Gold, page 13
I grit my teeth as we round a corner. “Auren. How many times did you use your pain power on her?”
Isolte starts to sob.
“How many times?” I demand, and I drop her back to her feet, though she slips, slicking the floor with more red streaks as she spins around.
“Once!” she cries. “I only did it once!”
“I doubt that.”
She’s shaking so hard her teeth are chattering. “Wh-where are we going?”
Instead of answering her directly, I keep hold of her collar and push her forward. “I found the Temperance Matrons praying—what a strict schedule you keep for them. Forcing the gray-robes to stay up until midnight in the temple with their foreheads pressed to tile, only to be up to pray again before dawn.”
She tries and fails to skid to a stop, the strength in her legs too inferior to put up much of a resistance. “The Guardians of Temperance are highly dedicated,” she bites out.
I snort. “And yet you were slumbering in your bed.”
Her shoulders tense, though that might be because of the third headless guard we pass by.
Hard to tell.
“The thing about the forced devout, or punishments doled out by the pious…is that followers eventually realize what they’re enduring isn’t for the gods at all. Your highly dedicated Matrons are festering with resentment, bitterness, and hate. All they need is an opening, and they’ll jump at a chance to get out.”
I yank her through one of the doorways and speak right at her ear as I drag her outside. “So I gave them an opening.”
The desert air is congested, the night starting to drift away. In the sky, the moon’s brightness peels back like a flaking fingernail and scratches out the stars. I take Isolte past the fronds, over the tile embedded into the soft desert sand, and then enter another open-arched doorway.
She grinds her slippery feet against the floor as we go down the corridor, and then she stills as soon as we get inside the circular room. With no windows and the blazing fire burning from an iron pot, the space is thick with hampered heat.
Isolte stiffens when she sees the dozen Matrons who stand against the wall, white wimples covering their heads, their robes lined with the gray stripes of their supposed sins.
“Sisters, help me!”
The Matrons don’t move.
I drag Isolte forward. “Your Temperance sisters here have filled me in on exactly the treatment Auren received under your orders.”
The queen’s worried gaze darts around the dark room until we stop in front of the wooden tub.
“Get in.”
Her eyes flare, hands clutching her robe at the neck. “I will not.”
“You will.”
My dark promise makes a shiver of terror travel over her entire body. She looks at the other Matrons, but they don’t help. They don’t speak. They simply stand stock-still, faces stiff and hands clasped tightly in front of them, here to witness her humiliation.
Because this is what she did to Auren, so it will also be done to her.
Queen Isolte looks down at her blood-stained feet, and with shaky legs, she steps into the narrow tub and sits down. Her shoulders slant awkwardly, her legs stacking over one another as she tries to fit in the confined space.
The water is tepid, neither warm enough to be relaxing, or cool enough to be refreshing. The fabric of her white robe floats heavily around her, bubbling up as she soaks. With a nod from me, the Matrons step forward and crowd around her. They start scrubbing at her skin over her clothes, using harsh scouring brushes and sharp soap. One of them dumps a bucket of water over her head.
Watching her sputter and cough is surprisingly pleasing.
“Make sure you Cleanse the queen very well,” I tell them. “Her cruel actions have made her soul fucking foul.”
The Matrons nod beneath their wimples and start going at her skin harder. Each of them volunteered information very quickly when I walked into their temple tonight. They were all too ready to explain everything she had done to Auren, and even quicker to accept my order for them to Cleanse Isolte themselves.
It seems the queen hasn’t gained their lasting loyalty.
Isolte flinches and hisses, baring her teeth at the women, and when one of them lets out a scream and falls back, I go forward and shove the queen’s head beneath the water.
She immediately starts to fight, body thrashing, water going all over the place, but her pain power cuts off from the Matron, leaving the woman panting and red-faced, with furious, hate-filled eyes locked on the queen.
