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His nostrils flared. Rubbing the inside of his wrist, he said nothing as I stood there, motionless once more. I spoke the truth. I could snap his neck before he even had a chance to raise a hand against me. Because of my destiny, I was better trained than most of the Royal Guards that protected him. Still, he was arrogant and spoiled enough to try something.
I kind of hoped he would.
Tavius took a step forward, and I started to smile—
A knock on the door stopped him from following through with whatever incredibly foolish thought had entered his mind. He lowered his hands, barking out, “What?”
The nervous voice of my mother’s trusted Lady came through the door. “The Priests expect his arrival to be soon.”
Tavius’s smile was a mockery as he brushed past me. I turned around. “Time for you to make yourself useful for once,” he said.
He opened the door, slowly making his exit, knowing that I wouldn’t respond in front of Lady Kala. Everything and anything I did in front of the woman would be reported back to my mother. And she, for some godsforsaken reason, cared for Tavius as if he were worthy of such an emotion. I waited until he’d disappeared down one of the many dark, winding halls of the Shadow Temple, located just outside the capital’s Garden District at the foot of the Cliffs of Sorrow. The halls were just as numerous as the tu
I thought of the mortal Sotoria, whom the steep bluffs had been named after. Legend claimed that she been picking flowers along the cliffs and fell to her death after being frightened by a god.
Perhaps now wasn’t the most opportune time to think about her.
Lifting the diaphanous skirts of my gown, I turned and padded barefoot across the cold floor.
Lady Kala was very much a blur in the hall, but I could tell that she hastily turned her head from me. “Come,” she said, begi
“A bit,” I admitted.
She reached back, curling her arm through mine. The unexpected contact caused me to flinch, and I was suddenly grateful for the veil. Like any of the Chosen, my flesh should not encounter another’s unless related to my preparations. It spoke volumes that Lady Kala had touched me.
She led me through the twisting, endless halls of nothing but doors and numerous blazing candle sconces. I had just begun to wonder if she was lost when the hazy outline of two silent figures draped in black appeared by a set of doors.
Shadow Priests.
They’d taken their oath of silence to all new heights, having stitched their lips closed. I always wondered how they ate or drank. Based on their wraithlike, sunken frames under the black robes, whatever method they used wasn’t exactly working out that well for them.
I suppressed a shudder as each of the Priests opened a door to reveal a large, circular chamber aglow with hundreds of candles. A third Shadow Priest seemingly appeared out of thin air, taking Lady Kala’s place. The bony fingers didn’t touch my skin but pressed into the center of my back. The contact still bothered me, made me want to pull away, but I knew better than to step away from the coldness of his fingers seeping through the thin layer of cloth. Forcing myself to breathe, I stared at the etchings carved into the otherwise smooth stone. A circle with a line through it. The symbol filled each stone tile. Having never seen it before, I wasn’t sure what it meant. My gaze lifted to the wide dais before me. The Priest guided me down the aisle, and some of the pressure returned to my chest. I didn’t look at the empty pews. If I had truly been Chosen, those benches would be full of the highest-ranking nobility, the streets outside alive with cheers. The silence of the room chilled my skin.
There’d only ever been one throne before, constructed from the same stone as the Temple. Shadowstone was the color of the deepest hour of night, a marvelous material that could be polished until it reflected any source of light and whetted into a blade sharp enough to pierce flesh and bone. The throne was the glossy sort, absorbing the glow of the candlelight until the stone appeared as if it were full of dark fire. The back of the seat had been carved into the shape of a crescent moon.
The exact shape of the birthmark I bore just above my left shoulder blade. The telltale sign that even before I was born, my life had never been mine.
Tonight, there were two thrones.
As they led me to the dais and helped me up the steps, I really wished I had asked for that glass of water. Guided to the second throne, they sat me there and then left me alone.
Resting my hands on the arms of the throne, I sca
Someone closed the doors, and my gaze stretched to the back of the chamber, where I could make out the shadowy forms of my mother and Tavius in the candlelight. A third figure stood beside them. King Ernald. My stepsister, Princess Ezmeria—Ezra—stood beside her father and brother, and I didn’t need to see her expression to know that she hated every aspect of this deal. Sir Holland wasn’t here. I would’ve liked to have said goodbye to him, even though I didn’t expect him to be here. His presence would raise too many questions among the Shadow Priests.
Would reveal too much.
