“The required sacrifice of a child,” I snap. “Where I come from, enslaving children is a major red flag. It’s evil.”
Tempest nudges the side of my leg with her own under the guise of crossing her legs. I know I’m not being a good minion right now, but I can’t let this go.
“Hmph,” Adril says. “And ruling a kingdom of individuals who previously wanted you dead without requiring any assurance of their loyalty is naive, weak, and ineffectual. Restitution must be made. Would you offer yourself in exchange for the children’s freedom?”
Nevina’s head snaps around to glare at her father. It takes me a hot minute to figure out that he’s not joking. He actually wants me to say if I’d offer myself up as a slave so that the villagers could bend the knee without paying the tax. As much as I believe in justice and freedom, I won’t harm myself or my relationship with Damien for people I’ve never even met. Still, I try to be diplomatic about it.
“I am mated to a shade,” I say softly. “I am not my own to offer in exchange for anyone’s freedom.”
He snorts. “Then perhaps you should let the villages decide what they are willing and unwilling to do. As for my daughter, she will not be bowing to anyone, least of all the expectation that she be good and fair and loved. No, lady, my daughter will be feared as all elf queens before her. Her patience has been tested long enough.”
The way he stares at me, unblinking, unsettles me. But I don’t back down. I hold his cold, cruel stare until everyone else in the room begins to shift uneasily.
Finally, I say, “No one is asking the queen to bow. I’m asking the queen to lead.”
19
The God of the Dead
ELOISE
The second I’m free of that room, I launch myself into the hall, anxious to escape Adril’s presence. I thought Nevina was bad. Her father is a monster. The farther I get away from him, the more my skin warms, and the blood begins flowing to my fingers again.
“The cemetery,” Tempest says as she grazes past me.
Odette heads in the opposite direction, toward the front stairs. I don’t see Eudora anywhere, but I can’t believe she’d linger in that room for another second.
I breathe deep when I reach the front lawn, allowing the moon’s light to seep into my skin. I have half a mind to seek out Damien in the stables and tell him exactly what happened. But first, I want to hear what Tempest has to say. I move quickly toward the cemetery. Out of respect, I’ve never entered the boundary before while walking the grounds. This time, I cross inside, searching for the ladies of Stygarde. The graveyard takes up the area on the opposite side of the castle to the garden, but far enough back that it butts up against the forest. Instead of headstones, life-size statues of the dead stand guard over the graves, and unlike Earth’s rolling meadows, this graveyard is planted with flowering trees, climbing vines, and blooming shrubs.
I follow the path, finding Tempest beside a statue of Thanesia. I recognize the goddess from her picture in the book I read last night—the three dogs at her feet, the leather armor, the bow and quiver. But had I not seen that picture, I could have guessed who she was. An altar before her throne is so stained with layers of blood it looks black, and her stone eyes are trained on it, forever watching for the next sacrifice. It’s both gruesome and fascinating. This is no benevolent goddess in a toga who hears prayers and occasionally answers them. This is a goddess who has seen war. Who has ushered souls into the afterlife. Who favors warriors. Whose wrath I would never wish to inspire.
As I approach Tempest, Odette emerges from between two trees, and Eudora sifts into the graveyard in her shadow state, taking form next to me. Tempest raises her arms and looks up at the statue of Thanesia. “Goddess of night and dark, I call on you to cast a dome of protection over me and my sisters, that we may, this hour, serve you to your utmost honor and glory.”
I take a step forward in surprise as an unexpected wind circles behind me. The air nudges me closer to the statue. Under the watchful light of the moon, all of us crowd together, the scent of past blood sacrifices burning in my nose.
“What are we going to do?” Eudora asks. The skin of her face and neck are blotchy and stand out over the sharp edges of her collarbones. But the red around her eyes is the brightest. She’s been crying. And all I can think is she can’t afford to lose the salt in those tears.
Tempest pulls her into her arms. “We aren’t going to give up, and we aren’t going to give in.”
“How many villages haven’t sworn fealty to New Stygarde?” I ask.
They all look at me as if I’m stupid. “None of the west villages have sworn fealty or paid the tax,” Eudora says. “We will not give up our children.”
Odette balks as if the words sting. “None of us wanted to give up our people, Eudora, but the Borderlands had no choice. With our location so near Willowgulch, we would all have perished without the accord.”
Eudora raises a hand. “I wasn’t judging you or your people, Odette. You did what you had to do, and you made the hardest decision of all.”
“Of course she didn’t mean it like that,” Tempest says. “We know it’s different for you in Zephrine.”
“What’s different?” I ask.
Tempest frowns so deeply her lips pull back from her teeth. “We held out for years, you understand. We control the coastline and the port after all. Until that pointy-eared harlot threatened to allow the elves to take control of our entire region and all our shipping channels. We didn’t have the muscle to stop her. Not when she had control of what remained of the umbrae.”
I chew my lip. The umbrae were the elite warriors who acted as Stygarde’s army. Damien was once the leader of the umbrae. “So, you had to…” The very thought of having to devise some method of choosing a child to hand over makes bile rise in my throat.
“I am the Lady of Aendor, Eloise. I gave my own son—” Her voice breaks, and I feel a hot tear carve its way down my cheek. “My adult son. At the time, Nevina allowed children of any age. Joyna understood what he was doing for our region and volunteered. He sacrificed himself so that we could remain in control, feed our citizens. We decided together that we couldn’t put the burden on our people.”
Tempest’s gaze flits to Odette’s, and I see something pass between them, a level of defiance I never noticed before.