I yank Isolte up from the water by her neck. She coughs, looking like a drowned rat, her cap skewed on her head. “Now, that wasn’t very nice, was it? Your fellow Matron is simply Cleansing your soul. You have no right to punish her with your power.”
“My soul needs no Cleansing!” she shrieks.
I tsk. “Lying is a sin, Queen Isolte.”
I shove her head back beneath the water.
Rippled screams pop up from the surface as she thrashes, her pinching pain renewed as she focuses her magic on me once again. It’s so harsh I feel it cinch at my lungs, like she’s trying to squeeze all the air out of them. But some sick, dark part of me relishes in it. Makes me want to retaliate even more.
I keep her under until her movements go sloppy and slow, until her power cuts off. When I yank her back out, she hacks, her cap now fallen completely off her bald head.
She collapses back against the tub, water drooling past her thin lips and dripping from her eyes. With another nod to the Matrons, the women pick up where they left off, scrubbing their queen from neck to foot, her skin instantly going red and raw.
When they’re finished, I keep my grip on the back of her neck and yank her out. Water floods off her robe as she stands there shaking, her eyes so full of hatred that I’m actually impressed.
“Let’s take a walk.”
Wordlessly, the Matrons lead the way, boxing her in as we head outside. The sun is now cresting over the horizon, blazing bright orange and lighting up the sand dunes in the distance. The women make their way around the outdoor path that winds around the sprawling space of Wallmont Castle. We pass by the desert plants and rotting oranges, while sand sticks to Isolte’s wet feet and the hem of her dripping robe.
It’s not until we reach the top step of the clay stairs leading down the dune that she jerks to a stop. That she realizes where she’s being taken.
Right down to the Conflux. On the same exact path that she led Auren.
“Either you walk or I’ll drag you,” I threaten behind her.
She hesitates for a moment, but then she forces herself forward, feet slipping a few times as we go. None of the Matrons try to stop her from falling. None of them help steady her. She glares at them all, and when I see her hand twitch, I warn, “If you use your magic against them again, you’ll regret it.”
Her fingers hang limp.
When we get to the bottom of the stairs, I see the Conflux building lying ruined and cracked before us, still reeking of the rot I infested it with. The dead bodies are all gone, but I can feel the death lingering in the air. I can feel the pull of the rot still embedded in the ground. The poisonous roots twist at my presence, like serpents awakening from the depths, ready to poke back out and bite.
The open-air building is a hectic slop of damage, just as badly scathed as the ground where the spectators stood. The domed roof is damaged, the platform split with decayed roots still visible where they jut out of the crumbling stone.
But my gaze goes to the tiny round cage right there on the stage, to its thin pillars snapped like old bones, torn free from the force of the rip. Spilled out of the cage is a fixed puddle of liquid gold now hardened like cold wax. It’s stuck there, shining in the sunlight, with the thinnest bands of black veins running through it.
Gold and rot, intertwined.
This is the last spot I saw Auren. Terrified and trapped, forcibly drained of power while surrounded by enemies.
Being sentenced to death.
When I arrived, when she saw me, she didn’t cringe away from my brutal power. She didn’t admonish the rot as I spread it out, destroying everyone and everything in my path. There was relief in her eyes. There was love.
But I couldn’t get to her then.
Just as I can’t get to her now.
The sound of Isolte’s mangled gasp wrenches me back into the present. I glance at the waterlogged woman where she’s stopped in her tracks. Ahead of her, the Matrons have parted, allowing her to see where I’ve trussed up her husband.
King Merewen sits there on the ruined stage, on one of the thrones that they’d set up for the Conflux. His head is slumped, gray hair plastered against his forehead, his nightshirt drenched in patches of sweat. Crest stands over him, fangs bared, the timberwing growling under its breath. Along the back wall, more Matrons stand, watching warily. Beside the king, an empty seat is waiting.
She whirls on me. “Where is my son? Where is he?” It’s the first time she’s shown any care for anyone other than herself.
