by Ella Fields
Mintale said nothing.
“He should cause you little difficulty now.” I jerked my head at the fallen traitor, and Mintale fetched the ropes and harness from his saddle while I climbed atop Van.
I was in the sky before Mintale could heave Raiden over the back of his mare.
We made it home without too much turbulence, unless you counted that of my once flat emotions.
I did my best to squash them as Van plummeted toward a barren patch of rocks some miles away from the castle. To play in the mountain range was one thing, but to outright alert others to my presence there by riding atop a furbane during the final hours of daylight was another foolish thing entirely.
A few people marveled at the beast dipping between the clouds, and I watched, even though I didn’t need to, as he circled the snow-dusted peaks behind the castle before disappearing.
Nightfall was descending once more, and I longed to soak in my tub until the trip had rid itself from every pore.
Allureldin came alive as the sun began to sink and then gradually died once the clock approached midnight. Until then, people flocked in and out of taverns, cafes, the theater, and restaurants—laughter and shouts echoing into the watery light cast from the curved necks of street sconces. Inside them lived families of fluttering beetles with glowing wings.
The expanding shadows and the hood of my cloak concealed most of my face. I wound through alleyways and slunk behind vendor carts, breathing a sigh of relief once my eyes feasted on the alabaster and onyx structure that rose high above the winding, sloping streets.
Behind wrought iron gates stood a monstrosity with three spires. The arched windows were stained red and gray with serpentine ivy crawling between them and over the stone exterior. Thorn-laden vines bound and knotted together over the curled metalwork, and when I touched the cool lock, feeling the jolt all the way to my core, the leafy whorls closest to it unknotted, slithering as a heavy click broke the still air and the gates opened.
Guards were quick to ensure they closed, and I strode through the mostly empty courtyard as Ainx left his post in front of the castle doors and approached.
“Clear out the dungeon,” I said once I’d reached him.
Heavy brows dipped low over sapphire eyes. “And what do you want done with the prisoners?”
“Kill the worst, warn the rest, and let them run free. I don’t particularly care.”
“My queen?” he questioned with not a little alarm, keeping stride with me as we waded into the entry chamber and strode down the halls.
I glanced at the few nearby male servants, then decided I didn’t much care. They were going to find out eventually. Let them try to crucify me for bringing a traitor back within our stronghold. I had greater challenges ahead of me. “Our king is coming home.”
Ainx coughed, and then Azela, my second, spied us at the end of the hall and waited.
She bowed, but before she could talk, I turned back to Ainx. “Fill her in and let not a whisper of this reach the townsfolk. Then call for Truin. I’ll be in my rooms.”
Seemingly pale with uncertainty, Ainx’s jaw shifted as he clipped, “Of course.”
Ignoring the gaping castle workers, I left them to it and rounded the corner, heading down the hall lined with silver-patterned carpets and drapes for the stairs. I made it to my rooms, slammed the doors, and fell against them, my eyes closing as my heart pounded a violent, bruising rhythm.
“Will he not share your chambers?”
I’d been so distracted by feelings that I hadn’t even remembered the way I’d locked Zadicus in here. I felt behind me and found no damage to the wood. He hadn’t even attempted escape, and he’d had the door handles replaced.
Opening my eyes, I found him sprawled on the bed, shirtless. “I thought you were taking your leave.”
A lazy sweep of my frame accompanied lazier words. “You’ll need to forgive me for doubting if our agreement stands to be met after you’ve just flown across the continent to fetch your late husband.” His bronze-flecked eyes sharpened and glowed as they leveled on mine. “I will not remain a lover.”
“Many would kill to be in your position.”
“And I’m sure they have.” Cold aired his smooth voice. “However,” he said, rising to a sitting position, pale skin stretching over taut muscle. “My pride is a problem.”
