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“Hmmm.” My mind swirls at the idea of my best friend possibly being alive and well… At the thought of these creatures and whether they deserve to be spared.
“Hm?” He bends to look me in the eye. “We have to work on your ‘thank you’s. They’re lacking.”
“I still don’t trust you,” I hold out my hand. “But I won’t kill everyone. Just those who fight me.”
“Deal, but you don’t need to fight your way through the castle,” Asmo says as light filters in around us. “You just need to cut the head off the snake. No one likes him as king, and I’m pretty sure if you were to take him out, they’d be nothing but appreciative.”
Finding myself back on the highest floor of the tower, my sword clutched in my hand, I step forward, a plan formulating in my head within seconds. “Stay here, and take this,” I say, giving him the blade.
“Wha–No. Why?”
Turning around, I bounce my eyebrows once. “I’m going to give the king what he wants. I’m going to let him touch me.”
“I think we’re misinterpreting things…”
“No, Asmo. I’m not.” He tries to stop me from walking farther down the hall. “I don’t need your permission. And I’m asking you to trust me. I don’t have your mother’s sword, but I do have my magic. Even if he hadn’t taken it, the moment I walked in there with it on my hip, he’d be on guard. I can do this. All I’m asking is for you to have a little faith.”
He lets go, nodding once and linking his hands behind his back. “Okay, but if it goes south, I’ll be just outside.”
21
Alice
Stepping inside, the high king spins around at the sound of my boots on the rickety floor of the highest room in the tower. His observatory. For the King of Monsters, he looks relatively normal as long as he keeps his mouth shut. His appearance has changed since I saw him in the clearing with Kai, but he’s still just as daunting as I remember.
His middle is thick, obscured by his expensive robes, and his eyes are now a bright yellow and full of animalistic intelligence. It makes me wonder who he touched to gain that trait. A short reddish blonde beard graces his face, matched with unruly hair, but his movements are that of a dancer–precise, calculated, and fluid, as if he’s practiced them.
“What a surprise.” He crosses his arms in front of him, looking at me from the head to toe, and smiling at the sight of blood on my hands. His mouth curves into an eye-full of razor-sharp teeth, and the way his tongue slips over his lips makes my stomach flip. “If you had a chance to get free, why would you stay?”
Letting every thought of Kai surface in my head, my eyes water enough to make me look convincing as I take another step forward. “There’s nothing for me to go back to. I just don’t wish to be a prisoner.”
His hand slips down his silk robes, silver adorn with red velvet royal swirls. “And what do you wish to be?”
“A queen, and treated like one. Asmo told me of your plans–what you intended to use me for. It would be a hell of a lot easier if I was willing, don’t you think?”
He falls still, his head dropping forward for a moment to stare at my feet. The crown made of bone and gold sits perched on his head. “Where is Asmo?”
“Gone,” I say, my lips twitching as the king reels with what that could mean. “Look, I won’t lie and say I want to be anything to you, but if it’s between being in a cell here or returning home and being at the mercy of the Devil’s wrath… I’d rather stay and find where I fit in. I can’t promise you the boy you want, nor would you be happy with him if I had one. I’m a witch from Earth, and male witches there have little to no power. However, I am one of the strongest in the seven realms, and my daughter will only be stronger than me.”
This time he closes the distance, stopping just before me while his cold eyes read my face. “One condition, and I’ll accept your offer. You let me touch you right now, and I get to absorb your abilities. Then, no cuffs, no shackles, you’ll be free to do as you wish.”
“Do it in front of your people. Let them see that you tamed the wicked witch. From what I understand, they’re not too fond of you. Maybe that show of power will put them back in their place.”
His gloved hand lifts up to tilt my chin so he can feast upon the view. It takes everything I have to swallow down the knot forming in my throat, to play the part just a little longer, even when everything inside me is revolting.
“Come,” he says, taking my hand and leading me through his observatory. Plants curl around the frames of slanted windows, held up with petrified skeletons of man and creature alike. It’s both grand and something that up and walked out of a horror movie at the same time. It’s filled with tapestries, wich would be beautiful if I didn’t look too closely, but depicted in them lies horrors far creepier than this room. Gruesome images of angels being torn limb from limb by monsters, others of children burning… It’s enough to make what I ate at dinner climb up my throat.
The air is heavy with the scent of incense and burning candles, but I can’t name the scent to save my life. “What are you burning? It smells delightful.”
“Dragon’s blood. We have enough of it to last another hundred years or so. It does smell incredible. Sweet, actually. It’s the magic that allowed them to shift burning into the air.”
This man is sick… He’s literally basking the blood of his enemies. Shaking the images that float to my mind away, my eyes roam over the twisted metal, decorating the torches on the walls, to the custom craft couches covered in fur blankets and rich textures.
We arrive at two large arched doors and he pushes them open, turning back to me for a moment before stepping onto the balcony. Some sort of crystal has been grown across the ledge, wrapping like garland around the railing, and the king places his hands upon it.
Various jewels around the door glow bright, and when the king speaks, it’s as if he’s yelling through a megaphone. His voice projects through the air and the crowd now gathered tightly at the foot of the castle stretches far across the bridge and through the first couple of roads of the golden city on the other side of the chasm.
“Welcome,” he says, waiting for the echo to recede. “Today is the day we take back our land. The world that was stripped of us when our creator sent the Devil knocking on our door. Today, we set sail for his castle, and by this time next week, he’ll be no more. His people are scared, as they should be. We outnumber them ten to one. We’re scorned by centuries of being locked in this prison, and our wrath will not be silent. Today, we go to war.”
