A King So Cold

by Ella Fields

  “You speak as if I did not care.” My tone was carefully gentle, but the manner in which she’d passively accused me could not be ignored. “You couldn’t be more wrong.”

  Sitting back, she sucked her lips, eyeing her twisting fingers in her lap. “I sometimes wonder if you’d have loved me had she survived.”

  “I will always love you.”

  Her head snapped up. “Not how you used to. Not in the way I need you to.” When I failed to respond, she snapped, “Why? Why, Zad? What did I do?”

  “We need to drop this.”

  She laughed, dry and disbelieving. “You drop everything. Everything that doesn’t involve the queen.”

  “She is our queen,” I said as though she were daft. “There is no ignoring her.”

  “Did she request you visit her castle of nightmares all these years?” She laughed. “Yes, I heard that you spent a great deal of time there, especially after she’d matured.” Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine, and I dropped my gaze to the desk. “Of course,” she said, jumping down and snatching the pipe.

  I watched, my spine pulling taut as she sniffed it. “Cloves.”

  There was nothing I could do, or think to say, as Nova paced before the desk, the pipe clenched in her fist.

  “I learned a lot during my time in The Edges.”

  “Did you now?” My question was a warning.

  She didn’t heed it. “Yes,” she said, her eyes beginning to overflow as she stopped and threw the pipe at me. I lifted a hand, catching it before it smacked into my face. “I learned the scent of cloves can mask just about any trace of magic you wish it to.”

  “It’s also calming,” I said, knowing where this was going but unable to stop it.

  She slapped her hands onto the desk, face scrunched with rage as she hissed, “It hides the scent of a link.”

  The doors outside opened, and I pleaded, warned, begged, with my eyes for her to remain quiet.

  Thankfully, it was only Kash, and he knew. Being that his sense of smell was a thousand times better than that of a royal, he and my other friends had known for years.

  Nova stepped back, running her hands over her wet cheeks.

  “Nova,” I called.

  “Fuck you, Zad.”

  Kash, his dark brows arching high, watched her go, then tilted his head at me. “So she finally figured out your deep, dark secret.”

  Groaning, I loosened my tunic. “Afraid so.”

  “Well, I hate to worsen your mood, but I’ve just received news from my friends of the forest.”

  His friends being wolves. Two giant beasts who blended with any shadow.

  They were not only beasts but also human and could change forms when they wanted to.

  They didn’t want to. They were a species of Fae, and they’d rather roam the continent in wolf form than risk death.

  At the unreadable look in his black eyes, I rose from the chair. “What is it?”

  “The queen. She was seen being escorted home by carriage of the Sun Kingdom.” He chose his next words carefully. “With her witch. Cross said he detected injury.”

  Audra

  “Listen,” my mother said. “For if you can, the beat of your heart and the whisper of the wind will tell you what you need to know.”

  Standing upon the highest turret of the castle, I could hear nothing. Nothing save for the howl of the wind and my heart in my ears. They weren’t speaking, not in any language I could understand.

  My hair twirled around my face, my fingers rubbing the puckered flesh upon the corner of my lips. Truin was home and resting. I was home, but I hadn’t so much as glanced at my bed.

  Cussing and scuffing came from behind, and I shifted to find my guards dragging a dark-haired bartender out onto the circular patch of concrete.

  Azela and Ainx, the latter with a scar far thicker than my own, halted when I lifted my hand.

  “The bartender, Majesty,” Ainx said, kicking him in the back. The bartender lurched forward with a grimace, his split lip seeping as he dared to gape up at me. “Cursed Pints. The one who let the girl roam free.”

  “She wasn’t her,” the bartender, Eli, cried. “I swear it. She was a different woman. I-I-I opened t-the door to the cellar, and she was just standing there as though she’d been waiting for someone to help her.”

  My eyes, so dry they ached, protested when I blinked slowly.

  Azela snarled, then gripped his hair, wrenching his head back. “You dare to speak to the queen without being addressed?”

