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My molars ground together until my jaws ached. “Why would I want that?”
“Because you’re half enamored with her already,” he whispered, letting my spine adopt the stiffness of the rock behind me. “So unpredictable. Love. If you do not stir it one way, it may just stumble another. Ah, how Njala’s soul called out his name when it came to me…Joah. Joah! Oh, where is my beloved Joah?”
The name pounded inside my skull like a never-ending echo, heating the blood in my veins until sweat dampened my forehead. “Do you have a wish to drown as well?”
“Who would have thought that the very man who stole her away from you would gain her heart and affection during those months you searched for her? Chased her into her death, really. So unwilling was she to return to you, the father of the child growing in her belly, she instead chose to die at Joah’s blade. Tragic. Oh, so… tragic.”
I pushed down the rage, the bone-deep fury that caused the stalactites above to vibrate. Yes, a tragedy, how my companion had sworn me her love from the sweetest of lips… wicked, wayward mortal turning a god into a fool.
But it would not happen a second time.
I shook my head. “I have no need for more illusions.”
“You are so difficult to negotiate with,” Yarin said. “Very well, no illusions. New offer. Fix him, and I willnotmake your wife love you. Instead, I shall give you… let’s say… fifteen words.”
“Fifteen words?”
“To relay to your wife, forged to penetrate her in a place that might take you centuries to reach, if ever. Do not send a spike of bone through me for saying this, beloved brother, but your understanding of a woman’s heart equals Eilam’s ability to find his genitals.”
His offer roused a flutter around my organs. Hmm, fifteen words to reach into her soul, stoking affection for me. She would adore me; she would love me.
That damn muscle would give.
Against the hairs rising along my arm, I fixed the corpse with a mere thought. “Fifteen words.”
“Plus, one of advice, because you are truly my favorite of brothers,” Yarin said. “Deliver those words during an act of kindness, giving her something she desires. It will touch her so deeply. And if it fails…? Well, you can always slit her throat and replace her with another mortal, like you have done before.”
I turned my head and stared at him. “The mortal Joah Mertok slit Njala’s throat.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” he said with a chuckle. “I just never figured out if he was alive when he did it, or if he was already dead.”
Chapter18
Ada
The polished fangs adorning the bodice of my dress clanked with each step as I headed across the bridge toward an empty throne. Enosh had left through the Æfen Gate earlier, undoubtedly assessing if soldiers lined the Blighted Fields in an attempt to cap—
“…keep yer rotten mouth quiet.” Orlaigh’s hushed mumble invaded my thoughts, putting a hitch into my next step.
She glared up at the throne from the bottom of the dais, one hand clasping Enosh’s shirts in need of washing, the other shaking a scolding finger at… at one of the corpses?
A shudder lifted the hairs at the nape of my neck. Had they groaned again? They did that sometimes, their muffled nocturne almost forming words; wasn’t it for how the sounds broke against the skin pasted over their mouths, distorting it all into blood-clotting grunts.
“All it’ll do is get me bones braided into the throne right next to ye,” she said and pressed a palm against her forehead, releasing an exasperated sigh. “Ach, if me Master ever finds out the truth… Foolish, foolish girl.”
My heart beat faster, no matter how I tried to breathe it into quiet compliance as I inched closer. Orlaigh had called Njala a foolish girl, but what truth was she talking about? And to which of the corpses in the throne?
Another step.
Another clank of my fangs.
Orlaigh spun toward me, lifting a smile too tense around the corners. “Ach, lass, I was about to get ye.”
Arms wrapped around myself, I crossed the rest of the bridge and walked up to her. “Who did you talk to?”
Her belly shook with a chortle. “Talk? Dinnae have no soul to talk to in this place but ye.”
Me, and two soul-bound corpses. “I heard you from the bridge.”
