And as they rode, she could imagine meeting them in other circumstances. More normal ones such as a ball.
What an utterly ridiculous thought… She’d never been the ball type. Meara loved such things. Mostly because they allowed her to flaunt her money and wardrobe. The queen never passed up a chance to show off to others. It was also a well-known secret that no one could outshine her, as those who did were often fed to ravenous beasts Meara kept in her stables.
Or she ordered them strangled.
Another reason Gisela always kept to the shadows. She had no intention of being a rival for the queen.
“You’ve grown silent.” Masakage moved his horse closer to hers. “Are you lost in your thoughts?”
She was, but she’d never admit it. “Trying to imagine the Oath Lands.”
Xaydin snorted. “Looks like any place else. Except for the demons who live there. They’re particularly ugly.”
“How so?” She’d never seen anaþaswerebefore.
Masakage lifted his hand, and when he did, a blue ball formed over his palm. Inside the swirling blues, she saw theimage of a huge, twisted being. One that had wings made of flesh and other appendages she couldn’t even define…all of which were covered with writing.
Literally every inch of its skin, including its eyelids and bald head. “Behold theaþaswere.”
He was right. It was all kinds of ugly. Gisela couldn’t take her eyes off it. “Do they all look like that?”
Xaydin glanced over his shoulder. “They do. The more flesh, the more contracts they hold. They use their magic to elongate their limbs and grow or attach other body parts so that they can accommodate their records. When that fails, they flay the skin off others, even their own kind or they merge themselves together to have more contract space.”
Gisela grimaced at what he described. The nightmare of it. How did they live? “What started this?”
“One twisted wizard.” Xaydin curled his lip as Masakage closed his hand and the image vanished. “Centuries ago, he made a pact with the sidhe king to enforce a contract with another. It was forged in blood on his skin with his promise to unleash demons to protect their contract. Once he started, other wizards, witches and sorcerers followed. Each one wanting to outdo the other until they created an entire race that had no other purpose.”
Masakage nodded. “That’s the curse of striving to follow another and outdo them. Sooner or later, it becomes someone’s greatest folly.”
“Now we have an entire race of half demonic creatures who have no souls and no purpose other than to enforce ridiculous terms.” The anger in Xaydin’s voice was palpable.
“What contract did your father break?”
Xaydin came to a stop in order to level the most malevolent stare toward her that she’d ever seen. “He didn’t. A shape shifter pretended to be the man my father had a contract with andbroke it. Thinking they no longer had a contract, my father attacked, believing he had every right to do so. He was set up, but theaþasweredidn’t care about truth…or what consequences would befall an entire kingdom. He fulfilled the contract by killing an innocent troll who’d been deceived.”
“And because of that, the only thing Xaydin hates more than anaþaswereis a shifter.”
“A pox on them all. May they burn and rot. Preferably by my hands.”
That made her blood run cold, and she was glad they knew nothing about her.
Except for one thing… “You don’t hate King Dash. Isn’t he a shifter?”
Xaydin snorted. “He’s a unicorn. They only take one human form and can’t become a deceptive lie that gets an innocent killed. Besides, you can look at their horns and tell if they’re trustworthy or not.”
True. Unicorns had several different shades of their horns. If they were treacherous, their horns were gray. If they were dangerous, red.
And black like the king’s…
All bets were off. He was death incarnate and a threat to anyone who got in his way.
Masakage tsked at his brother. “In X’s mind they’re not the same thing. Only true shifters rattle his rage.”
Good to know. She’d make sure to keep her powers in check. Just as she had to do around Meara. The queen became insane if anyone shifted forms, especially in front of her. Her jealousy over that ability was terrifying. It was why Meara hated the entire unicorn race. She took it as a personal slight that they had the ability to become fully human while she was locked in her centaur form. In the queen’s mind, her entire race was a spell gone wrong. A genetic mistake.
Meara viewed her own race as unnatural. And that self-hatred had destroyed everything in her life. Nothing was enough for their queen. All she’d been gifted with and none of it made her happy.
It would never be enough.