  “Release him,” I said.

  Confused, Azela did as I said, eyeing me skeptically.

  Folding my hands before me, I crept closer to the shivering male. “Go on.”

  Swallowing hard, he did. “S-she said she walked in there thinking it was the ladies’ room, earlier in the night, but before she realized she’d taken a wrong turn, the door locked behind her.” With a helpless tilt of his shoulders, he whispered, “So I just let her leave. I didn’t know until I’d walked down the stairs that I’d been fooled. I’m s-so so sorry.”

  “Get up,” I said.

  His eyes darted everywhere, his head shaking.

  “She said get up, fool.” Ainx kicked him again.

  Eli stumbled forward, his bound hands unable to keep him upright, and his cheek scraped over the ground.

  I sighed, looking at Azela, who grabbed him and hauled him to his feet.

  Walking close, so close he could feel my breath upon the bleeding cut on his lip, upon the graze being stung by the wind, I whispered, “Return to your tavern, and should I hear of you running from ownership of your transgressions again, I will empty every bottle of liquor down your cowardly throat while sipping your best wine as you drown.”

  His gulp was loud enough to be heard above the whistle of the wind, and with a surprised nod, he smiled, his lip splitting even more. “Yes, yes, of c-course, your majesty. It will never happen again.”

  Azela pulled him back, cutting him loose of the rope binding his wrists and ankles.

  Eli scampered to the doorway, but then paused, turning back to grace me with curious eyes. “Thank you, my queen.”

  I snarled, and he darted into the shadows, likely leaping down the steps as if he feared I’d change my mind.

  “Audra,” Azela said.

  I angled my head, and she caught herself. “My queen.” Confusion wrung her brows. “What… why?”

  “He betrayed you,” Ainx said, his face scrunched with outrage. “Risked your safety and countless others too.”

  “The changer was not interested in me.”

  Azela ran a hand over her forehead. “What do you mean?”

  I turned back to the wall, splaying my hands over it as I gazed at the woods in the distance to the east. “She is the lord’s wife, and if anyone should be trialed for treason, it is her for making a mockery of the law and tricking us all.”

  “Nova?” Ainx questioned. “But she is dead.”

  “She is very much alive.” My nails scored into the mortar, breaking. “Unfortunately.”

  “A token of good faith,” read the tag attached to the gagged male’s neck.

  I eyed him, the stubborn glint in his dark eyes, and then I moved onto the next. He wore the same tag, his face busted and bruised.

  “Put up a fight, did you?”

  He couldn’t answer me, and I grinned. “I’ll bet you did.” My smile dropped as I circled him, scenting the fear in the air, inhaling it deep into my lungs to feed my soul.

  Mintale watched on, shifting on his feet, while my personal guard stood in tense silence.

  “What a lovely surprise to be gifted first thing this fine, drizzly morning.” My tone was sickly sweet, my footsteps whisper soft as I continued to circle the huge males, my black nightgown dragging behind me on the rug bedecked floor.

  A band of warriors from the Sun Kingdom had delivered the barbarians right to my doorstep, then bowed and retreated as soon as my guards had taken the mixed mal
es inside our gates. I’d barely seated myself in the dining room for breakfast, not that I’d been interested in eating, when word had been delivered.

  One of them groaned behind the gag in his mouth.

  “Oh, yes.” I tapped my chin. “That would be excruciatingly uncomfortable. Why, I’m sure your poor jaw is just aching relentlessly.”

  Nobody seemed to breathe, not even my guards, as I came to a stop before the lineup of filth.

  Then Mintale scurried forward. “Should we escort them to the dungeon, Majesty?”

  “No,” I said, throwing a smile his way. His bushy brows swept up when I said, “The city square.”

  The guards snapped into action, and no one stopped me as I returned to my rooms.

  Inside, I paused in the doorway, scenting him.

  Seated in the armchair with his chin propped upon a fist, Zadicus waited for me to enter.

