Blood of the Dead, page 22
I frowned, then I realized I probably shouldn’t show him any disappointment. “Those weren’t my friends,” I stated, pretending to be bold.
One of his eyebrows arched coolly. He was almost done with his plate now, but surely there was more food where it had come from. “What is the last thing that you recall?”
I’d spent half my time in his dungeon trying to remember, when I wasn’t focused on being hungry, or wondering how strong the stones on the floor were. I’d been in the carriage, and we were thundering for the border, away from the Deathless, and then . . . “We were traveling.” Was Castillion dead? He’d been one of my guards since I was a child. He would’ve never let anything happen to me. “Who brought me here? And who are you? Does my father know I’m here? Have you asked for ransom yet?”
He brushed away my questions with a hand as he pushed his plate away from him, then gave me a piercing stare. “Tell me, little moth, what is your pride worth to you?”
I blinked, distracted at once. “Excuse me?”
“Your pride. Do you hold it in high value?” He settled his silverware away. “I find myself suddenly curious.”
“I—” I began, trying to figure out his game, but also feeling angry. “I am a woman of high rank. And while I have no idea who you are, or why I’m here—I know that I’m well-loved. My father, my brother, and Ker Vethys, my betrothed and a Prince of the Seven, will be looking for me. So while you may have me at a disadvantage now, sir, trust that it is momentary, and you should do nothing untoward.”
His eyes lit up in clear amusement. “I would never, little moth. And you may trust that for as long as you’re trapped in here with me, I’ll never make you do anything that you don’t want to.”
“Good,” I breathed, relaxing slightly.
He watched me, and he laughed, shaking his head subtly. “Not really. Because I will make you want to do untoward things for me, moth. Eventually.” I swallowed and I frowned as he went on, “So let’s begin.” He circled the plate in front of him with a finger in the air. There were still several bites of meat on it, and vegetables, and his goblet must have been half-full. “Crawl over here atop the table, and eat this like a cat in front of me.”
I looked between him and his half-eaten food. “I would never,” I gasped, pushing my chair back, while he weighed me with his eyes.
“Is that so?” he asked. Mocking me seemed to be his favorite sport. “Because I believe you will, moth. Given time. Only the next plate, instead of treating you like a favored cat, I will treat you like a favored dog, and it will be on the ground.” He snapped his fingers and pointed toward his feet. “And the plate after that will be back in your dungeon, and then who only knows when the door will next open up.”
At the thought of being trapped back in that—that—place—“You wouldn’t,” I tried, searching for a way to reason with him.
“Do you know me?” he asked, sounding curious and leaning forward, but when no recognition fluttered in my eyes he sank back again. “Then perhaps you should assume I would.”
My heartbeat rushed, I could hear it pounding in my ears. “Is this a prank? To humble me?”
“Does it feel like a prank to you?” he asked, with a shrug, then grinned wickedly. “No? I’ll give you a few more moments to decide.”
I sat in the chair, aching, my stomach practically folding in on itself from lack of food.
What would my family think if they knew?
Would Vethys still want my hand if he knew I had crawled for another?
But . . . how would any of them ever find out, if I didn’t tell them?
Because surely, when they paid my ransom, I would make them kill this man.
I envisioned the moment my guards would cut off his hands and feet and feed him his tongue and he—whoever he was—would regret the moment he’d ever seen me and come up with this plan. He would be rendered helpless before choking on his own blood.
And in the end it was thoughts of violence and retribution that got me up onto his dining room table. Hands and knees. The hard wood of the table hurt to crawl on, and my poor cut hand was still throbbing; but none of that mattered anymore, because I needed to survive long enough for revenge. I hitched up the edge of the ugly dress I wore, so as not to crawl atop it, and I made my way down to his side of the table with vengeance in my soul.
A slow, cruel smile spread across his face as I neared, and when I reached his plate I pulled it toward myself. I started eating what he’d left on it with my hands. From up close I could see that he had also had several faint scars on his face, and he watched me with glittering eyes.
“Eat slowly, moth. You don’t want to get sick,” he warned.
I waited until I was three bites in and licking drippings off my fingers to eye him with venom. “I will kill you, in time,” I swore.
He nodded in solemn agreement. “Of that, I have no doubt.”
Chapter Two
Rhaim
Every mage gets one clear vision on the eve of their Ascension into their full powers, right before they get the brand of their mage-mark: you see the thing that will cause your absolute demise.
You will have other chances in your life to experience death along the way—while using magic extends your life, mages are not immune to dying from idiocy. But even the most careful mage knows he eventually will have one true death, whether he likes it or not, no matter how hard he tries to postpone it.
Some men see snowy peaks or waterfalls, others bucking horses, and some lucky few see themselves with old and wrinkled hands, passing peacefully in their sleep.
In all instances, we’re told, the reasoning behind the visions is the same: if you’re strong enough to be trusted with powers, then you must learn to accept the hand of fate, as surely as you’d earned it as your mage-mark.
You need to know, deep in your bones and now scarred on your skin, that while there are things in the world you can change with your powers, death comes for us all.
