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As usual, Aydon remains stoic, ever the political master even with his own brother, but his jaw hardens and his arms tighten from the reference of his sterility. Another curse of Kryach’s. I am the true King. The line must continue through me, through my future bride. If she exists.
“At least I can fuck a woman more than once,” he boasts as if he’s checkmated me with all his philandering of humans and Ithydeir alike.
If Mathyr heard us, she’d smack the backs of our heads for our brotherly battle. No, only Aydon, considering she would likely sever my skull from its bone stem. And however it won’t kill me, it is a headache to reposition. I smirk from my warped humor.
“What do you want, Aydon?” I demand and stray past him to rifle through my wardrobe for a fresh set of leather gloves. Tonight, I discard the ones spiked with bone armor. No need to draw attention to myself. I choose simple black ones.
“I came for a fresh robe.”
I snort at the obvious lie. Aydon is far too careful with our spider-silk robes. My prim and proper half-brother born with a silver-bone spoon in his mouth unlike me: the younger bastard-born Queen’s son?a result of her affair with our father’s cousin. After Fathyr learned of the affair, he threw his cousin into the Nether Void. The end of it until eight months later when I showed up. Not like he could execute her as she was the one bride in a century who’d survived the curse. Everything changed when the Corpse King died.
“Mathyr sent you, didn’t she?” I mutter and dig through my wardrobe, cursing when I hit my elbow against the door, dislocating my arm. I blow wind through my nostrils. More irritating compared to my decaying self?apart from my fucking cock, of course. Kryach’s damned morbid humor.
“Seriously, Ally.” Aydon shoves his way into the wardrobe and tugs on my arm, setting it in place. A too common occurrence. “If you didn’t spend all your time on your little projects or let a servant clean this room, you wouldn’t have trouble locating a simple mask.” He fetches the bone hunter mask from a back ledge and hands it to me.
“You didn’t come here to criticize my lack of organizational skills or my desire for privacy. Tell me Mathyr’s message.”
Heaving a sigh and leaning against the wardrobe, Aydon waves a hand to me. “It’s the Feast of Flesh tonight.”
Yes, the masked ball is Aydon’s little joke, one he believed I’d appreciate. But it’s the first time he’s opened the Feast to all the nations across Talahn-Feyhran. Such pageantry I will never condone when our race is the most openly mocked. And ironically, the most feared. But Aydon always hopes to curry favor with the other royals. In the past, I’ve played along with his desire for spectacle, to display me before the privileged classes as a reminder of the burden the royals have carried for them?a reminder of what will happen if the gods are not satisfied.
And one High God who always haunts me.
After positioning the mask over my face, I grunt and wander to the bed to retrieve the ascot draped over its edge. “What of it?”
“I’ve agreed to your incognito desires tonight, Ally. But you will be present for the Offering later. And the supper following. The royal representatives will remain with us for a month, and I intend to make the most of their presence. We’re all in this together.”
Snorting again, I lift the edge of the mask up to bare the worst side of my face in a not-so-subtle “fuck off”.
A heavy sigh escapes my brother’s mouth, and he drags a hand through his polished, black curls: a contrast to my hair bound low past my neck, grayer than dead flowers. Hmm, I’ll have to remember dead flowers for my next littlepursuitas my brother dubs them. After looping the ascot around my blotted throat, I down the remaining blood wine and sigh to the numbness rippling through my walking cadaver.
“By the gods, Ally, you can’t keep going on like this!” Aydon throws his hands in the air and marches to me. “You’re half a bag of bones already. Mathyr is worried for you. And me.”
“We both know you don’t give a damn about me, brother. As long as I come to your political parties, show off my pretty skull, and play nice with the other monarchs who smile at our faces but curse us behind our backs. What was it the Blood Queen called us in her last Marking Ceremony? Oh, right...refter-fleshies.” I sneer at the derogatory term for the Feyal-Ithydeir?the likening of our clans to the cannibalistic refters who originated from the Nether-Void and plague our lands.
“Oh, like you buying her peoples’ blood on the Nether market?” he thwarts with a redundant argument.
I snarl through the mask and swallow hard, refraining from cracking my knuckles or grinding my teeth. A prisoner walking on eggshells in the cage of my own wrecked body, I must take the utmost precautions or I’ll lose a tooth...or a phalange.
“You know why they’re here.” Aydon drops his hands to his sides, a heavy sigh loosening from his mouth. “The Nether-Void grows closer to all our kingdoms. Other territories are suffering the repercussions. It’s time for you to take a new bride.”
I flare my nostrils and hiss in rebellion. My brother knows I’ve vowed to never take a new bride, but he’s right. Aydon’s always right. It’s why he makes a good stand-in king behind my mask. While I bear the God of Death’s Curse and his games?the true crown?Aydon bears the politics I despise.
“Unless you’d prefer to doom our race, of course,” he adds his wry humor and cups my shoulder, light through my robe. His deep-set eyes crease, his flawless cobalt irises brewing with dark shadows as he lowers his voice, “I can’t change the past, Ally. But do not damn our land due to your torment. Take a bride tonight. Bite her at the Offering. And bring her to the supper so the royals can be at ease. It’s the right decision, and we both know it.”
He squeezes my shoulder and departs. I gaze at my mask in the mirror off to my right. Once I’m alone, the deathly specter flees the cavities of my being to appear in the reflection to taunt me. A raw ache, the bitter pain of my past pierces my heart as Kryach’s spirit whispers to me, curses me for waiting this long. Hungry, he gnashes his teeth, launching black arrowed shadows to lash my chest which nearly rocks me to my knees.
My shoulders sink. Tonight, I must give him the blood of my new bride or all of Talahn-Feyal will pay the price. How many times since Finleigh have I vowed never to take one? Too many to count, but their names never leave me.
I breathe a deep sigh. No, my land does not deserve to be damned.
But I do.
The gold-lacqueredjawbone forms a crude necklace around the fydthell champion’s neck as he moves his pieces. I avoid the sight and pay attention to the game. No, my Nether-mark. Fire clawing at my spine is my warning: a sign of an impending attack. Ice alerts me it’s safe to move my pieces. The mark has brought me this far.
After hours of playing, my lids are heavy, and my rump aches. By now, the festival has commenced, and I promised to drink wine and dance with Franzy.
My fingers tremble as I prepare to move my king through the clear path. Around me, the heavy breaths of the failed players warm the air along with the meager candlelight in the underground chamber. One figure tarries in the far back. My spine prickles at the dark cowl obscuring his face. Motionless as a statue, he observes the champion’s table. Out of the corner of my eye, Franzy gazes at me, knotting her fingers, hopeful. No fire sparks my skin. The champion, with bone hoops piercing the nipples of his barren chest and navel, grins at me, a twisted, daring leer.