I meet her eyes steadily. “Safe in his room,” I tell her. “Unlike you, I don’t punish innocents.”
Her pale throat bobs.
I nod toward the stage. “Go ahead, Queen Isolte,” I tell her. “Take your throne.”
She doesn’t want to. Not when she spots the knife sticking from her husband’s stomach.
“Neale?” she calls out, voice shrill and shaky. “Neale!”
“Just sit down, woman!” He grits his teeth, trying to clench down on the pain. The timberwing roars at his outburst, causing the king to flinch, which just makes the pain in his stomach worse.
Pity.
Isolte hurries forward and plants her ass on the throne.
Ahead, in the ruined square, several people have started to gather beneath the toppled pillars and torn tarps as they watch this spectacle with open horror. Merchants and laborers, who are already awake to beat the heat of the sun, come to watch an entirely different kind of trial. The kind where only my verdict stands.
I come up to Crest and run a hand down his feathered neck. The beast stops growling and settles beneath my touch.
“Alright, you rabid fucking demon,” King Merewen bites out at me. “Give us King Rot’s message and be on your way!” Sweat drips down his temple, more of it damming up against his yellowed mustache, blocking the path to his lips.
I tilt my head. “What makes you think I’m here to send a message?”
“That’s what you do, isn’t it?” he pants out. “Your king sends you off like a dog on a hunt.” Every word he’s speaking must be agony, considering the way he’s grimacing. “You can tell Ravinger that we’re even—he ruined my city. You stabbed me in my bed.”
Anger flares up in me, rioting and rampant.
“Oh, we’re far from fucking even.”
The spikes along my arms throb. I want to lash out and pierce him through with them. Instead, I shove my Rip form down, sharp canines and scales disappearing, spikes sinking back into my skin in rickety, wavering pulses. I force my form to switch until King Rot stands before them, inky veins writhing up my arms and clinging to my jaw.
King Merewen blanches. “It-it’s true. I knew I saw spikes that day,” he stutters in fear. “You’re him. He’s you. How?”
His wife cuts in. “You have two forms,” she breathes, staring at me as if in awe. “Like one of the gods of old. Two forms merging into one.”
“Be glad I’m not your god, for I would give you no mercy.”
She swallows hard, bald head leaning against her high-backed throne as she trembles in fear. When I look to King Merewen, all the blood has drained from his face. Now that he knows it’s me, he understands the situation more thoroughly. His watery eyes dart around, as if looking for a way to escape.
There’s no hope for that.
Even if he weren’t trussed up in that chair. Even if he didn’t have a dagger in his gut or a timberwing ready to rip into him. Even if he had a thousand soldiers at his back.
He’s at my mercy, and like I said before, I have none.
Not for them.
I let my rage bleed out, a cacophony blaring from the deep pit of hate carved into my soul.
I take a step forward.
“I warned you to leave Auren alone,” I say darkly. “But you didn’t.”
I take another step.
“You kept her here.”
Another step.
“Forcibly drained her power.”
Another step.
“Put her in a fucking cage.”
Another.
“And tried to execute her.” My words are growled, barely audible past the fury in my chest that’s constricting every bone and muscle and vein.
I stop right in front of him, hand snapping out to wrap around the hilt of the dagger. His arms strain beneath the bindings, eyes darting down. He thinks I’m going to yank it out. Let him bleed.
Instead, I twist.
King Merewen screams.
“You should’ve run,” I tell him, leaning down so we’re face-to-face, so I can see every minuscule tic of pain I’m causing him as I continue my slow turn of the dagger. “You should’ve hidden. But instead, you stayed here, thinking you were safe from me. Thinking that so long as you had fifty guards on watch, that it would be enough.”
A gasp spits out of him, a whole body shudder.
My dark tone goes pitch-black.
“You should’ve known better.”
The dagger has gone a full circle now, and the king has started to sob.
