I whip around, alarmed and furious. Chors saunters out of a dark corner, silvery moonlight scattering around his feet with every step. Behind me, there’s a rustle. Jaga leans forward, her eyes wide and interested, locked on him.
“I forbade you from coming here,” I grind out through clenched teeth as ugly, monstrous waves of jealousy swallow my heart and muddle my brain. “Get out.”
He laughs, soft and beautiful. Usually, looking at him gives me a burst of pride.Imade him, and he’s proof that I am capable of perfection. Today, his beauty is odious. He betrayed me, luring the only woman I ever wanted to his bed, and I cannot forgive him.
I can’t kill him, either. Cruel beasts, both of them.
The bane of my existence, my son, stops by my side, his head cocked as he watches her. She looks back, suddenly animated, though not as beautiful as she used to be, no.
Months of being buried underground, deprived of air and food, turned Jaga into a shadow of herself. My blood fixed what it could, healing all the internal and external wounds, but itdidn’t bring back the plumpness of her cheeks or the shine of her hair.
She looks old and haggard, a dead bride. And yet, when she smiles, I can’t stop the yearning thudding in my heart. How I missed her smiles.
Anger swallows the feeling, my fists clenching. Her eyes are firmly on Chors. The smile is for him only.
“How have you been?” he asks her, calm and pleasant as if he doesn’t see how much of a wreck she is.
Jaga shrugs, thin, paper-dry skin sliding over her sharp collarbones. I wonder if they will cut her from within. There never was anyone like her before, a mortal made immortal, and I don’t know the extent of degeneration her body can reach if uncared for. She could probably rot for eternity and still be conscious.
“I’ve been asking for delivery from this horrid, immortal life I don’t deserve every day,” she says with a smile that wants to be coy but is ghastly. Something about her gums is eerie. They are too thin, her teeth threatening to fall out of her mouth like shells.
“Ah.” Chors nods with grave understanding as if he knows exactly what she means. Ungrateful knave. “Asking won’t get you anywhere, though. You must know that. Have you tried making him mad enough to kill you in a fit of passion? If death was possible for you, that might work.”
My fists clench harder until they hurt. If I were in my other form, my claws would draw blood.
Jaga watches him impassively, and I sense her mind working. She doesn’t want to acknowledge me in any way. That’s my punishment, and she dishes it out with superb devotion. Yet if she wants to talk to Chors, she should say something.
“I don’t care enough to make him mad.”
I know why she does it, yet it still hurts. That’s the core of her revenge. With every gesture, word, and day filled with indifference, she shows me how little I matter.
Sometimes, I believe her. But I know her, too, just as she knows me. Deep under her cold exterior, Jaga hides an ocean of molten rage. She wants me to suffer. Everything she does is a calculated effort to give me pain.
“Wonderful,” Chors says without inflection. “I came to invite you for a stroll. You haven’t seen most of Nawie yet, and it’s beautiful.”
“Why not?” Carefully, as if she’s aware of every protruding bone, she slides off the throne. “I should tour the beautiful land that was denied me.”
“Denied you?” I spit. “You’d be queen of it if you said you wanted it!”
Chors looks at me with pity, and Jaga, as always, pretends I am not there. She walks down the steps, holding the hem of her torn, ugly dress that she’s worn for a month. The dress is badly mended and stained, the white turned gray. It’s a shroud. I hate seeing it on her, which, of course, is why she wears it.
Chors eyes her with one eyebrow handsomely arched.
“You surprise me, Father. I thought you’d provide our guest with some more comfortable clothing.”
“Myguest,” I grit out, loathing him and loving him, and hating it all. “Notours.And she has a wardrobe full of queenly dresses she refuses to wear. She’s spiteful and stubborn, like a child.”
Jaga doesn’t react. I suppose I’ve trained her for it. Just last week, I desperately tried to get a rise out of her with insults far worse than this, but no amount of verbal whipping made her react. She sat still and proud, eyes empty, hands loose in her lap, as I poured all my frustration and despair down her ears.
Being buried alive changed her in horrible ways. She’s stronger. Unaffected.
She doesn’t love me anymore.
Chors extends his arm to her in a gallant gesture. I surprise myself with a short-lived burst of affection. Here he is, comfortable with someone who is not me. At last. My son has made incredible strides.
By fucking my woman.Hate burns through my affection, leaving only ashes.
“Shall we? You are a queen whatever you wear, after all.”