“Pride is never the problem,” I muttered, removing the hood from my head and then the cloak from my body. “The problem lies in how you manage it.” It puddled behind me as I undressed on the way to my bathing chamber where I drew a bath, rolling my neck as Zad leaned in the doorway, watching.
“What do you plan to do with him?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.” It pained me to admit it, but I did owe him that much at least. The cool porcelain of the circular tub bit into my skin as I sat on the side and shook some bathing salts into the water, one to heat it and another to scent it. “I will inevitably have to kill him.”
“All because you couldn’t bear to see him vow to someone else.”
My hand stilled, and I twisted, sliding into the scalding lavender-scented water. “The humans call it a wedding.”
“All the same,” Zad drawled, hands tucked in his pockets. “A pledge of commitment is a pledge of commitment.”
My nose twitched. “Go bore someone else with your pointless reminders.”
Zadicus chuckled, a dark, brash sound. “You know what? I actually find this situation quite… comical.”
Dropping the salts on the shelf behind me, I tilted my head back to glare at him.
His eyes were on my breasts as the cool air and water pebbled them. Soft and unhurried, he murmured, “You are a beautiful fool, my queen.”
“Yet you want to vow to me,” I reminded him.
His eyes flashed, meeting mine. “I don’t want to.” His top lip curled, and my muscles stiffened. “I need to. This kingdom cannot be run by a spoiled brat with enough power in her pinky to reduce it to cinders.”
A bar of butter soap flew across the bathing room, narrowly missing his head. It hit the red tiled wall, then slid to the mosaic floor in two pieces.
His lips didn’t so much as twitch with humor. Hands still inside his pockets, he just raised his brows in that infuriating way before leaving me to dwell.
With a groan, I slid beneath the water.
Zadicus was gone when I drained the tub and dressed in a black silken camisole.
For untold minutes, I laid upon the bed, staring at the whorls of vines carved into the stone ceiling.
Zad was but a buzzing tisk, forever eager to annoy the shit out of me. I knew his game—he needn’t remind me of it—but I wouldn’t allow him to question everything I did.
An alliance was needed between our territories; for although his lands fell under my jurisdiction, his people were loyal to him. Most were not supporters of my father; therefore, I doubted they were supporters of me.
Thanks to my tyrant father and his volatile power plays, over his reign that lasted nearly five hundred years, the kingdom of Allureldin had been reduced to a cesspit of fear.
Raiden had been right to show me all the ways my father was poisoning this land.
Perhaps he had been right to kill him, too. That didn’t mean I’d be the gentle princess he once hoped I’d be. Queen now, courtesy of him.
No, as cruel as he might have been, my father’s blood was a heavy oil running through my veins—racing rivers of vengeance ready to upend any who dared to usurp me. It wasn’t within me to cower, to fold to any males’ whims, especially not that of Zadicus Allblood.
I would take him as a husband if only to aid in quelling the unrest; the dislike that fanned and feathered far beyond our territories and into the Sun Kingdom—where that dislike bloomed into blood-bright hatred.
I suppose our fathers never foresaw all the ways in which an arranged marriage, a coupling that would unite our divided kingdoms once and for all, would only make things worse. Or maybe,
they did.
And they’d welcomed it with open arms.
“Enter,” I said, hearing Truin’s footsteps outside.
The doors creaked open and closed, and she padded over the hides of fur littering the stone floor to lean against the dark oak post of the bed. “You have him.”
I didn’t bother asking how she knew. “I need a spell. A tonic. A—”
“Stop,” Truin said, her voice uncharacteristically harsh.
I’d have glared at her, but I was too shamed by the words that’d fled my mouth. I hadn’t realized how badly I’d wanted to reinstate his memories and have him look at me like he once did, rather than with the confusion of a hostile stranger.
I hadn’t acknowledged the desire at all. Until now.
“Will you not do it?” I asked, more cautious.
Truin sighed, and I felt the bed dip as she perched at the end. “You cannot do this, my queen.”
“I can.” If I had to kill him, then I wanted him to look me in the eye and see what he’d done to me beforehand.
