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Ignoring Aydon and his political prattling within the hall, I stray beyond the Citadel borders. I’ve done my part. Isla has done more. Let my brother deal with trade matters, the Nether-market, or any Void issues. My mind may be as sharp if not sharper than his, but I prefer to soothe those edges this way.
It’s the one time I do not drink.
Throat thickening, I swallow hard, growling under my breath from the pain, but I hiss and push onward. I need my head clear as I sort out my new bride.
For the next hour or two, my footsteps carry me across innocuous, little corpus bird bones littering the mountain paths until I arrive at the crest of the Raven Skull Bluffs where I linger at the overlook. Here, I survey the Isle of Bones. Unsurprised by the presence of more families since last night was the Feast of Flesh, and the Isle is a popular locale for Ith parents and their children, I pause to observe. Then nod a silent commendation to the little ones who select their first bone. One they will never consume. Whichever they choose becomes a perma-seal and symbol upon their lives?incorporated into their bone rights. I still remember my first: a wishbone I have never shown a single bride.
Perhaps Isla will be my first.
No. I banish those foolish fantasies. Once Kryach learns of Isla’s questions, of her unchecked curiosity, he will press me harder to take her on the wedding night. If she cannot be pacified...tempered, I must prepare myself for the pain. Because I won’t surrender her.
Nor may I reveal it to her. As far as Isla is concerned, fear must be her default. But I have a feeling it won’t be enough this time.
If I long to grant my dark rose another breath, she must do more than fear. She must hate me.
Traveling the mountain avenues into restricted territories, I adjust my shroud and weave the shadow power around myself as a shield. A few onyke scurry about here and there, their thick hands?a contrast to their long, wizened limbs?batting at my robes. An off-bred race of the flesh-eaters, onyke populate the mountains around the Citadel and the lowland hills to the south of Talahn-Feyal. The pesky, little spirits retreat once Kryach’s power curls closer to them.
I press the whole side of my lips tight, jaw hardening. Kryach must be harvesting more souls than usual. The explanation for the God’s silence, for his lack of torment, considering how much we love the taste of her blood?her flesh so virginal yet ripe as if she could taste new every time. Impossible for humans once bitten. Their human blood is not strong enough to dilute all our Ith venom.
I pause, wincing at the fork in the road. I take the left with its sinister warnings of old skeletal remains dangling from nooses roped to blackwood trees. Bereft of magic on account of the sacrilege of the human addicts, the bones rattle a familiar melody. They stalk me as I descend the winding paths deeper into the heart of the Abhayn Dhunh Mountain?named for a lady in ancient times who lost her lover to refters. I flex my fingers. While Skathyck may be my favorite, I have a soft spot for the tragedy of Abhayn Dhunh who wandered the mountains, seeking the spirit of her lost love until her tears formed a river inside this mountain, a river which curves all the way to the Bone Sea.
When I approach the final cavern hall leading to my secret glen, my thoughts stray to Isla. Perhaps I will bring her here. Snarling, I tense before heaving a sigh of defeat. It was simple to ignore many brides, to observe them sleeping in my bed after they’d cried themselves to sleep. None ever volunteered. None ever longed for me. Nor tempted me from the Bite Offering. Or Kryach. I bristle, banish the image of him devouring my bride.
I arrive at the door. One I constructed with my bone magic and Kryach’s. If the refter skulls aren’t warning enough, his shadow-essence is. Not to mention how I alone hold the key.
Twisting it inside the hole, I suck sharp wind through my teeth at a familiar wail beyond the skeletal door: they sense me. Pain explodes in my spine, wreathing to the back of my neck, invading my chest cavity, threatening my heart. Throat dryer than bone powder, I remove my mask and push open the door into the hidden valley.
The pain does not fade. I endure it when my lovelies stagger toward me in a wavering dance. My recent feeding from Isla makes me stronger.
“Hello, Aislyn,” I greet my 116th bride who sways back and forth?her eyes vacant and unaware of anything, save for my familiar presence. “Well met, Aoyfe,” I add to my thirty-seventh bride.
Once, she was as radiant as her name with curls of splintered sunshine. Now, a few tufts of white hair grace her pale skull riddled with scars fresh and old. My earlier brides are similar. After Kryach was done with them, their bodies’ shell alone remains. Theserefterforms which desire flesh and blood. But Kryach’s form of a sick offering Kryach is how their subconscious still acknowledges me, seeks me, craves me. He claims it’s charity to let me keep them like this. But it’s nothing but a joke?his morbid humor.
“Mayve.” I nod to my 392nd bride. She must have got her hands on a fresh onyke, judging by the black blood splatter on her upper chest and the claw marks on her cheeks where strips of skin dangle.
Dozens of my brides shuffle through the bone trees toward me. This valley was my mother’s secret before it became mine. An enormous glen inside the mountain of rolling hillsides of gray moss, bone trees grown from the magic of ancient elders, and the River Dhunh flowing to the Bone Sea.
I touch a glove to a nearby bone tree. It sheds powder, ever-growing bark dust. Along with random onykes and corpus birds as well as crone-fish in the river, the powder is enough sustenance for my past brides.
My nostrils welcome the scent carries on a shadow on the wind. I smile, scanning the gray hillsides. “Ifrynna,” I murmur her name.
To this day, my brides falter and scatter before the enormous spirit Guardian of the Underworld who crests the cliffside where the river disappears, shaking her three skulls in greeting. She snorts upon her advance, her long, skeletal tail scraping its keen bones against the trees and casting bone powder for my refter brides to lap.
“My King,” her center mouth proclaims, drifting warm breath from the cracks between her toothy smile.
I reach to stroke her ghost white fur on her back and her massive, muscled hide?translucent to reveal her exoskeleton underneath. “Fairing well?”
“You know how much I love the Feast of Flesh, Your Highness,” she acknowledges, her other two bone heads priming their expressions on either side of her, ever alert. “Especially when the little Prince invites other regions. Haunting or intimidating many races is a better treat than catching a Nether-cat, my Lord.”
“Roaming back and forth as usual, Ifrynna?” I snigger, remarking on my Nether-tri-hound’s ability to trespass into the Void. As a guardian, she is more than welcome, and since this Underworld of the White Ladies boasts of many entrances accessible to guardians or those with god-souls, Ifrynna comes and goes as she pleases.
Ifrynna follows as I wander to the Dhunh River where a few brides hunch over the water to catch a fish with their keen nails or jagged teeth. Wincing, I pause, plagued by memories of Orlayth, Saoyrse, Sinyead, and others?far worse than the pain infesting my corpse.
“You are stronger, Allysteir,” comments my Nether-hound, observing me with all six eyes.
I sigh and clench my glove. “You already know.”
Next to me, the upper lip of her far-right skull curls back to offer a toothy grin. “The first volunteer since your unfortunate mother raises quite a stir...even in the Nether-Void. Especially when Aryahn Kryach pays the dark realm a visit.”