There is no amount of magic that can escape it.
And so, when a group of soldiers brought a bound and drugged woman to my doorstep, and pulled the bag off of her head and I saw her there—the woman from the vision at my Ascension, and who has haunted my dreams ever since—I knew it was the beginning of my end.
I’d toyed with the idea of killing her for days, knowing that no matter how I tried, it would inevitably blow back on me.
She was going to be the architect of my demise. To try and stop it by murdering her . . . as thrilling as the thought was, was unacceptable. Mages had both mythology and legend, and there were enough warnings scattered throughout each of them that I knew it wouldn’t work.
Her father was King Jaegar of Drelleth, a country that had been of no consequence, protected more by its geographical position than its military might, tucked away between two mountain ranges and abutted by a rough sea. That hadn’t stopped him from making war on his neighbors for years though. Betrothing his daughter to one of the Seven had made him no less fractious.
But it wasn’t until the Deathless had killed his own Queen that he’d begun begging me to join in his battles.
My castle moved frequently, so the fact that he kept finding me said something about the power of the mages on his side—many of whom I did know, in passing—and his unwavering belief that my magical addition to his cause would help.
I’d blown him off, ignoring his pleas and offers of gold, and often simply moved my castle rather than respond—then he’d finally irritated me one last time. I’d put pen to paper, telling him to leave me alone or I would fight for the Deathless against him—which we both knew a lie, seeing as no living man would join their filthy ranks—before finishing that he had no amount of treasure that could change my mind, he should stop harassing me at once.
And that was when she’d arrived.
The next time my castle landed—a portal opened nearby and a carriage emerged, its horses white-eyed in fear at having been driven through the portal’s cold-darkness. After the driver got hold of the creatures again, it pulled up short outside my door.
I was so angry that the urge to give into my bestial nature was too great to resist. Whoever was interrupting my studies—I wanted them to fear me, to go back with stories about the Creature Who Shall Not Be Named. I wanted to appear in their nightmares at night—no, more—to frighten them enough that they remembered me by daylight.
I dropped my impeccable control and let him free.
I raced down the stairs of my castle, my form changing as I gave in to the monster my magic made of me: a massive beast covered in short, dark fur, roped with muscle, fingers tipped with claws, and my mouth transformed into a snarling muzzle filled with teeth and cruelly curved fangs. I let my anger pour through me and my humanity burn away, keeping only the most tenuous grasp on myself as I burst outside my castle, ready to pull apart whomever it was and spell the horses to carry their limbless corpse back from whence they came.
But there was already a mage I recognized standing outside the carriage in a sleeveless vest. Castillion the Spiked, one of Jaegar’s throne-sworn—and he wasn’t holding bags of gold or gems, but a woman, wrapped in draping gray, her cape and skirt drifting down from his arms like the wings of a moth—and that was the only thing that saved him.
My beast paused, panting, as a slight breeze blew her scent toward his finer nose—she smelled like almonds and honey—and my beast knew who it would be before I did.
“King Jaegar sends you his most valuable possession, All-Beast,” Castillion growled, standing firm in the face of my monstrosity. “Princess Lisane.” He ripped the bag off of her head, showed her to me, and she looked exactly how I remembered she would from my Ascension, hundreds of years prior.
Her sleeping face was delicately boned, a perfect oval, with a little strength to the line of her nose, and the pull of her narrow chin. Her lips were full but pale, likely from the drugs they’d given her, and her long auburn brown hair was coming loose from its braids, fly swept from having chafed inside the bag they’d put over her for transport.
Had anything in my life ever been more apt than having the Princess of Tears delivered to my door?
I didn’t think so.
For she was my death made flesh, and she was beautiful.
My beast was transfixed as I wrestled to control him again, trying to rein in the things that were monstrous in me back, as I lumbered forward to breathe her in deep.
In sleep, she was perfect.
Soft.
Quiet.
Helpless.
And my beast had a feeling she would taste good, no matter where he licked her.
I pushed his rough thoughts back—while knowing that they didn’t belong to someone else entirely, it was just me giving into my deepest desires and darkest energies—until I could regain control of myself, even in this form.
“Do you accept?” Castillion pressed as his compatriot atop the carriage tried to keep the horses from dancing—just because I could spell beasts, didn’t mean that all of them were comfortable with me, not when I held the form of a predator.
I took a heavy breath.
I had no choice.
She was the one thing I couldn’t avoid.
My time had come.
“Yes,” I told him gruffly, with a throat unused to making human sounds, and moved to take her from him, my claws scudding across the fleece of her cape beneath her as he deposited her into my arms. She didn’t stir. She was completely limp against me.
At my mercy, in a way, even as I was destined to be at hers.
Castillion eyed me and nodded. “And when can we expect you?”
I stared down at her helpless form, and metered out the rest of my life against her slight weight. “Three hours on the field of battle a day, every day, starting tomorrow.”