  “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “I was told you were busy.” He stood, assessing me from head to toe. “I heard what happened.”

  The six bells rang. I licked my teeth, finding it hard to stomach his presence, especially on an empty stomach. So I stayed on task and headed to my armory in the next room.

  “Audra,” he said, right on my heels.

  “Not now.”

  Trailing my finger over the glass, I paused on a serrated dagger with a wooden hilt encrusted with emeralds. Much the same as Raiden’s Little Lion’s eyes.

  I opened the cabinet and plucked it out, tucking it inside my sleeve as I skirted the hovering male behind me, and hurried from my rooms. Slowing my pace at the bottom of the stairs, I heard his footsteps behind me.

  Let him follow, I thought. I gave not a single shit.

  Ainx and Azela were waiting for me outside and fell in step beside me as we walked to the gates.

  On the other side, the crowds grew thicker by the minute, and down the hill in the square, five males were displayed on the bloodstained platform, their hands bound to a bar above their heads, and their ankles bound and bolted to the wood beneath them.

  Mintale joined us outside the gates. “Have all those under the age of sixteen summers leave the square.” I couldn’t stop them from seeing it, but I could try to stop them from seeing it up close.

  The screams would be enough to haunt them for the coming days.

  He nodded, racing off to inform the guards stationed on each side of the street and outside every third business.

  “What do you plan to do with them?” a smooth voice sounded.

  “We’re going to have some fun,” I sang, keeping my attention fixed on the dais.

  He couldn’t rattle me. Not now. Not when my very blood was burning with the need for vengeance.

  Zad wisely said nothing but stayed with us until we’d reached where the crowd could hardly breathe, and I waited. They parted, many ashen faces staring back at me as well as a lot of curious ones.

  I slipped the dagger from my sleeve and climbed the steps, tracing it along the bare stomachs of those who’d abused my friend.

  Murmurs and whispers began to abate, a silence that could only be in preparation for certain death settling over the entire city.

  Turning to the city dwellers, the townsfolk, the sailors, and the farmers and occupants of nearby villages, I clasped my hands in front of me. Meeting the eyes of a few young men in the front row, I felt my tongue grow thick and looked away.

  “A message, if you will,” I said, loud and rough. “For those who touch what does not want touching. For those who take from those who request to be left alone.” I pulled my shoulders back, my chin rising. “A message for those who think a female, of any form, is without enough power to harm you.” I wasted no more time. “Remove their cloth.”

  Two guards rushed onto the dais, doing as I said, while the gagged males looked anywhere and everywhere.

  I started with the one who’d tried to run away, and bent down, gazing up at him over the mound of his stomach. He whimpered, and I smiled, and then I struck.

  Screams erupted from the crowd, almost loud enough to smother that of the castrated male, as the scent of blood and fecal matter drowned the air.

  Slowly, and with steady hands, I removed every last piece of him.

  By the time I stood, he was dead. “Pity,” I clucked.

  Then, I moved on to the next, and the next, each one fueling the inferno inside me, throwing fire onto flames that already raged, wanting more, needing more.

  My hands were covered in gore, blood running down my arms and inside the gossamer sleeves of my nightgown, but I didn’t care. I smeared it over my cheek as I stood before the last male and watched tears race down his cheeks.

  Keeping my eyes on his, I leaned forward, and whispered to his lips, “Think of me in the darkness while your ass is raped by vermin just like you for all eternity.”

  His scream was silent, filling his eyes, blood vessels bursting as I reached between us and began to saw.

  When the light left his eyes, I turned to find only two of them still alive and rubbed my blood-smeared lips together. “Weak, but we already knew that.” I turned to the silent, gaping, horrified crowd. “Didn’t we?”

  Nods and shouted yeses were received, and with a glance at Zad, whose expression hinted at nothing but steel calm, I shouted, “You may disperse.”

  Many left, and surprisingly, many stayed.

  I stepped down from the dais but slowed my feet when I saw the line of human women and females approach it.

  I didn’t stop them. I wouldn’t dare.

