“What are you?” Kinlear gasped.
“I am yours,” the monster whispered. “And you are mine.”
“No,” Kinlear shook his head. He backed up until he felt the solid bark of a tree behind his heels. He rememberedthisdeath, too. Soon the monster would drive those claws deep. And then it would rip out his still-beating heart, smiling as the light left Kinlear’s eyes. “I am Kinlear Laroux. I am the prince of Lordach. I am?—”
“You are dead, Little Prince,” the monster growled. “Until you decide to live.”
He didn’t get to ask what it meant before those claws drove deep into him.
And he died.
Again.
And again.
...and again.
8
Kinlear was fourteen, standing in the depths of the summer palace as the wind licked the open penance marks on his skin.
Three times this week, he had broken laws. They were silly ones, like lying or cheating in a card game.Bear’s Banehad become his greatest source of secrets from the servants, which he often used to his advantage in deciding where best he could hide from his mother or the Touvreain Masters.
In today’s particular case, he should have asked the servants about the head cook’s route for the day...for it wasthatthankless bastard who caught Kinlear shoving his tongue down a servant girl’s throat...and it wasn’t even Absolution Day.
Worth it,Kinlear thought smugly.
For kisses, he’d always pay penance.
It was fun, he’d admit...and it fed a part of his soul he didn’t even know was starved, when others got close to him. Because deep down, he missedhome. He missed a different girl, and when he kissed others...sometimes, he imaginedherface.
So, over time, penance had become like a silly little game to Kinlear.
He no longer feared it.
It couldn’t be worse than the death he still found each time he fell asleep, and so here he wasagain, in Touvre’s penance temple. Paying his godsdamned dues.
It was a lovely, sunlit room, a rounded dome open to the outside air, with a single marble table upon which a Sacred could lay to receive their branding. He was surprised the Masters had found any room left on his body upon which to place his mark.
He no longer looked at himself in the mirror when he changed or bathed.
He couldn’t bear to see his own skin.
Birds chirruped happily around him: little flashes of red and yellow, as they danced overhead. They didn’t fear him. Sometimes, they even came to visit him, as if they thought nothing of his ruined back.
The wind whipped through the open windows, kissing his marks.
“Gods be damned,” Kinlear hissed.
It was horrible, the feel of the wind.
His only solace was that it reminded him of Soraya, his only true friend beyond Arawn.
Gods, he’d give anything to see her now, with how much she had to have mastered her pillar as the years had passed.
They’d stayed in contact, to his surprise.
Not a week went by without a letter from her, sent by raven.
