I do, and the stone bites into my knees.
He begins to pace in front of me, blood still dripping from his knuckles. “You are unworthy,” he says. “Do you know that? Unworthy of a crown. Unworthy of the covenant.”
His voice grows louder, wilder.
“A worthless soul. Even to the Devil.”
The words strike like a hand would. He lifts the dagger and, without breaking eye contact, draws it slowly across his forearm. The cut is shallow, but blood spills freely, running down his arm and dripping onto my gown.
I flinch as it touches my skin.
He does not seem to feel the pain; he only watches me.
I begin to cry, not loudly or dramatically, but because the sight of it drags me backward into memory. To other moments when his anger turned physical. To the night, he gripped my wrists so tightly he broke it. To our wedding day, when I stood in my red gown and imagined I might one day die in the snow rather than here.
How naive I was.
It would be fitting, perhaps, to die beneath the face of God, at the hands of a man protected for generations by both Heaven and Hell.
Charles throws his head back.
“I have offered enough!” he shouts toward the vaulted ceiling. “I have given my life. My victories. My blood!”
He gestures wildly with the dagger.
“And what do I receive? A wife who disobeys me. A wife who spreads her legs for other men like a common whore while I secure the kingdom!”
I close my eyes.
“Tell me what more you want!” he cries. “What more must I give? Why does the devil not accept the Ayna I have offered him?”
My eyes snap open.
Charles strides toward me and seizes my arm, hauling me upright.
“You will not shame me,” he says again, breath hot and metallic with blood. He tries to force his mouth against mine.
I twist away, but he is stronger now, or perhaps simply beyond reason. His blood smears across my cheek, my throat, staining the bodice of my gown.
“Charles, stop—”
He grips my jaw, trying to turn my face back toward his.
A laugh cuts through the chapel. Deep, dark, slow, it bounces off the vaulted stone walls until it feels like it comes from everywhere at once. Charles freezes mid-motion, dagger still in hand. The air thickens, heavy with smoke and iron.
Footsteps follow. Deliberate, slow. They echo from the upper gallery. I squint and see two legs descending from where Charles’s white throne sits. A cane clinks against themetal gates—gates imported from Italy, expensive and ornate. Clank…clank…clank…each strike reverberates through the chamber like a drumbeat, announcing someone’s presence.
“Who is there?” Charles’s voice cracks, sharp and loud, betraying more irritation than fear.
“You called for me,King,” the voice says, mocking, almost playful. It has no clear source. It seems to swirl, coming from the gallery, the walls, the shadows themselves. “You want answers to questions you have no right to ask. You got your bargain, didn’t you?”
“You!” Charles shouts, fury and desperation tangled together. “Get away! God, help me! Lord, help me!” He collapses to his knees, head bowed, praying as if his life depends on it. And maybe it does. I stumble back, falling onto the cold stone floor. The smell of Charles’s blood, still smeared on me, mixes with the incense, making me dizzy. My heart pounds so loudly I’m certain it will burst this time.
“Our Father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread …” Charles is frantic now. The man seems to have disappeared, and I look over to the door behind the altar, leading into the sacristy. I need to get away.
And then he appears. A figure emerges from a swirl of black smoke.
Without hesitation, he reaches down and hauls Charles up by the throat. The dagger clatters to the floor, forgotten.
