Araes finished his pint and gestured for a refill. He’d drink himself into oblivion if it would get his head to shut the fuck up for a while.
Chapter 14
Tethys felt like a damned fool. She’d made the mistake of allowing Procyon to choose which gowns the servants packed for their formal processionals through Canissa.
Now, she sat beside her husband, drowning in a litany of pastel ruffles, ruching, and tulle. Her bodice, dripping with an exaggerated lavishness, dug into her ribs, restricting full inhales.
After a night of restless sleep, they’d ridden saddleback for most of the morning. Although an experienced rider, Tethys strained against the sheer weight of the gown as they traveled. By the time they’d reached the Canissaen outskirts, her thighs trembled with fatigue.
Although she swam beneath seemingly endless layers of lush fabrics, fighting the urge to tear free from the laced corset, she would sit pretty and posed if it brought them one step closer to cooling the heated conflict between realms. So, with a silken gloved hand, she waved gently atthe city folk as they passed.
Procyon grasped her hand as they rode alongside one another. A symbol of their undying union. A solid force amidst so much contention. His grip was near painful, though, as their horses trotted down the sloping dirt roadway.
Sweat glistened on her brow in the cool midday sun as they crossed roofed bridges and brook-side hovels where children gathered to collect truffles and river moss.
Tethys smiled at a small boy as he rose from the riverside with mud caked knees and straightened under her gaze. She expected no warmth from the Canissaens. They were a hardened people with hearts just as callous as their palms from endless hours of tending to crops and livestock. As she passed, the city folk received her with indecipherable eyes and tight lips.
“Smile, my queen,” Procyon growled, low enough for only her to hear. “Do not forget, your attitude is a direct reflection of mine. That perfect little pout will not undermine me.”
She fought the urge to vomit. Although his tone remained playful, it was still laced with a threat.
Keep quiet. Obey. Be the perfect little bird.
“Apologies, husband,” she said, stretching her cramped lips.
Her powder blue skirts rustled along the white mare’s sturdy abdomen as their pace quickened to a trot. She thanked Eos above that the parade was nearing their final destination, Procyon’s temple. Astraeus himself constructed the temple, now adorned with sunflowers and decorative gourds for the upcoming Harvest feast.
A rounded stone door, embedded into the hillside, marked the entrance to a vast network of underground chambers and tunnels. Tethys supposed it was fitting for the realm, having a temple built into the rolling hillside they cherished so much. But she couldn’t help but pause atthe thought of slithering beneath the frozen earth.
Eos give her strength. Although only a few paces in the distance, she wasn’t confident her legs would hold out. Her body, with strength even an adolescent could outmatch, pleaded for reprieve. She gripped the reins tighter, as if the hold on those thin leather straps could stifle the agonizing exhaustion now blazing through her muscle tissue, and continued up the rocky, unkempt path.
“I swear to Astraeus, Tethys, if you falter on your mount and make a fool of me...” Procyon’s murmur was no longer playful in its nature.
She nodded and willed herself to continue. Whether it be from fear of showing weakness or Procyon’s retaliation, she pushed her body’s protests away.
When finally they reached the temple and their mounts slowed to a stop, Tethys allowed herself to exhale the breath she’d been holding. Only a few more hours and she could escape to the quiet solitude of Procyon’s estate, if only for a moment, while Procyon carried out the Harvest celebrations.
The feast was the most sacred of traditions to the Canissaens, and so she hadn’t been invited. They’d finish their promenade and return to his home before dusk.
Procyon dismounted and extended a hand to her. In the villagers’ onlooking perspective, this act may have been heartwarming—a husband aiding his wife—but she knew he simply held out his hand in fear of her collapse otherwise.
Her knees, nearly giving out as she dismounted, cracked stiffly beneath the sheer weight of the innumerable layers of skirts.
The gathering villagers followed her as she approached the base of Astraeus’s temple, now mere loose rock and cracked rubble. She envisioned what this temple had looked like at its beginning. That was probably centuries ago, and with time, the primordial’s priestesses had longsince died out.
The two immortals ascended the cracked steps and turned to face the village with gleaming eyes. Tethys shut herself down and became the sweet, soft queen. Not a shred of the wild, untamed beauty she’d once prided herself in was visible as she waved once more at the gathering crowd. Just as Venia had become an artificial landscape of springtime greenery, she, too, found herself cutting away the ugly roots of truth.
“Thank you all for joining us here on this fine Harvest day,” Procyon said, having become the jolly, good-natured god the Canissaens adored wholeheartedly. “While these are trying times, the treaties in place have grown strong, just as our love has. Let us celebrate together as we embark into peacetime.”
The city folk applauded at his pause. However, Tethys swore she saw a handful of hateful flashes amidst the crowd.
Beneath her mask, anger writhed like coiling vines. If only these people knew of the horrors she’d endured since exchanging the marital vows. What would they think of their jolly king had they seen the yellowed bruises spattered along her thighs? Or that the foundation of their union was merely a calculated facade to suppress their voices and end a war?
Heat glazed along her brow and she couldn’t draw her breath deep enough to remedy the dizzying speckles of black that bordered her vision.
Procyon grinned and continued his speech, but Tethys had long since stopped listening. Scrutinizing eyes blazed into her like brands, drawing sweat down her brow like blood. These weren’t her people. She wasn’t their queen.
Tethys needed to get out of here, to free herself from the sweltering layers of this ridiculous dress.Eos above, give her strength. Her knees quaked, threatening to giveout. At the least, she needed a moment to collect herself.
