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Go to hell!
I’m already there,he repeats from the depths of the Void.You merely carry hell for me, my beloved.
Please...not her,I beseech him and reach for another flask of wine, ignoring Isla while she traipses her fingers across my sleeve and answers the other royals’ questions. Minor ones about her background?an orphan from birth until her given-parents adopted her, her farm?she is far too acquainted with slaying animals, including refters, her interests?dancing, games, growing flowers...I memorize her answers while arguing with Kryach. By now, I’ve mastered multitasking.
Why should she be any different?Kryach muses and clicks his teeth.Perhaps this one is strong enough to survive me,he baits me, tempting.You could fuck her on the wedding night, spill your seed into her innermost depths, and grant me a portion of her soul. I’ll let you keep most of her.
Stop!I rage while my manhood twitches. Those damnable fingers of hers cross my arm, my wrist, my gloved hand. The warmth of her body. Her ample thighs. Her breasts.
You believed every bride was worthy. You simply believed in Finleigh most. Surrender this one to me, Allysteir. I adore her blood?enough to grant you another year. But you will spare yourself pain for another year if you gift me her flesh.
You know what they say, Kryach,I seethe and wrinkle my nose, driving him as far into the corner of my mind as I dare.No gain without the pain.
Isla will not become my mother.
Once I’ve buried the Death God’s shadow, I jerk out of my internal conversation to hear Isla propose a question to the royals, “Could you please share with me the history of the Curse of your bloodlines?” Her eyes gravitate to mine before crossing to the other monarchs.
All pause in their supping, but it’s the Wisp-Shee King with his lofty stag crown growing straight from his scalp, who initiates the conversation, “A rarity for a common cayleen to show interest in the history of the gods,” he notes with some of his Shee language rising to the surface. A stroke of pride has me sitting upright, but I’m too wine-headed and slump soon.
“Unless you’ve found yourself as a living footnote in history,” retorts Isla with her shrewd tongue, causing all monarchs to pause, surprised by her wit and gumption. All save for me, though I wonder how far her perceptiveness expands while she surveys the sovereigns.
“Yes, we were all quite stunned by your proposal, Lady Adayra,” the Inker Queen commends her and picks aside the bones of the fowl appetizer, stowing them in her napkin. No doubt she will rune them later. I tolerate the Inker race more than the Sythe or the Shee.
“Isla, please,” she requests, voice soft and respectful.
“And relieved,” adds Drakos with a growl, never to be left out of the conversation, “considering Lord Allysteir’s dalliance of testing the gods’ patience.”
“Bite me, Drakos,” I quip to the Shifter lion, slurring my words, and raising my wine glass, ignoring his flamboyant mane of a neck ruff.
The Emperor stiffens, but before his alpha temper flares?though he knows I can best him in any battle?, Isla curls her fingers on the back of my hand and interjects, “It must be a relief. After all, my home is close to the Talahn-Feyal Void border, and refters attacked my family’s farm and wounded my father two nights ago.”
I freeze at her statement, turn slowly in her direction. Was the attack why she came to the Feast of Flesh? Guilt gnaws on me when I consider the Void, my responsibility to stem its tide, and how I tested Kryach by waiting too long. “Isla...” I lift my gloved fingers to her cheek, my chest’s pangs growing to her faint smile.
“My father is well thanks to a mender, Your Majesty,” she assures me.
“Don’t let her cheapen her contributions, Lord Allysteir,” Franzyna says, her voice squeaking compared to Isla’s strong resolve. “Isla slew the refters who attacked her father, then carried him all the way back home. She will make a strong bride,” she adds, lifting her wine goblet to her mouth, but her eyes sharpen against Isla’s. I heave a deep sigh, registering the tension between the girls. The last thing I need.
“Hmm...I believe the Queen-to-be bears a spirit as strong as Skathyk herself,” Narcyssa expresses from the opposite table’s side.
A blush tethers my bride-to-be’s lovely cheeks, and my ribs tighten in envy at how she and the Sythe Queen trade glances, their eyelashes fluttering.
My shoulders hunch, and I flare my nostrils because the other Kings and Queens fixate on my bride more than any other in the past. Given the ease with which she amuses them, how her bone-blade wit and beauty win them, I believe I will need Kryach more than ever with this dark, tempting flower...
I will knowthem by their crowns.
All unique and individualistic: the Shee King’s stag-horned crown grows from his head of dark ash curls. The Inker Queen’s of black silver thorns adorns her flaming copper hair. The Sythe Queen’s bears blood ruby and black iron spikes. The Eylfe King, undoubtedly the most beautiful man I have beheld, needs nothing more than golden branches. The crystals, shells, and pearls of the Blue-SkintheyMonarch as they’ve designated are as chaotic as the oceanic waves they rule.
And of course, the Corpse King’s elaborate crown of bones and teeth.
They are too evasive regarding the Curse. The royals single me out, wearing me with their endless questions while Allysteir remains indifferent. And cold. But I can’t deny my warmth from the Sythe Queen’s declaration.
Long after the dessert course when most of the kingdom has departed, when Franzyna has passed out in her chair, when my human eyelids grow heavy with slumber compared to the immortal royals, who continue laughing and drinking wine, I finally pose the question I’ve longed to since supper’s beginning. “Is there any way to break the Curse?”
All their eyes sharpen against mine. Their jaws turn rigid, postures tightening. Aydon stiffens from the opposite end of the table. Allysteir’s hand grips mine in warning, but it’s Narcyssa who reproaches me.
“We should all be grateful for the gods’ sparing us by cursing monarchs as opposed to the ancient times when they toyed with the races,” she implies, her eyes mirroring the blood rubies of her crown.
“But if there was a way?” I dare to continue, remembering Gryzelda’s words. If there is a way to survive, to appease the gods, there must be a way to overthrow them.