I lean in close so that it’s just my voice in his ear, so that he can hear just how absolutely fucked he is.
“I’m going to leave this dagger right here, buried in your gut. Do you know why?”
He whimpers.
“Because this blade has cut off the blood flow to your intestines. If this were to happen in a real battle, you’d get gangrene and die a slow, agonizing death. But I want to watch, and I’m not particularly patient. So I’m going to speed up the process.”
I twist the blade again, and he howls in agony.
“That’s why I’ve now started to rot your entrails. You feel it, don’t you?” I ask quietly, pulling away to see the expression on his face. “Your tissues are dying. Without your blood flow, your organs are too. I bet your skin has already started to turn black and green in some places.” I turn to Isolte. “Would you like to see?”
She doesn’t say a word, her body shaking so violently that her knees are knocking together beneath her wet robe.
“His blood is clotting up in places, curdling inside his veins as they collapse one by one.”
As I speak, the king’s face is becoming mottled, bruises swarming as they crawl up from his chest. I press around his gut, the bubbled stomach crackling from the gas caught beneath his blistering skin.
“Stop, stop!” the king wheezes, trying to scream but only managing whispered wailing.
“You didn’t stop for Auren, did you?” I ask him. “So why should I stop for you?”
“Anything—anything,” he pleads.
Probably because that’s all he’s able to say.
“We’ll do anything,” Isolte says, picking up where her husband left off, and she melts off the throne, knees bent in supplication as she lands on the ground. With hands clasped in front of her face, she curves her spine down into a bow. “Please! It was Queen Kaila! She was the one who convinced us of what we must do. She was the one that told us Lady Ch—Auren needed to be found guilty! Please, spare us!”
I finally let go of the dagger, and I straighten up to look at her. “You’re begging me to spare both your lives?”
“Yes!”
She’s clenching her clasped hands together so hard that it’s possible she might crack a finger.
I tilt my head in thought. “And what if I asked you to use your pain power on your husband, if I told you to use it until he died? Would you do it to spare yourself?”
“Isolte—” Merewen clips.
“Yes,” she says immediately as she looks up at me, bald head going red beneath the rays of the sun.
I cock a brow. “Is that so?” I ask before nodding toward him. “Then do it. Use your power on him.”
Her hands shake as she drops them, but she wastes no time in pressing her finger and thumb together. Pinching, pelting out the pain.
Merewen screams.
Isolte keeps pinching.
On and on and on it goes. She doesn’t waver. She doesn’t stop. No matter how much her husband screams. The people in the square look on in horror. The Matrons have all gone still.
Finally, I tell her to stop. “That’s enough.”
Merewen slumps, not even fully coherent anymore. With my rot coursing through him, he’s already begun to smell. He’ll be dead soon. Fever, blotched skin, blisters bursting out with foul discharge, unendurable pain…that’s how the rest of his short life will be. That’s what he has to look forward to in the next few minutes.
The queen is still kneeling at my feet. With no eyebrows, no lashes, no hair on her head, she looks younger than she is. But the pure and innocent visage she tries to put on can’t hide the darkness beneath.
Wicked souls can recognize it in each other.
I glance at the Matrons. “Go.”
They scatter off the stage.
When they’re gone, I crouch down in front of the queen. Her nostrils flare like she can’t take in enough oxygen, body swaying away from me and shaking like a leaf.
“You didn’t need much convincing, did you?” I ask. “I tell you to torture your own husband, and you did it without wavering. Without even a plea on his behalf.”
“You t-told me to,” she stutters. “You are like the god of old…”
“It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you wanting to save your own skin. If you had any love for your husband, you would’ve at least hesitated.”
All the rot that’s poking out from the crumbling stage begins to slowly move, undulating in sinister rivulets. The reaching roots delve through the stone, the ground shaking with its slither.
Isolte’s eyes dart around, watching as it begins to surround her, panic flaring in her face. “What are you doing? What is this?”
