She had disrupted the order he'd maintained for so long.
He should have killed her when she first spoke out of turn.
The reaching hands at his throne's base seemed to curl more tightly, as if they too were unsettled by the change she represented. Somewhere in the skull-lined walls, a jaw clicked softly. The sound might have been settling. Might have been agreement.
VII.
BRYNN
The door closed behind her with a sound like a tomb sealing shut.
Brynn stood frozen for a couple of full heartbeats. Then she let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, her hands shaking as she pressed them against her thighs.
Holy shit. Holy shit.
She'd just told The Reaper, the actual fucking Reaper, the Death Lord everyone in the kingdom whispered about in terror, that he didn't scare her. She'd walked right up to his throne when his entire court kept twelve feet back. She'd met those dark eyes and refused to flinch.
And now she was alone, and her knees felt like water.
She moved to the nearest chair, its frame carved from pale bone, the armrests ending in curled skeletal fingers. She sank into it before her legs could give out completely. Her hands were still trembling. She pressed them flat against her knees, trying to stop the shaking through sheer willpower.
Get it together, Brynn.
She forced herself to look around the room properly. The walls were covered in dark purple silk, so deep it was almost black, but this was no ordinary fabric. Woven into the silk were scenes of death,hauntingly beautiful tableaus that seemed to move and depict the scene. A woman in a field of flowers, her soul rising from her body. A battle frozen mid-slaughter, warriors falling in almost graceful poses. A child sleeping peacefully while a shadowy figure bent over the bed.
The images moved. The woman's soul drifted higher. The warriors fell further. The shadow's hand reached closer to the sleeping child.
She looked away.
The furniture was carved from wood so dark it was almost black, but bone accents decorated every piece. Drawer pulls shaped like finger bones, a mirror framed in polished bone. The bed was massive, its headboard formed from curved bones that arched overhead like protective arms. Or a cage. The posts were wrapped in carved bone vines bearing flowers that, on closer inspection, were tiny skulls with petals.
Someone here really loves their bone collection. Either that, or there's a truly impressive graveyard somewhere nearby.
The absurd thought steadied her slightly. Made this feel less like a nightmare and more like a very strange place with very strange decorating choices.
Guest quarters. Not a cell. Not servant's lodgings.
What the hell did that make her?
She moved to the windows. Always check your exits, even when you know there aren't any. The heavy curtains, made of that purple silk, were pulled back to reveal something that made her stomach drop all over again.
The sky hung in eternal twilight, deep purple bleeding into midnight blue, never brightening to day or darkening to full night. In the distance, palace spires of black stone and pale bone rose against that unchanging sky, their Gothic architecture stark and severe. She could see ribcage archways connecting towers, windows framed in what might have been jawbones. Figures in dark robes walked between the spires, their movements unnaturally smooth, too fluid to be entirely human.
She let the curtain fall and backed away from the window, her hands shaking again.
She just told him she wasn’t scared. She looked him in the eye and said he didn't scare her.
The worst part? She'd meant it in the moment. Standing there with his entire court watching, with those dark eyes fixed on her like she was something he couldn't quite figure out, she'd felt more alive than she had in months. More herself than she'd been since the moment guards dragged her out of that underground chamber.
But now, alone in this too-fancy room with death scenes shifting on the walls, the fear caught up.
She kept moving. Better to map her cage than stand still and let the panic settle in.
The bathing room was carved from black marble veined with white, looking unsettlingly like exposed bone. A chandelier of tiny interlocked finger bones hung overhead, holding candles that burned with that same cold blue flame. When her fingertips accidentally brushed the edge of the tub, warmth pulsed under her palm.
She jerked her hand back so fast she nearly lost her balance.
"Don't touch anything. Don't touch anyone. Don't touch me."
