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Isla
“Run, Isla,” he whispers, disrupting my bath. “Run.”
I snap my head up from the steamy water and spin my head everywhere, searching, calling out, “Ary?”
After a few moments of the wind lashing the stones of the bathhouse and the bath steam curling in the air, I sigh, resigning myself he won’t show himself. Over these past few months, he never has. Not since the one time with Betha...when he called me Tenth Bride or Isla. Not little wonder.
Except for the faint phantom voice of deep twilight in my dreams. Of the scent of gray dew and dead leaves. Of woe and everlasting loneliness. Because despite how many souls Ari collects, however many he may keep for a time, I know how little his spirit feels. It’s why the gods pine for mortal flesh to stick to.
Ary longed for mine most.
Despite my flushed cheeks and my heated skin, I shiver and chew on my index fingernail, wondering why.
Run, Isla...
I knead my brow, struggling for breath. He knows I’m planning to run.
For months, I’ve made such plans with Alysteir’s mother, leaving all others in the dark. At first, I included Franzy. But after sharing my first few unsuccessful attempts with the herb, she grew resigned to my keeping the cursed child. When her brows would lift in anticipation every time she saw me, when her eyes would immediately drop to my belly, I pulled away from her and confided in the Queen. It’s knotted my stomach every time I’ve faced my leyanyn...until this morning when I learned of her choice to re-open the mines.
Something is different about her, whether it’s all those weeks in the Court or how she’s seemed to form an alliance with Aydon—nor can I fault her. After all, he is her husband. I couldn’t expect everything about our relationship to stay the same. My stomach hardens with nausea as I swipe at tears. No time to confront her. The Night of Masks commences soon.
I sigh, press my determined lips together, and clench my fists in the water, considering Allysteir’s forthcoming announcement. Here in the bath, I frame two hands around my swelling stomach and touch my heavy, too-tender breasts. I frown. Another secret he’d kept from me, another part of this Curse business. Because the gods must have their games, their blood, their shells. Yes, Allysteir might credit his past brides’ sacrifice, but he treats me like a savior. I glower, heaving breath. Because I’m not a savior. I’m simply the gods’ shiny new pawn, their shell, the new Queen of Corpses to birth the next cycle. Trapped under the White Ladies forever or until Allysteir and I choose to retire to the Forever Havens.
The last thing I want is to become part of the Curse.
I am not here to breed the next Corpse King.
So, for the hundredth time, I grow the Wisp-Shee herb, banned by bone magic in Talahn-Feyal. For the hundredth time, I chew the leaves, slam my eyes shut, brace myself, and wait.
And like all the times before, nothing happens.
“No...” I whimper and rake my nails through my hair and into my scalp. “I am not the Mallyach-Ender,” I murmur, swallowing the pain in my throat, the urge to sob. “Now, I am the Curse,” I finish in a whisper, battle the dizzying wave of nausea, and choose to float along the surface of the water.
When my hair branches in the water to become a silver flaming halo, the skull mark out of the corner of my eye haunts me. Adrenaline charges into me, and my skin crawls. I’ll never be able to run with this mark. Six seeds, six delirious seeds were the beginning. No, the real beginning was when I listened to weasel-faced Ganyx and forged an elder’s summons to participate in the fythdel games.
“Is this why nothing will work?” I demand of Ary, stabbing a finger at the mark. “If I have to, I’ll take my freedom.” With blood. With violence. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it takes.
First, I scratch until the skin around the mark inflames. Next, I grow a thorn right from my palm and drag it across the flesh. Tears brawl with my eyes. I gasp windstorms through my nostrils while I spill blood and death’s ink until they mingle in the water. My Nether-mark burns. For the first time, I don’t curse it, I don’t will it down. I lean into the power,mypower—whatever dark force exists inside me. I pit my will against the God of Death until my blood soaks the fatal mark and my knuckles turn whiter than white Inker blossoms.
The thorn snaps from the pressure. I slam my palm on my collarbone, on the bloodied Death mark, and scream through gritted teeth. The pain is acid carving through my flesh. I unleash a last shrill shriek. Everything quiets. The blood beneath my palm slows. Through my soaked strands of hair coating my face, I gaze around, almost expecting his shade prepared to stop me.
Nothing but my piqued breath.
Before I get the chance to remove my palm, something splits deep inside my core. Arching hard and sharp, I throw my hair back and grip the stone ledge around the sunken bath so hard, my nails leave permanent indents. At first, I start to shriek, but it’s cut off, suffocated by the soothing current rippling through me. Deathly shades serenade my body, enveloping me in a tranquilizing tide to combat the pressure between my thighs. A dark, slow current.
When the water warms, I slowly turn, clawing desperate hands at my throat, already suspecting. Gasping, I somehow keep my scream at bay. I almost fall. I almost sink into the bloodied water. Instead, I grow from relief, from joy, from hope. I grow hundreds of scarlet heart blooms to drink the bloody water. I grow floral dragon’s breath to purify the liquid, to eliminate any trace of evidence.
I let the tears fall because even if I didn’t want it, even if I never wanted it, it still deserves my tears, the salt of wounds, the memory of emotion.
My freedom won through fire and blood and violence.
When all that remains is the sac floating amidst the shades—a final offering of the undeveloped tiny form inside—I nod to the essence of his power and whisper, “Take it, Ary.” I breathe, only to understand what all this meant when his shades retreat from my body and vanish into thin air along with the sac.
Because the skull mark has disappeared. The mark condemned me to life eternal in the Underworld. Everything Allysteir needed. And Talahn-Feyal.
I knot my brows because not all the ink was gone. I couldn’t finish. So, why would he do this? Why would he give up his greatest chain binding me to him, to Allysteir?
“Run, Isla...” are the words to greet me from somewhere beyond the veil of worlds.