“I’ll tell my king.” The firm line of Castillion’s jaw said he didn’t agree with Jaegar’s trade, as did the tips of his spikes poking out from beneath the skin of his arms, like dragon-scale, in a wave, a blunted promise of potential violence as he spoke. “All-Beast—do not hurt her.”
It felt absurd for him to warn me from hurting the woman who was my downfall—much less under these conditions. I gnashed my teeth lightly at him, returning his subtle threat, and said, “I vow nothing.”
I’d been strong enough to leave her in the dungeon for almost a week, trying to convince myself that I was wrong, that it wasn’t her—but any time I’d deluded myself into near-belief, all I had to do was wander down and stand outside her door.
Sometimes she’d be softly talking to herself, other times quietly weeping—but I always felt a charge.
It was hard to tell what it was. Was it like listening to the sound of a snake’s rattle, warning you not to come any closer or it would bite? Or was it like the calm after a storm, when everything was quiet and the world held its breath?
Or was it like when I was about to draw upon my powers to change things, despite the fact that she, to me, was immutable?
I didn’t know.
All I was sure of was that there was a current of power flowing between us, like a tide surging back and forth. I wondered that she did not feel it too, and I waited as long as I felt I could before admitting defeat and opening up her door.
I let her bathe because I wasn’t entirely a monster—and why should I let her punish me with her stink? I also knew I would have to burn her clothing later; I didn’t want anything here to tie her to her former life.
But when I looked for recognition in her eyes across the table I found none. She had no idea who I was, or what we were to each other. She knew nothing about my fate or future with her, or how she was destined to kill me.
Which meant in the present . . . she was mine, to do with as I pleased.
And I wanted to see her crawling.
There’d been a moment when I was pressing her, when I thought she was made of weaker stuff, and would fold for lack of imagination.
But then she mounted the table for me and made her way down it, the edges of her skirt hitched up so that I could see the red marks the wood was leaving on her kneecaps, her anger radiating off of her in waves.
How many men get to watch their death crawling toward them, in utter obedience, with spite in her eyes?
Not many, I would wager.
As I watched her eat with her fingers and threaten my life, it was possible I’d never been so hard, my heavy cock pressing against my leather’s laces beneath the table. It was all I could do not to smirk at her.
Yes, I would die, and yes, she would kill me, but until then, I was going to earn out every moment of my glorious death from her, for as long as fate allowed it.
I pushed my goblet in her direction, and watched her drink from it. “Not too much of that, either.”
She drank fiercely because I had told her not to, and set it down empty, wiping a red trail from the corner of her lips with the back of one hand. I could tell from the way she held the goblet she was thinking about throwing it at me.
“Why am I here?” she demanded. The proud way she sat made her small breasts rise high, but I concentrated on the pout of her full lower lip instead when I answered.
“Because it pleases me.”
“And my ransom?”
“No one has offered one.”
I watched her do calculations behind dark-lashed eyes. Now that she was awake and I could see them for myself, I noticed her own eye color was an appeasing bright amber, as it’d been in my vision—just like the copper eyes on the wings of certain moths. I’d spent centuries looking into women’s faces, searching for those eyes, before I’d divorced myself from humanity almost entirely.
“Then perhaps you should let someone know you have me.” She did her best to sound strident, like she was in charge, for all that she was kneeling on my table.
“And why would I do that?” I asked, bemused.
“If you know who I am, you know my family has money, and power,” she sputtered. “And I am promised to Ker Vethys.”
“I want for nothing—and I haven’t met him,” I told her, which was the truth, so far.
She took a deep inhale, before looking wildly around. “And . . . you . . .”
“I?” I prompted her, waiting.
“You’re just here!”
Having gotten control of my baser instincts, I stood and took my plate from her, combining it with the silverware I’d kept out of her way, lest she be tempted to stab me. “You don’t even know where here is.”
“I know I don’t want to be here,” she snapped.
I held my hand out for my goblet as I laughed. “Moth, I don’t actually want you here either—and yet it is too late for both of us.”
She frowned, passed my goblet over, and I caught sight of the inside of her palm.
“What did you do?” I asked her.
“It’s not like you care,” she said, hiding her hands behind herself, then quickly writhing off the table to stand in front of me. She was much shorter than I was, and a weight I could easily pick up, though that wasn’t saying much, my magic made me preternaturally strong. She had curves, though, even beneath the cheap shift I’d given her to wear, and when I next looked up at her eyes, she was blushing furiously. “Go away.”
“You think you can shoo me off? In my own castle? How quaint.” I turned on my heel and walked for the door she hadn’t come in by. “Stay here,” I commanded, locking it behind me, then went through to my kitchen to scrape off the plate and scrub the pots. When I was done, I went to search for some simple salve I’d made for cuts.
The knowledge that I could be saving her from an infection darkly amused me. But then again, perhaps keeping her alive longer was the same as extending my own life?
I didn’t know.
Visions didn’t work like that.
I returned to find her sitting in her chair again, staring resolutely forward. Upon seeing me, she perked up, barely.
Scared of being alone with me—but also scared of being alone without me.
