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“Allysteir...” her voice lulls to an appeal, her hand bedding on the robe upon my chest. “Then, go to the God of Death. Ary will help?”
“You would behisprice!” I scream, I roar. My turn to slam my fist, shattering my phalanges.
Isla rises. So slowly, I don’t notice her vines coiling around me until it’s too late. Until she reverses our positions once again and stabs her voice into my ear. “I amnoprice. Andnoprize. I am Isla Adayra Morganyach. I am the first volunteer tribute in a thousand years.” She narrows her eyes and pinches her lips as if staring right through me to the God-spirit I house. “And you, Allysteir, are not my husband. You arenotmy King. And you willneverbe my husband after what you have done. You used me as your excuse, your pawn of leverage over Kryach. You used me as a convenience so you would not act as a true King. Worst, you did nottellme. You played me. You manipulated me. You built me up. You welcomed me into your world and made me your Queen. And then...youhurtme.”
Her words shame me. They bore into my inner depths because I felt shame on our wedding night. While she rose, I sank. And bled. My stomach knots, and I fall. I sink my skull into the pillows behind me because she speaks the truth.
“But I am no pawn, Allysteir,” she announces, and I lift my eyes to hers, to her smoldering royal inferno. “I am the eater of Isle fruit. I am the bearer of Aryahn Kryach’s mark. I am the Queen of the Underworld. And the fucking Mistress of the God of Death.”
I shake my head, violent, thrashing, my belly hot with hatred for the God. “It won’t matter. None of it will matter.” Tears glisten in my eyes when I consider my five hundred refter brides, their screams, their eyes turning to ghosts, to hollows without spirits. And I’d never sung them to eternal sleep. I’d only fucked them. Finleigh...
“Then, let’s put it to the test,” she demands.
A lightning bolt of terror assaults my heart, prickling me with goose flesh. “What?”
“The stakes are highest. But I am ready, my Corpus King.” She grows those corpus roses all over our bed to don the blankets, the fractured bed frame, the posts, and canopy. She burgeons them into the floor to disturb the stone. She multiples them upon all surfaces until their dark aroma engulfs the room.
Finally, Isla turns her eyes back to mine, clutches my collar, and rips. “Tonight, I am taking back the power you took from me, Allysteir. Because you will not fuck me, Corpus King. Iwillfuck you. I will touch you. I will touchallof you. Am I clear?”
I lick my half-lip. I shiver. I shudder in the wake of her agency. Ridicule myself for crossing her, for keeping her in the dark, for not sharing what I should have all along. For playing this ruse for too many months. No, she is no pawn.
With my shoulders sinking, pain inundating my body, but my cock fully aroused and swollen from her proclamation, I bow my head to her, the first bows of this night, and declare, “As clear as the spirits of the River Cryth that brought you to me, my Lady Queen.”
Before...
I leanover the ledge of the great precipice, which offers me a sobering view of the mines where hundreds of workers toil for the treasures of Talahn-Feyal’s Underworld. The chronic crack of the whips from the overseers wrenches tears from my eyes. Those droplets tumble over the edge into the cold canyon air, disappearing leagues below me into the darkness. Could I hope for one to fall on a slave to grant them a hopeful kiss? I thread my clammy fingers before clutching my throat, voice shriveled and dry as granite.
And then,hisfamiliar shade presence encircles me, binds me to offer me the irony of a numbing comfort.
“Flesh is the most precious to Talahn-Feyal. How could he?”
“Not him, little wonder,” Ary reassures me, a deep, pacifying voice in my ear. It soothes me more than a thousand of Allysteir’s lullabies.
I purse my lips and sigh, shoulders heavy. “Aydon.”
“Mmm.” Those shades form a circlet around my head to vie with my crown. “And the elders.”
“You knew of this...” I trail off when a slave falls to the ground, expiring.
Ary’s shade form shudders around my body, but his essence multiples over the caverns. “I am the God of Death, little wonder. I reap their souls when they are ready for eternal slumber so they do not suffer any longer. Yes, I knew. But it was not my place to tell you, sweet Isla. By the ruling of the Highest God and Goddess, I may not meddle in the affairs of the living.”
He doesn’t make excuses, and I lean back into his fatalistic shade, scenting a hint of Isle-fruit laced with blood, of smoke and flame, and the base of ancient incense. Intoxicating. Alluring. Bewitching.
“Allysteir should have?”
“Yes, he should have,” agrees Ary.
“All this time, you’ve been waiting...for what?” I purse my lips, bow my head when another shrill cry invades my ears.
“For him to tell you everything, little wonder. For you to agree to what should have happened on your wedding night had I not interfered on its morn. Before, you were a mere conquest.”
“And what am I to you now, Ary?” I press the base of my palm to my forehead, ridiculing myself for dwelling on this when all these lives suffer within the mines of the Corpse King’s Underworld.
“The Unseen Section welcomed you, sweet wonder. Would you have me spill secrets only heaven and hell know, too?” he challenges, those shades nigh strangling my chest.
I seal my lips into a frown but curl my fingers into those shades, understanding. Besides, some things are better left to mystery for growth and amusement. Regardless..., “Allysteir could have done something.”
“Not without a price.”
