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May the blood boil in your veins
As you fade to nothing.”
With a gurgle, Aydon crumbles to the ground. His body ruins to less than the refter corpses in the catacombs, becoming nothing more than ash, bone powder, and black blood.
Breathless, I turn to my liberator as she advances to me. I speak her name, “Franzy.”
“Franzy!”I gasp as she unbinds me after placing the skull and scapulae bones on the altar. “How did you find me?”
Franzy smiles, helps me to my feet, steadies me when I stumble, and hands me my fallen gown. “Well, I had a little help.” She inclines her head to the passage behind us, the one leading to an ascending staircase where a familiar, spectral figure of eerie beauty appears. I can’t help but smile at Betha, nod in gratitude.
As Betha drifts toward us, with her dress tatters flowing like white currents, I tug my gown onto my frame, then cup Franzy’s shoulders, my limbs shaky. I hold back a whimper. “Leyanyn, you used bone magic. You—“
For the first time in our entire relationship, Franzy kisses me, stopping my mouth instead of the other way around. Too stunned to do anything except gulp breaths, I listen as her amber eyes sparkle, and she reveals, “I’m protected, Isla. In more ways than one.” She tugs at her neckline to expose the flesh.
My hands fly to my mouth to stifle the shriek from the mark. Aryahn Kryach’s skull wreathing with shades and blood fire.
Franzy grasps my hands and grins. “Yes, I ate the Isle fruit. Death has found...favor with me, Isla. I amtwiceprotected.” Her hands lower to her stomach, to the swell I never noticed was there until now.
My eyes shoot open wider than the Citadel doors. “Franzy!”
She smiles and cups my cheek. “Aydon was a bastard. It didn’t take long for me to learn, but I played along and kept the truth from you because it was the only way, Isla.”
I thread my brows low, wondering, “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been smuggling mine workers onto my father’s ships. For the ones who want to say, I’ve taken small quantities of treasures from all over Nathyan Ghyeal, whether the Citadel, the mines, or the Unseen Section to pay them a fair wage.”
“Franzy...” I cradle her face in my hands with a remorseful sob.
She kisses me again. “The morning you came to me after your honeymoon after I helped you fall asleep was the day I ate the fruit and took the mark. I pleaded with the God of Death to take the burden from you, leyanyn.” My breath catches to her words. “Your pregnancy was your only protection against the gods. And when you stopped coming to me, I believed you’d resigned yourself. Perhaps it was wishful thinking. I should have known better. I should have known you would never stop until you’d taken your freedom, even if it meant challenging the gods themselves. I’m simply sorry I didn’t come sooner.”
When she lights her fingers on the skull and scapulae upon the altar, I ask with a fluttery feeling in my belly, “Whose bones were more powerful than the Crown Prince?”
Franzy smirks. “Why, the ones you won in the Bone Games, of course. The Scarlet Skathyk’s!”
Brows soaring high, breath stalling, I embrace Franzy so tightly, my lungs feel ready to burst. “I was so wrong to underestimate you. Please, please forgive me, leyanyn.”
“Always, Isla Bandye Adayra Morganyach.”
“You have her forgiveness,” interrupts Betha. “But not the gods, Bride of the Corpse King.” Franzy and I turn to the ban-Sythe who roots her gray-mist eyes to inform me, “Doom’s mark is upon you now. The gods will return until they strip your soul to nothingness. You have denied them the flesh and blood of a renewed Curse cycle.”
I rub a rune on my flesh. They compete with the Nether-mark for fire and ice. Ironically, after nineteen years with the cursed brand on my spine, I can bear with these others.
“Can I run?” is my first question to Betha.
She shakes her head, her blue hair of faded woe falling over her face like deep shadows. “Before, you had a chance, little bride. But with those marks, they have taken a sliver of your soul. Now, they may find you at any time. And you have no protection.”
I meet Franzy’s eyes as concerned as mine, purse my lips, and turn to Betha. “How can I get rid of them? How can I reclaim my soul?”
Her eyes darken, gray and gravid as storm clouds promising doom. Betha raises two fingers. “One of two ways, Isla Morganyach. Give your body to the Curse to become its next vessel for the Corpse King...”
“Never,” I seethe.
“The only other way is impossible for a mortal.”
I huff, dropping my arms to the sides. “I cheated the Nether-Void as a child, can grow any type of plant, volunteered for Bride of the Corpse King, have tasted the Isles, wooed the God of Death, carved his mark from my flesh, and survived Doom and the lower gods. I may be mortal, but by now, I have to believe in the impossible.”
“Remember, little bride, I did warn you.”