“No,” Truin said. “Forget the decree. I mean it’s just not possible.”
I sat up, my teeth gritting. “You cast the spell. You created the potion. Which means you can undo it.”
“Audra.” Her little white teeth tugged at her pink-stained lip. “There is no spell to undo something of that magnitude.”
I blinked, my stomach swaying. “None?”
She shook her head, her hands curling around one another. “I told you so before we proceeded.” It was probably true that she had, but I’d been barely breathing from all that had happened, from the array of pitch-black darkness that’d taken hold. Her brows knitted. “Why would you want to?”
“The why doesn’t matter. If it cannot be done…” Then he’d drain at sunrise.
The words hung there between us, unspoken, but louder than the crack of thunder that cleaved the sky in two outside.
Truin’s eyes softened, her hands unfolding in her lap to twirl her silver rings. Heirlooms said to contain magic of the souls who’d previously worn them.
Gazing at the wall where a collection of silver gilded mirrors hung in varying sizes, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “There are stories of those who have regained memories, some if not all, after periods of amnesia. It is trialed on the aging ones all the time when their years are no longer a match for their frail minds.” I frowned, but she answered before I could even dare ask. “It wouldn’t have worked on your father. Different feasts for different beasts.”
I sneered. “I wasn’t asking…” I clamped my teeth shut at the tight smile on her face. Sighing, I raked a hand through my damp hair, thinking, wondering if I wanted to know. “And what is this method?”
“You recount every memory you can remember. Mainly the ones that hold the biggest influence on him. On his mind, on his heart, and on his soul.”
Lying back down, defeat crawled inside my chest cavity. “I was only nineteen summers old when we met.”
Truin took a moment to answer, and I tried not to cringe at the doubt in her tone. “Then I suppose you’ll just have to hope that the memories you share will be enough to coax his true self back to the surface. Or”—she lifted her shoulders—“at least glimpses of who he once was.”
“Hope,” I repeated, the word tasting foul on my tongue.
Truin stood, a lilt to her musical voice. “It’s more powerful than it sounds, my queen.”
I snorted. “That’s what the common folk say to reassure themselves enough to sleep each night, I’m sure.”
“I am not common.”
“True. But you are a witch.” I turned to stare at her, the moonlight glinting off her butter yellow hair. “Your lot believe in a lot of nonsense things.”
Truin released a breath before bobbing her head and leaving me to rot in silence.
Glimpses. Would moments of clarity be enough for him to see what he’d done? There wasn’t a much better alternative. I groaned, rolling my face into the bedding.
When I heard the midnight bell chime from the highest tower, I tossed the sheets away and made my way down the shadowed stairs and halls.
Ainx had retired for the night, but Azela was there, her hand on her sword until she saw me step into the candlelit swath of light floating over the entrance to the dungeon. “It stinks down here.”
Excrement mingled with sweat and urine, among other lovely things, blood being the most prominent. A crow cawed at the tiny arched opening facing one of the city streets, water trickling in below its feet and down the damp rock wall.
“You killed the servants in charge of cleaning last week, and Mintale has yet to organize staff to replace them.”
I frowned. “Oh.”
Azela glanced behind her to where a bang sounded followed by a muttered curse. “He’s still as lively as ever.”
I forced my lips into some semblance of a smile, knowing she was doing her utmost to veil her displeasure over this situation, then waited for her to move out of the way. When she joined the other guards planted along the walls, I stepped forward.
My hand lifted, fingers wrapping around the cold metal of the door that led inside a ginormous chamber housing a hundred cells. He was in one of them. Close too, judging by the grunts and shaking rattle of metal.
An exhale tumbled free, burning my lips and throat when I saw a flash of his skin. His hands were around the bars, golden fingers whitening as he tugged and tugged.
If only he knew.
If only he knew that once upon a time, he had the power to melt metal and burn his way out of, or into, any structure.
