That was the trouble with items like the one Jaxon held in his pocket. An illusion made by their comrade Markam, much to Sonara’s dismay… and one that would fade by day’s end.
Sonara’s toes reached the edge of the dais, her slippers damp from sweat.
“Lady Morgana,” the trumpeteer began, his voice ringing out across the throne room, bounding off the diamond-domed ceiling far overhead. Fractals of light reflected off the golden tiles, making Sonara dizzy as she took Jaxon’s arm. With a predator’s grace, she ascended the golden steps to the throne.
The king’s eyes were jaded as he stared at his polished fingernails, as if he hadn’t a care in the world about the hundreds of brides come to grovel at his feet. She supposed the ceremony had lost its luster, as he took a new bride each year.
Sonara reached the top, Jira’s throne drawing her attention. It was a morbid thing, even for her eyes, and somehow more menacing up close.
They weren’t beast bones.
They were Dohrsaran bones, people that Jira himself had slain. Some of the bones, like the femurs that made up the backrest and the jagged spines lacing around the arched back, were cracked. As if Jira had split them in two with the sheer force of his will.
But Sonara knew the true cause of those split bones. It was the golden sword that hung at his side, unsheathed.
Gutrender.
Hell, the sword was a beauty. Her eyes fell upon the pommel in the shape of the Hadru, the mighty monster that was the sigil of the Deadlands. The pommel was shaped like the Hadru’s barbed tail, ready to strike, the blade itself sticking out of the beast’s open maw. Jira kept one of the beasts—the largest ever beheld in the kingdom—in a pit at the northernmost point of the Deadlands, waiting for victims to swallow whole.
Ancient symbols swirled across Gutrender’s blade, markings that Sonara could not decipher but had seen carved across the Deadlands for centuries. Markings that whispered of times long ago, when the goddesses birthed Dohrsar from the abyss and swaddled it in a blanket of stars.
“Beautiful,” Sonara whispered, as she looked at Gutrender.
Her curse whispered, too.
Blood,it said, begging to come out of its cage.Hot blood and ripped metal and shredded bones.
She allowed her curse to creep out, focusing with her breath as she pushed it slowly past the sword’s aura until it landed upon the king.
His taste was powerful.
Prideful.
And utterly foul.
Jira looked her up and down as she stopped before him, her blue-and-brown braid hanging like a rope over one shoulder, seashells interwoven through the strands. Her body, covered in makeup to disguise all the scars.
“You have an appetite for dangerous things?” Jira asked. “That is… uncommon, for a Lady.”
His voice was deep and booming and all too close.
It made her want to vomit onto her slippers.
This man… he sought out the hidden people like Sonara, with blood the color of shadows.
Demons,some called them.
Ghosts,claimed others.
Devils,Sonara thought, for she was the Devil incarnate, standing before him. Whatever the case, those rare few like her were sentenced to another death; the kind they couldn’t come back from again.
“I beg your pardon, my king,” Sonara said, bowing her head.What would the delicate Lady Morgana say to gain his favor, to get him to reach out and touch her hand?She swallowed and gave a pathetic attempt at a flirtatious laugh. “My mother was a skilled weaponsmaiden from Soreia. And the sword…” She released a gentle breath.“Well, there are a great many tales about what it can do, when wielded by a man withtruepower.”
“Power,” Jira echoed. His eyes flicked up and down her body, testing her curves. “And a bride who appreciates it.”
Don’t snarl,Sonara told herself.
“A gift, my king,” she said. “From my providence in the southern kingdom. May I?” Jira nodded.
