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Enosh
“Why did you refuse me your promise not to run?”
After hours of silence, the question startled my woman enough that she hissed under the ache of her sore muscles. “Lying’s a sin, and I’ve piled up enough of those in the last month.”
“Had you given it, I may not have twisted your legs, little one. Maybe you could have escaped.”
For a while.
She shifted from one seat bone to the other. Hours on horseback had taken its toll on her flesh, but not once did she so much as whimper, as though leaving the Pale Court was worth the pain.
Feet wiggling whenever long strands of grass brushed along her ankles, lungs expanding wide when we passed fragrant flowers, a gentle smile lining her lips whenever a breeze wafted around us. When had her mortal body ever felt this light, this warm and alive in my arms?
Never.
Perhaps Orlaigh was right. I couldn’t lock her away between bone inside a kingdom as quiet and cold as death. It hadn’t always been like this. Winding staircases adorned with the most intricate motives, bridges spa
Because I’d made it so.
I had given an oath never to receive mankind’s bones again and look what it got me. My woman’s chain had been so short, a good part of the dais around my throne remained unpainted. How fine the other part looked with her vines and those delicate roses shedding their petals.
“You wouldn’t believe me anyway,” she said after a while. “If I have to be a whore, then at least I want to be an honest one.”
“I don’t recall ever paying you.” She shifted again, her muscles souring with shame, her bones growing heavy with guilt I failed to make sense of. “Why so much distress over a word?”
She shrugged, her gaze drifting toward a waterwheel that spun along a creek, the wings of the mill cutting the air. “A man is free to divorce his wife after three years of fruitlessness. Can even sell her to the whorehouse. John never did.”
I shifted sideways, clasping her chin to bring her gaze to mine. “Fruitlessness?”
“I never gave him a son, as is a woman’s purpose.” Her voice was so strangely thin compared to that bite she often carried. “To make it worse, I was the one who sent him for pinweedle moss. Healers say it cures a barren womb, you know. So up the falls he went to where it grows, only to hit his head and die. It’s my fault.”
Her fault?
Oh, my little naïve mortal. Her womb was neither cursed nor barren. Perhaps the only thing I would have rectified, no matter how I adored her imperfections, for she would carry my child, painting eternity with life and laughter. Giving me the purpose of a man instead of the ungrateful duty of a god.
But a babe in such a bare place…?
Oh, what a predicament.
“Is that why you’re so desperate to rest his bones, little one?”
She nodded. “It’s the least I owe him.”
“So devoted to a man who never claimed your heart?”
“It’s not the man I’m devoted to, but the promises I made before—” She stopped herself right then. “Well, you know. I swore an oath before a priest, vowing to be a good wife, and I intend to see it through in death, for I didn’t in life.”
“An oath before a false god.” All forgiven because she worshipped me so nicely when she kneeled by my feet, dozing off with her head on my lap while I stroked her soft hair. “And a pathetic act of guilt.”
She spun around, her blue eyes narrowed. “An act of duty and commitment. Not that I expect a god who abandoned his duty to understand its meaning.”
Ah, there was that bite again.
Adorable.
I rewarded it with a kiss to her temple. “Duty. Vow. Oath.”
She used those words often.
All things she remained faithful to over a husband tossing in the ground with each full moon. And all it had taken was a ridiculous vow before a priest who worshipped a god who didn’t exist? For all the things I understood of Ada’s flesh, her soul eluded me, as was my nature.
My woman cared little for dresses finer than those of any queen, the rich food I provided for her sustenance, or the diamond set into her collar. How refreshingly honest this midwife was compared to the titled stock of lords and ladies who painted their lips as though it would hide the lies they spoke. As Njala had…
But not my Ada.
No, my little one marked the bone, barraged through my corpses, tried to escape my kingdom, and snarled at me whenever her lips didn’t tremble with a moan. She pledged nothing but her hatred; she swore nothing but her escape. And now she even refused to make me promises she knew she wouldn’t keep?
That made a promise from her mouth valuable, indeed.
So trustworthy, I longed to kiss one from her lips. I wanted to taste her commitment to remain by my side. How blessed that bastard of a husband was to have a woman who, even in death, honored her vows. And what if I wanted her to make such a vow to me? Ought I to take her as my wife?
Mmm. Lots of temples between here and the Pale Court…
I stroked over her belly that would swell with my child soon enough. “Your flesh is perfectly imperfect.”
And I longed for it almost as passionately as I ached for the devotion and dutifulness she’d stood by all this time. For the wrong reasons, yes, but with admirable resolve, nonetheless. What did a husband do with a wife, anyway? So many customs in so many places, all equally confusing.
