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By the time I finish, I’ve cultivated a rudimentary gown of Weeping Tree leaves. Fitting because I can’t bring myself to grow corpus roses. I flex my fingers, denying the urge to touch the mark, to trace my fingertips upon the indents of Allysteir’s teeth. How can I let him bite me again, much less touch me? How will Kryach be appeased if I cannot grant him my blood, myflesh?
He won’t. If I can’t tempt the God of Death, I’ll sure as hell make him suffer!
I turn to Ifrynna, but the Guardian no longer stands behind me. At first, I purse my lips, ribcage tight. No, the Guardian of the Underworld can’t shadow me everywhere. Perhaps she knows these moments are mine. After a full night of growing my floral gifts to reclaim myself, to honor myself, I deserve to enjoy these beauties, to treasure them.
I embark into the gardens. Bare feet skimming upon the cobblestones, I travel the pathways past shrubs and trees flowering with musky white-Inker, rich and exotic scarlet heart, odorless black death, the citrusy sweet gayle, royal purple primus buds, milky thistles, and countless others. Suspicions confirmed, I discover the brook prattling upon mounds of stones to the right of the path. It descends beneath a little bridge, turning to a trickling cascade into a pond dotted with lily pads. Every now and then, I pass canopied but non-enclosed bone dwellings which serve as viewing stations.
I breathe aromatic scents, careless of the dirt collecting on my bare feet. To my left, a nightwing warbles its woeful call from bone branches. I smile at the Nether bird. More of a spirit fowl?a twain traveler. Throughout my years, their mourning melodies drew me to the Nether-Void, tempting me near, daring refters to attack me.
If the Nether-Void has beckoned me to enter its domain, if I am some mistress of Death, perhaps it’s time to listen. Skeptical, I chew on my inner cheek. Does the answer to the Curse lie within the Nether-Void?
It’s early, a little after dawn. The gardens are bereft of people.
The moment I turn to leave, icy claws prickle my spine. Gasping from the Nether-mark, I spin but find no one, nothing. No threat. No danger.
I clench my cold, clammy hands. Panting, legs wobbly, I squint through the trees, sensing the familiar undercurrent luring my blood. More melancholy calls from nightwings warble around me. Sharp pangs pierce my chest, my heart. but I move forward. By what power I can’t comprehend, what lack of fear, I move forward.
At the barest edges of the garden, I sense it. As if thunderclouds have smothered the sunlight, the source of the undercurrent induces me. A long-forgotten memory beyond my birth stalks the boundless recesses of my imagination. Unless...it’s not my imagination.
At the end of the gardens is the portal. Yes, countless portals to the Nether-Void, to the spirit realms, haunt the Underworld. Thousands of souls wail from this dark bosom, prompting me, wooing me,summoningme.
Approaching the great orb of swirling blackness, an ever-moving whirlpool of ink, I lift my hand, fingers trembling to the dark energy while my Nether-mark roars needles of fire and ice into my spine. Breath rupturing, I hesitate. Cold clots my veins.
Resisting the alluring embrace, I slowly turn. Too slow. Flapping wings echo behind me before a being, an ancient figure depicted in historical paintings, blocks my path. My vision spins. I almost topple to the ground. But the figure smiles and stretches his hand, captures my arm. Gold cuffs bind his wrists. With one brush, they burn my flesh with celestial energy. I never could have fathomed meeting an angyl!
Wings tattered and ragged, unable to fly, he grips my other arm. His eyes gleam when they study me. Mighty talons click upon the cobblestones beneath us. Everything in me shrinks before the creature in spite of his threadbare wings plumaged in smoke. His holy incense breath wafts upon my face. I can’t bear to inhale.
When he opens his mouth with his resplendent gold tattoos humming beneath his dark flesh, I hold my breath. “Isla Morganyach, Bride of the Corpse King.”
I freeze, swearing Nether-spiders skitter along my spine. The gold tattoos whirl upon his skin as if alive. As if they are bound to the gods.
“You will come with me. The lower gods summon you,” his deep voice commands.
My mouth turns dry. Tremors invade my hands, but the angyl beams down at me. His eyes are mere black slits mirroring the Nether-Void. Pulse thundering in my ear, I close my eyes, caging a whimper. What could the gods want with me? It dawns on me the same time the angyl closes his hands around my arms, urging me forward by no more than an inch. He’s testing. Of course, the lower gods want me. I am the first common girl who has ever volunteered for Bride of the Corpse King. I am the first who merited the God of Death’s interest, hislust.
My eyes burn against the angyl’s. The last thing I will ever be is a pawn.
Strengthening my dwindling legs, I drive myself back, refusing, “Over my dead bones!”
The angyl sniggers. That sinister snigger rattles my very core. Incense and smoke threaten my body. “I assure you, the gods do not have plans for your death...yet. But I am willing to snap your bones one by one if you try to run or scream for help, particularly from he who gave you his shadow-mark.”
Dizzy black ghosts cloud my vision. I claw my throat for air as he advances. The incense grows stronger, plaguing my nostrils, weakening my legs. His smoke folds around me like a thick cloak, but its heat rivals my Nether-mark. It burns my eyes, yanking tears from them. Nothing compared to his tattered wings pulsing with Ifrynn dark energy.
The irony: I conquered one fear only for this angyl to drag me to another. Inches from the woeful souls. While I don’t fear Death’s shadows, I do fear this fallen servant bent to the lower gods’ will and his promise of violence. Deep in my soul, I know he’d fulfill it.
I can’t call for Ary. Nor Allysteir. Neither could arrive in time. Far too exhausted for fight and unwilling to freeze, I drag my feet when the angyl’s hands bite into my underarms to haul me back.
Strength rivaling mine, the angyl draws me closer to the portal’s violent wails. I rake my nails across his arms, his chest, struggling with his robes, but he regards me as no more than a nightwing fledgling. Paroxysms of gasps flee my mouth, swelling into a primal scream?one I bite to smother, remembering his promise.The last thing I want is to pick abonewith this almighty being.I shudder. Squeeze my eyes shut, whirl my savage head, reverting to my dark humor coping mechanism.
If Kryach senses my torment, he does not reveal himself. He must be reaping souls. Unless this angyl bears power to thwart Kryach?to mask his actions and my raging terror.
The portal thickens the air around me as if forming countless tethers to bind me, infinite hooks to embed in my flesh and swallow me whole. Bait for the God of Death is a lamentable fate.
As the portal magnifies, something cold assaults my collarbone. Lowering my head, I catch the skull-mark eyes turning blacker than midnight storms. Flames pulse in my dark veins. Adrenaline shoots into my blood, and power rockets into my body. My eyes whirl to their ceilings from the inertia. Thorns launch from my skin to stab the angyl’s flesh.
He pauses, a low rumble of a growl. Humor multiplying, I snigger. Craning my neck, I bore my eyes into his and wrinkle my nose. “You said if I tried to run or scream, angyl. You mentioned nothing aboutfighting.”
Gripping my arms, muscles bulging, wings tightening, he snarls at my worthy assailants of barbs lodged in his neck. When he deadpans, eyes turning the color of blood and gold, his jaw hardening, I understand he’s done with my games. His fingers gore into my flesh. I whimper, open my mouth to unleash a primal scream.