That I wasn’t the beacon of Royal purity, but rather the wolf dressed as the sacrificial lamb.
I wouldn’t just fulfill the deal that King Roderick had struck. I would end it before it destroyed my kingdom.
Determination filled my chest with warmth as it did whenever I used my gift. This was my destiny. My purpose. What I would do was bigger than me. It was for Lasania.
So, I sat there, ankles crossed demurely beneath the gown, hands relaxed on the arms of the throne as I waited.
And waited some more.
Seconds ticked into minutes. I didn’t know how many passed, but tiny balls of unease formed in my belly. He’d been summoned to his Temple. Shouldn’t…shouldn’t he be here?
My palms dampened as the knots grew, stretching into my chest. The pressure increased. What if he didn’t show?
Why wouldn’t he?
This was his deal.
When King Roderick had grown desperate enough to do anything to salvage his lands ruined by war and save those who were starving after already suffering so much loss, I imagined he’d expected a lesser god to answer his summons—which was far more common for those bold enough to do such a thing. But what had answered the Golden King was a Primal.
And when he’d granted King Roderick’s request, this was the price the Primal of Death had requested: the firstborn daughter of the Mierel bloodline as his Consort.
The Primal had to come.
What if he didn’t? My heart pounded as my fingers curled against the chilled stone of the throne.
Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Hold.
If he didn’t arrive, all would be lost. Everything he’d granted King Roderick would continue to come undone. If he didn’t come for me, and I failed to fulfill this, I would doom the kingdom to a slow death at the hands of the Rot. It had started upon my birth, first with just a small patch of land in an orchard. Unripe apples had fallen from trees that had begun to lose their leaves. The ground below had turned gray, and the grass, along with the roots of the apple trees, had died. Then the Rot had spread, slowly taking out the entire orchard. In the time that passed, it had devastated several more farms. No crop could be seeded in the soil and survive once tainted by the Rot.
And it wasn’t only affecting the land. It had changed the weather, making the summers hotter and drier, the winters colder and more unpredictable.
The people of Lasania had no idea that the Rot was a clock, counting down. It was an expiration date on the deal the Golden King had made, one that had started with my birth. There was a good chance the Golden King hadn’t realized the bargain would expire no matter what. That was knowledge gained in the decades after the deal had been struck. If I failed, the kingdom would—
It started as a low rumble, like the distant sound of wagons and carriages rolling over the cobblestone streets of Carsodonia. But the sound grew until I felt it in the throne I sat upon—and in my bones.
The rumbling ceased, and the candles—all of them—went out, plunging the chamber into darkness. An earthy-scented breeze stirred the edges of the veil around my face and the hem of my gown.
In a wave, flames sparked from the candles, surging toward the pitched ceiling. My gaze fixed on the center aisle, where the very air itself had split open, spitting crackling white light.
A mist seeped out from the tear, licking across the stone floor and seeping toward the pews. Tiny bumps erupted all over my skin in response. Some called the mist Primal magic. It was eather. The potent essence that not only had created the mortal realm and Iliseeum but also what coursed through the blood of a god, giving even the lesser, unknown ones unthinkable power.
I blinked. That was all I did. I blinked, and the space in front of the dais that had been empty no longer was. A male stood there, garbed in a hooded cloak and surrounded by pulsing, churning tendrils of deep shadows laced with luminous streaks of silver. I didn’t allow myself to think of what Tavius had said about him. I couldn’t. Instead, I tried to see through the wispy mass of smoky shadows. All I could tell was that he was unbelievably tall. Even from where I sat, I knew he would tower over me—and I wasn’t short by any means, nearly the same height as Tavius. But he was a Primal, and in the stories written about them in the histories, they were sometimes referred to as giants among mortals.
He appeared broad of shoulder—or at least that was what I thought the deeper, thick mass of darkness was that took the shape of…wings. His hooded head tilted back.
I forgot those breathing exercises in an instant. I couldn’t see his face, but I felt the intensity of his stare. His gaze pierced straight through me, and for a brief, panicked moment, I feared that he knew I hadn’t spent seventeen years preparing to become his Consort. That my tutelage went beyond that. And that the meekness, the submissiveness I’d been taught, was nothing more than another veil I wore.
For a moment, my heart stopped as I sat on the throne meant for the Consort of the Shadowlands, one of the Courts within Iliseeum. Looking up at the Primal of Death, I felt real terror for the first time in my life.