  One by one, they spat at the deceased and barely breathing males.

  Well, what had been males.

  When they caught my eye, they did so with a nod or a smile.

  Azela, observing the gore I was covered in, approached with a wet cloth, but I waved her off. “Have their genitals impaled on the spires of the gates.” The remainder of the crowd parted as I left the square and began climbing the hill.

  Saying nothing, Zad walked beside me, but as if knowing I was in no mood for him, he left me outside my rooms.

  Sometime later, my eyes fluttered open to find a bristle-covered neck and jaw, the scent of mint and cloves lulling my eyes closed as I was carried from the bath to my bed.

  Zad dried me as best he could and then crawled into bed behind me, pulling the bedding up over our shoulders.

  The streets were damp, the lights above struggling to shine through the fog that pressed heavy hands upon the city.

  Outside her apartment stood two guards, one of them Berron, who had returned to service in my absence despite being told he may do as he wished.

  “My queen,” he said, a sad smile lifting his cheeks.

  The female bobbed her head. “Quite a show, your majesty.”

  That pricked. “Enjoy it, did you?”

  Her eyes widened, but her smile was genuine. “I did, yes.”

  I held her gaze for a moment, then nodded, shifting my focus to Berron. “I thought you’d be sipping wine in the trees by now.”

  “Too cold,” he said, eyes dancing.

  With a shake of my head, I squeezed his arm. “Has she been out?”

  His lashes lowered. “No, but she also hasn’t any need to leave.” His gaze bounced up to the dark window above. “Not with all the meals you’ve had the cooks send her.”

  “Her coven?”

  “Her grandmother has visited, but she does not wish to see anyone else.”

  I hated that yet I understood, as best I could without having the horrors she’d experienced wrought upon myself. I’d wanted to visit with her, but I’d been single-mindedly focused on dealing with the filth who’d assaulted her, being that they’d arrived shortly after we’d gotten home.

  About to open the door, I turned to Berron. “When does your shift end?”

  “Two hours.” His smile was teasing, his face not as gaunt as it had been some weeks ago. “Why? Fancy a frolic in the frosted fields?”

  The female
next to him coughed.

  “No more of that. Your male is not impressed.”

  His eyes darkened, his expression turning to stone. Such change was unexpected on the typically jovial face. “I heard. You should’ve had his head.”

  I knew he didn’t mean those words, not entirely. “Then what good would he be to you?”

  His bark of shocked laughter followed me up the stairs, the door creaking closed behind me, leaving me in dusty black.

  My hand skimmed the scratched railing, the other lifting my skirts, and once I’d reached the landing, I found I could go no farther without taking a moment.

  Steeling my shoulders, I pulled them back and drew a fortifying breath.

  Then I knocked.

  She didn’t answer, and I frowned. About to twist the doorknob, I flinched when she finally opened the door, her hair a mess but her tiny smile genuine. “Well, if it isn’t the scariest queen this land will ever see.”

  “Jokes, very good.”

  A laugh bubbled out, filling my chest with a cupful of relief. “Oh, it’s no joke.” Her eyes filled, mouth trembling as she said, “But I, for one, am grateful to know her.”

  My nose crinkled, my eyes stinging. “Shut up and let me in. It’s disgustingly dusty out here.”

  With another merciful bout of laughter, she did, closing and locking the door behind me.

  I noticed the action but did not deign to remind her that no one would dare touch her.

  She needed to do what she needed to.

  “Tea?” she offered, heading to the small stove.

  I made for my usual seat before the fire. “No.” She’d moved her mattress closer to it, and I bounced a little, lowering and shifting knitted blankets and fluffy pillows out of the way.

  She joined me without a tea for herself. Folding her skirts over her knees, she rested her chin upon them. “Ask me how I’m feeling and I fear I’ll scream, queen or not.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Lovely weather.”

  She laughed, her bare toes scrunching as she watched the flames crackle. “I heard them,” she said a sodden minute later, so very quiet.