“You’re not going to sleep tonight, I can already tell. Something is up your ass and you’re going to tell me, damnit.”
Rune looks at me expectantly, as if he could will my mouth to open and reveal my thoughts to spill over.
My jaw remains tight.
“Kass, I’m not sure what troubles you. This is just another step toward the end. Once we get rid of the rebels, well, we might have a chance to be free. To live as we?—”
I slam my fist against a nearby tree.
“We’ll never be free. Don’t forget that, Rune. Of all people I thought you’d understand. You were the one who slapped thosemanacles on me, after all.” My chest heaves and my shadows begin to swim to the surface. “We haven’t been free in over two hundred turns. We won’t ever be, especially with that twisted bastard who is so willing to whisper everything to the king.”
I pull my shirt collar down to accentuate the mark inked on me. The black band that encircles my neck, collaring me to the king’s will. It’s now as much a part of me as the death curse I bear.
“I can’t pretend I have another choice, Rune. I’ve already lost everything. We’re brothers by fate because we’re both at his majesty’s will. Both of us inked with the Nasc Gal, the damned eternal tie that forces us to do as King Euron wishes.”
His head sinks, the glimmer of hope now gone. His voice is as stony as I feel when he says, “We both may share that wicked bond given from those ancient witches forcing us to be tied to the king for eternity, or until he finds his ass in the depths of Haldir, but I don’t regret our kinship.”
He throws a log on the small fire he ignited during my rant and doesn’t look back at me, any warmth we might have had in our mood now smothered out.
“Your friendship with me is only due to our circumstances. You would have kept me at a distance like all others before you once you’d learned of Mors Finalem.”
I look into the sky and study the moons glowing bright. “They’ve all eventually run or been killed because of me. You know it. I’m better off alone. I’m no better than Orlin and his ability to torment the mind.”
It pains me to beat down Rune in this way. To harden him against me and to continue choosing isolation. But getting too close to me only ends in suffering, for both of us. If King Euron knew we hoped for escape, even after all this time, we would be tortured and Orlin would be all too willing to pierce our minds.
To imagine being free only stirs memories I’d rather leave buried in their watery grave. I tried that once, and all I learned was that I’ll only be untied to this life of servitude when I greet the veil, and for now, that’s rather impossible.
Instead, I’ll continue on, numbing myself more every day until I can finally be that hollow shell, waiting to be stomped out.
I was doing well with that untilshecame along.
For some reason, that blasted woman with star-kissed cheeks has done more to unravel the threads sewing me closed in mere days than I could weave in two hundred years.
“I’m going to keep watch first.” I make way toward the path that leads to the fortress’s door. I’d rather sit close to her than listen to Rune gripe. I’ll leave him to his souring mood and keep my little warrior safe for the night, at least from Rion.
Tomorrow she’ll meet a much bigger horror than him.
“Don’t get too attached, Kassiel,” Rune calls through the night air. “The king expects you to put on a show for the rest of the village when you take her soul. He won’t risk her crossing the veil again to cause him more shit.”
A stone drops in my stomach. There’s nothing I hate more than publicly stealing a soul away. This lesson isn’t just for the villagers and The Hidden. It’s also a message to me, one I understand all too clearly.
I am his weapon.
His Executioner.
The Devourer.
Chapter 7
Alora
If I close my eyes I can still feel Lord Velroy’s slimy breath on my neck. His grip still etched into my mind. I hate that he’s made me feel weak and vulnerable, that he almost took from me.That he did take from me.It might not have progressed tothatbut he did steal from me.
I can’t help but feel the filth on my skin, like I’ll never be clean again. Right now I miss the warmed pools of Rivers End. If only I could sink beneath the surface of those waters and let out the screams that burn in my chest to be free. If only I could sink my fingers into the sand at the bottom of those pools and rake it over my skin to wash away the traces of him. I wish I had openedhis brain under my heel, but the truth was that he could have easily done that to me earlier.
He was a Melder. I hadn’t expected that. It was foolish of me to assume all magical folk in Astoria would be sympathetic to our cause. Of course I knew that both sides of this war had people from magical lines and nonmagical.
It’s difficult for me to understand how those in alignment with the king, and possessing magic, wouldn’t see his treatment as cruelty. I mean, the bastard has a brood of women for breeding, even though he can’t father a child, and men for pleasure. Magical folk who had lives and independence before they were sequestered to the king’s menagerie.