“People are staring.” Her neck shortened as she curled herself against me in a poor attempt at hiding her face. “Devil be damned, you had to ride in on a dead horse with white eyes and give me a damn feather dress, right?”
I willed my mare up an incline, avoiding the farmers and merchants who moved grains and goods along the road. Their mumbles followed us as long as their stares, sparking restlessness in my core.
“Hold on,” I said, once more spurring my mare into a canter, eager to return to the safety of the Pale Court, but there was the issue with my woman’s exhausted flesh.
We didn’t slow until the first bellows drifted on the wind, along with the bitter fumes of burnt oil. Each time metal clashed against metal, my little mortal retreated deeper into my arms.
I quite liked it.
Then the bellows turned to screams. Screams to deafening battle roars that manifested in nothing short of bloodlust, which swept through the lines of soldiers like a flood of rage. Axes hacked into flesh and crushed bones, pikes scratched along metal until they found their way into guts.
Wounded scattered the ground, screaming in pain, some dragging themselves over the dirt toward their severed limb. Oh, mortals and their frail bodies… fighting over creeks, riches, titles, only to end up as food for the crows.
Flames crackled where they’d lit the ground on fire, smoke rising in raven-black billows. On instinct, I steered away from it, but the stench of my charred flesh already crept into my nostrils.
“This is awful,” Ada mumbled when, far ahead of us, a soldier thrust a sword into another’s belly.
When I spotted Yarin, clad in leather armor with a sword in his hand, I rode up to him. “Blending in?”
“I don’t have corpses to come to my defense, should I need it.” The God of Whispers winked at my woman in that certainty he had around females, knowing their every thought. “I’m afraid you missed the part where they set the oil-soaked ground on fire and burned hundreds, brother. A coincidence… or immaculate pla
“Mortal needs slowed our travel. Mark the corpses you want raised.”
“You’ve only just arrived.” Yarin sheathed his sword. “Maybe a stroll along the nearby creek, Ada?”
“Your brother broke my legs.”
“Twisted,” I corrected, but Ada stiffened against me as he undoubtedly poisoned her mind with his whispers. “You won’t blend in anymore if I raise the dead and send them after you faster than you can shift into your realm.”
“I only said that I’m surprised you didn’t snap her neck yet.” At the pinching of my lips, Yarin’s curled into a smirk. “The dead never run from you, and you seem oh-so desperate to keep her.”
“Point out the four bodies.”
“Raise five more for me.” A growl formed at the back of my throat, but only until he added, “Do this for me, and I’ll make your woman love you.”
A shift beneath my ribs.
Love me.
Whatever that weasel saw on my face brought a self-satisfied smirk to his. “She’ll adore you, brother.”
My heart quickened.
Adore me.
“She’ll be tormented by such ardor that she would never leave your side,” he said. “Never.”
Never leave.
Always stay.
Everything inside me demanded that I comply, even more fervently when Ada cut my brother a poisonous glare. No matter how deep my power reached into her flesh and bone, answering the desperate call of her neglected body, her rebelling soul sat behind a barrier not even I could breech. How long had it been since I roused her lust?
Longer than she would accept.
Let alone confess to herself…
Should that bother me?
No, but it did with such alarming intensity, I was tempted to agree. To have my mortal reach for me at her own choosing, pledging herself to me like only my enamored woman would.
Or my wife.
“Mark the bodies,” I bit out.
“Suit yourself.” Yarin gazed over the field. “Let me see… mmm, which ones to keep?”
“Are you jesting? You haven’t even bound them yet?”
“Weighty choices shouldn’t be rushed.” Yarin tapped his lips and shrugged, glancing over the stone block walls surrounding Airensty. “One must choose the men and women he surrounds himself with wisely. Ah! This one will make for fine entertainment.”
I let my mare follow him toward a dead soldier, pressing my mouth against Ada’s ear. “Listen to him and he’ll drive you mad. It is his nature.”
Ada nodded. “Is he doing it to you as well?”
Driving me mad, for certain. “None of us have power over the other. We don’t sense each other’s presence, which makes Yarin, in particular, quite a nuisance.”
Ada watched with rapt attention when Yarin reached his hand over the dead body, binding the man’s soul to its flesh. “What happens if he doesn’t chain it?”
“Souls detach from their mortal bodies after a while, slower if death came suddenly, and you cling to it longer. Once it leaves, it becomes part of his realm, a loud place between the gruesome thoughts of mankind.”
When Yarin arched a brow at me, I focused on the corpse, commanding it to rise. Leather armor groaned as the man first twitched, then stood, glancing around disoriented.