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I flinched at the unexpected warmth.
So did the King.
He pulled his hand back as if I’d burned him, pushing himself up to stand, and stumbling back a step all at once. “So… warm.”
He stared at me from those unnerving eyes, irises the color of autumn clouds foreboding a storm. “Who sent you? Some mortal king? They no longer tie their harlots to the trees to lure me out, but now strap them to beasts?”
“Ye won’t get answers from a lass half-dead,” Orlaigh said. “From the looks of it, she hit every skull and was dragged over every sharp bone on the way in. Foot’s twisted. Dinnae look like a trap to me.”
The King stepped toward Augustine. “The looks of mankind are deceiving.”
He grabbed the twisted leather strap tied around my ankle and pulled. With little effort, the strap broke and my leg hit the hard alabaster. Pain pricked my skin, seared my flesh, twisted around my body like ropes. I screamed loud enough that even the mule danced once more until the sound drowned.
“No mortal will die and find rest in my kingdom.” The King’s command resonated a chamber void of life, stripped bare to the white paneling on the crooked walls, the distorted ceiling, the very ground on which he stood. “Drag her outside and toss her onto one of the piles of corpses…”
His voice faded along with everything around me. Darkness invaded once more, and with it, another voice—a strange one, like the comforting embrace of a loved one, luring me toward where darkness paled into a path of the brightest light.
“Come to me,”the voice beckoned.“Let me take your breath.”
Limbs stiff, unmoving, I stepped toward the light. Brightness encapsulated all my being, chasing away the pain, the suffering, the—
“I forbid you to go to him!” the King snarled and a heavy weight settled onto my chest. “I’d rather mend your flesh and keep you alive than have you die and make me an oath breaker.”
Pain returned twofold, choking me, ripping me away from the light. Lungs burning, legs kicking, back arching… I fought against death until, with a long, deep inhale, I filled my chest with the cold air of the chamber. It seared down my throat, through ribs, burning deep into a cavity now fully expanding. The tang of blood vanished from my mouth and the pain dulled into little more than faint throbbing.
My eyes fluttered shut.
“Orlaigh, leave through the Nocten Gate,” the King said. “Buy food from the nearest settlement, and whatever else her… mortal needs require.”
My body shifted, heavy limbs tugging on sore joints as they flapped about. Warmth pressed against my belly. Something was wrong with the scent wafting around my nose, like ash sprinkled over a layer of fresh snow.
“Your heart will beat for eternity, and no age shall befall your warm body while in my service, little mortal.” The King’s dark whisper hushed against my sweat-pearled temple. “Welcome to the Pale Court.”
Chapter3
Ada
Darkness hummed a melody, followed by a voice like teeth scraping over rock.“Flesh and scar and skin and bone, feed her body to the throne.”
A shiver ripped me from sleep.
Above me, white, porous stone shaped like intertwined roots snaked around the arched ceiling, yellowed in some spots while others carried dark patches of moss. Rosemary and meat scented the air—so out of place in this naked room holding little more than my bed and a tub.
Orlaigh glanced down at me, her irises a pale green. “The living used to say ye slept like the dead.”
With most of the pain gone, I propped myself up, the gray furs draped over my naked body shifting with the motion. “How long was I out?”
She shrugged and turned toward an outcropping of stone lined with jars, bowls, and flasks. “From the moment ye closed yer eyes to the moment they opened.”
And how long was that? Dozens of questions tangled my brain. Did John break through the coffin and crawl out of the dirt? Limp toward the tower and collapse somewhere between there and here for some stranger to find and toss into a pit? What were the chances that Pa finished what I’d started, and—
Pa! He had to be sick with worry.
I glanced at where Orlaigh rummaged through pottery. “Hours? Days?”
“The dead dinnae care about time,” she said. “A moment. A day. Forever. It’s all the same for us. Pray, in time, it’ll be all the same for ye.”
The shiver returned, skin pebbling against a room so cold my breath rose in billows. “I have to get back home.”
