaned over and whispered menacingly, “If you come out of this building alive, I’ll have failed to avenge my son.”

12

An Entirely Peaceful Meeting with Old Friends

The instant they walked through the door Elena shoved him so hard he stumbled across what appeared to be a cozy living room and was clotheslined at the shins by a coffee table that was stacked with little clay figurines of cats. He rolled off the fake felines and landed on his stomach.

“You sniveling coward! This is where you’ve been this whole time? Masquerading as a peasant?” She hoisted him up by the back of his shirt and slammed him against a wall. Framed pictures of kittens tangled in yarn rattled at his back as she landed one, then two punches to his jaw.

“Elena, wait—”

She hurled him across the room again, where he rammed against a bookshelf. Books rained down on him, including one titled How to Win Friends and Soothe Relationships: A Peaceful Way of Conflict Resolution!

He picked it up and chucked it at her.

She snatched it out of the air and chucked it right back. He ducked right in time, but not before she had dug her claws back into him and tossed him across the room a third time, screaming, “You’re trying to run away, aren’t you?”

He went flying like a rag doll tossed into the air by a vicious dog. He rolled, hit couch legs, and dizzily clambered to his feet, stepping up onto the couch to gain the high ground. “Elena, I’d much prefer just to talk about this—”

“Why would I talk to a despicable bastard who only cares about himself?” From a shelf she plucked a glass bottle with a tiny wooden cat sculpture constructed inside, smashed it against the bookshelf—thank gods she destroyed that hideous thing, he thought in his extreme terror—and raised the jagged edge up high.

“I’m sorry about Oliver!” he stressed. “I’m sorry about your son. I didn’t know he died at Sturnhul until recently, I promise. I tried to stop her—”

“Oh, did you?” she shouted back. “I bet you gave it one pusillanimous fight and then fled like a boneless chicken!”

“Don’t you mean spineless?”

Her look was pure death. But she’d stopped approaching him as she snapped, “You created her, Morfran. You created Ravana. You plucked a naive young woman from court, taught her the ways of pettiness and cruelty, and then, when you realized the remorseless monster you woke up beside every morning was too much for even you, you tucked tail and fled.”

It was true. Once upon a time fifteen years back when Morfran was at peak arrogance (For how could he not be? He was feared kingdom-wide and beloved by his men for his ways of beheading his enemies, and a pretty raven-haired thing was batting her eyelashes at him.) he’d flirted too recklessly with said raven-haired thing who one day appeared at a ball and shocked the court with her beauty.

With hair as black as ebony, lips as red as roses, skin as white as snow, she’d been the poster child for a princess. She wasn’t one—she wasn’t even royalty, since her father had been a podunk cobbler from the boonies—but really, she was quite the looker, so no one cared. Least of all Morfran, who had lied on his own résumé by saying he was a legitimate courtier.

She’d been naive. She’d been innocent. The only thing she’d ever killed at that point was a fly, and that was only because she’d accidentally rolled atop it while napping. Woodland creatures and fuzzy insects adored her.

For weeks they’d courted each other the way all puppy-lovesick saps did: scribbled bits of poetry on supper napkins, roses left on beds, gifts like fine new leather boots with attached notes that said “Wear these for me,” and secretive meetings by the garden’s fountains.

Her gifts and date night ideas were cute and all, but they were cliché and unoriginal, and so he took her for long walks on recently bloodied beaches he conquered, had all the imprisoned bards who used to sing about burbling streams sing her love songs under the threat of death should she dislike the tune, and, in what turned out to be his greatest mistake, taught her lessons in being a Dark Lord (or Dark Lady, in her case).

This included making his court enemies wet themselves beneath a guillotine, with Ravana flipping a coin to see if it’d land on heads, and if so, Morfran would allow her to do the honors. It included teaching her the art of throwing knives, for which they used men nailed to walls as targets. It included acid vats and waterboarding, brazen bulls and brass knuckles, and torture of the worst form.

He’d meant to impress her. He hadn’t actually expected her to pick it up with any real talent. So when she’d picked it up with immense talent—she knew how to toss a coin in such a way that it always landed on heads, and her aim while throwing knives came naturally—he knew he had to marry her at once.

It was only in retrospect that he saw the red flags over the years. She guillotined not just their enemies but sometimes their friends who irked her, and instead of offing their heads she offed their feet. With the knife-throwing target practice she armored up each individual, except kept their bare feet exposed and tried aiming for each toenail. She dipped toes in acid, punched heels with brass knuckles, waterboarded ankles (yes, that was an awkward night for all involved), and began collecting feet in jars or mounted on animal plaques.

When he walked into his study one day to find that his bull moose head had been replaced by George Haiser the Third’s hairy-toed feet, he turned to Ravana and asked,

“Dearest?” He gestured at the monstrosity. “Why?”

Her reply had been, “It’s to frighten our people into obedience, my love.” She’d been lounging in his office chair, her legs crossed and stretched out onto his desk. “If we take their feet, they’re at an awful standstill, you see. And since we took control over the wheelchair industry last month, we can ensure they never mobilize against us again.”

Morfran had been too distracted by plans to invade the south at that time to think about wheelchair armies and using footlessness as a weapon, so he’d just shrugged it off.