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Two solitary tears tumble down my intended’s fair cheeks. This pain, I cannot spare my dark rose. If I could, I’d devour her tears, but it would not ease her heart. Still, her strength dumbfounds me when she squares her shoulders and assumes her place of prominence on the dais where bone warriors surround us. My mother lowers herself onto the iron throne behind us while Aydon shifts his ember-eyed Feyal-bride-to-be before him a few paces from myself.
Dozens of menders wait on all sides of the dais. Prepared to heal our humans, they will leave nothing but one bite mark as a first-claim scar. If she has prepared for the scar, I wonder what Isla will think of it. Will she itch and curse it as some past brides?
All other Feyal-Ithydeir congregate on either side of the Cryth River with their claimed humans facing the onlooking crowd. At the table of skulls, the foreign sovereigns await the ceremony, but never could they truly appreciate it. Nor the Sythe or Shee who feed on human blood.
Flesh is deeper than blood. Flesh is what we cherish and treasure above all. Every bit is sacred. A stain so deep for any Feyal-Ithydeir to ever bite a human without their consent. Deeper for rape. The punishment is severe unless you’re a damned elder...
As head Elder, Kanat preaches the sanctimonious words to usher in the Bite Offering.
“Reap the curse from our breast, oh God of Death
Be satisfied with their pure blood and breath
Cleanse the darkness from our souls and our hands
And release the Void from our holy heartland
Grant us a year of honeyed fruit and sweet milk
Dreams of ripened flesh, full wombs, and soft silk
Accept this truth of teeth and rid us of refter blights
As our Feyal-Ithydeir open their mouths to solemnly bite...”
By the light of a thousand torches, the humans arch their necks in a formal offering, but Isla is different. Her fingers curl to my mask, longing but with no demand to remove the bone imitation. No, she merely wants me to know:
I see you, Allysteir.
Somehow, I resist the urge to seethe because Kryach curls his Death-shadows all over the edges of her body. She shivers, but her eyes do not descend to the shadows. No, she simply fixes them on the mockery skull holes as if perceiving my true cadaverous orbs.
So sweet, Allysteir, whispers Kryach in the dark solace of my mind.Not a dove at all.
No, she is the essence of corpus roses infecting my nostrils. I narrow my eyes, bewildered by the flowers upon her gown. I don’t remember their presence. But I’m not an expert in floral matters. All I know is she reminds me of them: these corpus roses. A beauty of contrasts: of life and death, fire and ice, eyes of sweet dreams, and tongue of sharp silver.
Our dark rose,hints Kryach in a carnal whisper.
This is mine!I thwart him, wishing I could banish his spirit from this moment.She ismine!
The scent of blood permeates the air, rousing my desire for her flesh?as fair and soft as swans down. Kryach laughs as I lower my calamitous lips to Isla’s neck where the curve meets the line of her shoulder.
First, I rub my mouth in a tender boon of a kiss?my offering?wishing this was as far as I could take it because I would give my flesh-lust and starve myself if it meant I could spare her the God of Death’s shadow.
Isla leans her neck further. Her pulse thrums through her milky, moonlight flesh with her tempting blood like liquid rubies. In the background, countless humans moan and wail, succumbing to the Bite Offering, welcoming the scars.
“Allysteir,” she breathes a whisper, prompting me to complete the ceremony.
I lean in, murmur hinting words against her ear, “More than my teeth, my little dove, my...dark rose,” I add because Kryach is more discerning than I. “More than your blood.”
Out of all the brides I have ever brushed my teeth across, Isla is the first who does not hold her breath.
She gasps when I suck her neck in a precursor of a warning. She clings to my robes, disturbing my balance, but I hold strong. “I’ve been bitten before,” she whispers a fatal secret, and by gods, it stirs my soul’s hunger, my heart’s permission to plunge my teeth into her neck and welcome her cry. Not a scream.
Bloody angyls and blessed demons!?she tastes of the sweetest pomegranates. In the past, I’ve kept my first bites brief and gifted Kryach with a mere few drops to sate his lust. Not this time. Pulse panting with need in my throat, I sink my teeth. Her fingers grip my robes, her back pressed so deep against my skeletal chest which somehow bears her weight.
Kryach’s spirit dives into her flesh, stabbing into her blood. For the first time in the history of the Bite Offering, his spirit trespasses beyond the boundaries of my body.
I cannot stop. Obsessive, I suck my dark rose’s flesh, her sweet essence because something else lingers within her beguiling blood. It reminds me of Isle-fire: a glimmer of the gods’ dwelling place. A passion I never could have predicted.
