Only the laboring in her breath. The quickening of her heart. That soft, helpless moan that vibrated past fleshy lips and straight into bone—lust, desire, pleasure braided together in a sound I thought no woman could ever offer Death.
A groan tears from my throat.
That was no scheme. It was real.
Blood surges between my legs again, hardening me with a speed that is concerning. I want her palm on my face, her lips on my teeth, her cunt around my cock, curse and rites be damned.
The need is intense. It floods my veins. And it dizzies my skull with an urge even more damning: to hold her after the way I did in the tower, the way husbands do with their wives.
Eons ago, I witnessed men take their first companions. I observed them sleep with limbs tangled while I rested in the company of shadows. I watched them walk the realm together while I treaded my paths alone…always alone.
I once wanted a companion. I have longed for a wife longer than I have had a name for longing. But that was before…
A shake of my head.
Enough with the lingering.
Having is the first step to losing, so I unhook her fingers, gently lowering her arm to her side. My gaze travels to her crown, gleaming dully on her forehead. My third heartstring pulses within the gold. And within the gold, it must remain.
I step back, allowing the shadows of the corner to swallow the hem of my cloak, putting distance between the sedative warmth of her body and the cold necessity of death.
My hand moves with brutal efficiency. I thrust my fingers into my ribcage, bypassing the frayed edges of the second broken string and diving deeper into the treacherous heat. Where is it? Where—ah…
The traitor.
The mended string.
It feels distinct against my bone-stripped fingertips—pulsing, thickened with weeks of unnoticed affection, knitting itself together on a foundation of forlorn dreams and domestic nonsense.
I curl my hand, positioning the sharp tip of my fingerbone against the pulsing red of the string. Then I press the point in.
It resists at first, rubbery and slick, before the bone punctures through with a wetpop. A soundless roar fractures inside my throat as my knees hit the floorboards, the sickening pain turning my vision blurry. I pant through teeth and tendons, blindly digging the bone hook deeper, dragging it down the length of the string to flay it open.
I tear. I rip. I peel away the healing layers until the red thickness is reduced to a weeping, ragged ruin. Only when the connection is stripped back to a single, trembling fiber do I stop.
I withdraw my hand, clutching the wound wherein the heart stutters, falters, and then resumes a lonely, broken rhythm. The agony is absolute. Excruciating, yes, but still only the faintest twinge compared to grief.
Chapter
Thirteen
Elara
The carriage rattles over the cobblestones, a rhythmic, jarring percussion that makes for a miserable journey to the orphanage. Inside, the cushions are faded but intact, the curtains freshly shaken free of dust, and the lantern hook above my head holds a lamp that lends some warmth to a morning of suffocating gray.
Providing a sense of normalcy, one of the few remaining ministers agreed. A measure to keep the hopeless from piling at the palace gates, a sovereign who goes to an orphanage with ahusband at her side. A message to the realm: the new queen is trying to save it, unlike the late king,who refused everything that might save anyone but his own conscience.
I glance behind the white curtain, watching a higher part of Marrowbrae shape from homes with brittle daub and muddy alleys between them. “I think this is the orphanage Kael sent his meals to.”
Across from me, Vale sits rigid against the velvet squabs, staring out the window, his jaw locking so tight a muscle feathers beneath the skin of his cheek. “My, my…a man decaying, a meal for the worms long since, and yet my wife still speaks his name with nothing short of reverence.”
I frown at him, which somehow brings out how his usually pale complexion seems to have a sickly, grayish cast today. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He doesn’t turn. “Presume it makes a husband wonder.”
“That’s strange, considering that you don’t evenwantto be my husband.” I scoff, pulling my black shawl tighter around the shoulders of my gray wool dress. “You can feel joy, sadness. Anger, clearly. But I’m curious…what of jealousy?”
“I am Death, Elara.” He finally turns his head to look at me. “I covet nothing experienced by mere mortals.”