Raiden was fifty years old—fifty-two now. Too young, my father had worried over dinner after our first meeting. He was over twice my age, but my father hadn’t thought that meant he was mature enough. That he was equipped to handle me and take on the responsibility of one day running an entire continent.
Just look at us now, Raiden.
“I know you’re watching me, queen.”
I blinked but refrained from pulling away, knowing he couldn’t actually see me. He could only feel me.
He could always feel me.
“Let me out.”
That thing called hope was digging a nasty, useless pit inside my stomach.
“Let me out and I won’t return to kill you in your sleep.”
The guards looked at me, scowling, but I raised a hand. “He’s mad. And he will die for it, but not tonight.”
I strode for the stairs as Raiden’s shouting chased me.
“Oh, Majesty! I do believe you’ve forgotten something.” Sarcasm filled each drawled word, and then he deadpanned. “Me.”
If I could’ve forgotten him, then I’d have left him to rot in The Edges with his human.
The thought was so sobering that when I reached the ground floor, I stopped a guard. “Deliver a message to Mintale immediately.” Didra nodded, her russet lashes unmoving. “Have him send for Raiden’s betrothed before first light.”
She blinked then. “My queen—”
“Go,” I said, taking the stairs to my rooms. “Now.”
Three days passed before I gathered the courage to begin.
Three days consisting of meetings with the general and my guard, and ensuring new staff was scheduled to clean the dungeon on a daily basis.
Three days of my heart beating on high alert and a queasy feeling slithering throughout my body whenever I remembered the look in his eyes. I knew it would happen. I knew it, and still, I chose it. I knew he’d never look at me again, let alone look at me with love, by the way those green orbs, like that of new grass, had surveyed me as though I were brand new. Unrecognizable. Foreign.
Yet I wasn’t. Not entirely.
Every night, he knew I was there—a darkness even the shadows couldn’t hide.
The death threats came to an end after night two, and instead, he tried to reason with me. But a traitor with nothing had nothing to give, and he knew it.
“Anything yo
u want. I’ll do it.” His hands were slippery over the bars confining him, sliding as the desperate croak within his rough voice crackled further.
I caved then, the goddesses knew why, and unlocked the door to the dungeon.
“Majesty,” Azela said, reaching for me when I slipped through the following gate.
I closed it and gave her a look that dared her to worry about my safety. “Leave us.”
Her head began to shake, troubled eyes watering, and still, I repeated, “Leave us.” For it was time, and I refused to let anyone else listen to what I was about to retell. “All of you head upstairs to the ground floor. Now.”
There was a stall, a pause of reluctance, but I waited until their footsteps could no longer be heard, then drew in a quick breath and turned around.
In the center of the dungeon, with many a cell scattered around his in a maze of rust-stained metal, Raiden stood. “Ah, so she wants something after all.”
My heels clacked over stone, stone marked with years of pain and death, and I smiled. “Just your time.” I lifted my nails to inspect them, if only to keep from meeting his intense gaze so soon. “Which, it seems, you have a lot of.”
“Thanks to you.”
My gaze snapped to him then, and he sighed, broad shoulders slumping as he laid his forehead against the bars. “What is the meaning of this? I am but a working lad from The Edges. I mine six days a week and always pay my dues.” I forced my burning eyes away from his narrowed ones. “My only sin is enjoying a tankard or three of lager every other evening after work.”
“Your soft side does not appeal to me.” I hoisted myself up onto the torture table that sat before his cell in the center of the room, the wood crusted and worn beneath my hands. “Not now, not ever, and especially not when just yesterday, you were reciting all the ways you’d like to kill me. Slowly. I believe knives and an axe were involved.” I hummed. “Creativity was never your strong suit.”
He barked a harsh laugh. “You interrupted my wedding to the love of my life.”
I caught myself before I flinched. “And pray tell, how exactly did that come to be?” I was curious—the painful, self-destructive type.