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At his next inhale, the room stilled, and his cold mask repaired itself with a new layer of ice that chilled the blood in my veins. “My little mortal is still disquieted over the girl I refused to rot, even though she’s begged and pleaded so nicely.”
No matter the disdain dripping from his voice, his eyes and the slight frown between them somehow didn’t match it. I didn’t know what to do with that—or how his lips curved into a new smile promising nothing good.
Carefully, so very carefully, I parted my lips. “Sometimes I told myself it was a good thing I never had a baby, especially when I heard of the ones still in their cradles the morning after a full moon. I don’t know. Maybe… maybe gods just don’t understand the agony of losing a child.”
“You don’t know the extent of my agony,” he said as a tremble hushed across his lips, but it was gone with my next blink, his mask solidly frozen in place. “If I rot this child for you, what will you give me in exchange?”
Internally, I scoffed. What a ridiculous question. What did I have left to give? What else did he want that he couldn’t simply take?
“What do you want?”
He cupped my cheek. “Become my wife. Give your vow before a priest and god—any fucking god—and take me as your husband.”
The shocking question stuttered my breath. “W-what?”
“I want your commitment, your devotion, your vow to remain by my side. To return to it, should anything ever separate us.”
I snapped my mouth shut and draped an arm over my breasts, the room suddenly cooler. What a piss-poor proposal was this? He wanted me as his wife? But… why?
“You’ve gone mad.”
His stare on me didn’t waver. “Do this, and I shall rot the girl.”
Brittle silence stretched between us.
My mind wandered to A
I was doomed to serve Enosh for eternity, no matter what. The god wanted my damn vow? What difference would it make to me? Was my pride worth more than gaining rest for even one child? No, but I couldn’t help but wonder just how much this vow was worth to a god.
Three deep breaths bought me the resemblance of the boldness it took to negotiate with one. “And if I agree to become your wife, will you also rot John?”
“However much your determination to see the vow to your husband fulfilled pleases me… I won’t.” Whatever firmness his voice had held at first, in the end, it frayed like threadbare cloth. “I made a vow.”
“So did I. Sounds like a predicament to me. An impasse.”
Where I expected another shout, the muscles in his jaws merely hardened. A strange energy coursed through me, one reserved for the women who held their husband’s attention, instead of being threatened with the whorehouse. The fact that Enosh thought on my words gave me a sense of… of value? What was this god willing to do to secure my vow? God’s bones, was it truly possible I held sway over him?
“It’s a terrible deal.” I held his stare. “One child for a vow until death do us part to a man undying?”
Enosh gave a weak scoff. “Are you negotiating with a god?”
“I’m negotiating my bride price with the man who wants to marry me.” A breath of courage. “No more collars and chains.”
“The chain goes, the collar stays. You look stu
Oh, whatever. “No chains. You’ll never twist my legs again. I want a decent room.”
“You’ll have it. All of it.”
My heart stumbled over the next beat, upper body drawing away as I stared at him in mute shock. That… was easier than I’d anticipated.
Clearly, I hadn’t demanded enough.
“That’s not all,” I continued, emboldened by this reckless sense of having value to someone, even if it was the damn devil. “You’ll rot John. In addition, I want to leave the Pale Court once a day at least for a little—”
“Absolutely not.”
“The first or the latter?”
“Latter. Now that I’ve been sighted, people will gossip, plan, and scheme. That I have been demoted from god to king beyond one gate doesn’t bode well for the others.”
He had a point there. “Every other week—”
“Once every fortnight for a brief time, and only in my presence.”
“Fair enough.” I could give him that, but not without adjusting my own demand. “Also, you told me on our way here that you can distinguish between people when you spread rot. I want you to do it for the children. Any corpse under the age of twelve beyond the Æfen Gate.”
“Out of the question!”
“But—”
“I do not rest the wicked!”
I flinched.
None of us spoke for long moments.
That was it.
That was where my sway ended.
Still, it reached further than I’d imagined.
“Children aren’t wicked,” I said and reached my hand to his, surprised by the way he immediately let them intertwine as though he feared I might otherwise slip away. “Even you have to know that.”
“Oh, little one, if you believe this will go unpunished, then you are mistaken.” He stared at our interwoven fingers. “Very well, I shall ride the lands and rot the children once gossip has calmed. I’ll rot John then, too, if only so I won’t have to hear his name from my wife’s lips ever again. But there is something else you will give me in exchange.” He shifted on the bed, flame of the candle driving out the gray coldness of his eyes, replacing it with something less cutting. “On a moment of my choosing, you will come to me. You will not be allowed to refuse me, and you shall kiss me until your lips are benumbed. You will commence the act we share as man and woman, and see it through until we are both spent, not once denying its pleasure. Deal?”
With a nod, I made a deal with the devil.
Because to him, I had value.
That realization cracked through years of condemnation. As much as I had been worthless to John, what if my value never lay with the man in the first place? What if my purpose had always been to bring rot to those children I’d never been blessed with?
And if the woman who rode with the King of Flesh and Bone had negotiated this much out of him, whatever else might his wife achieve?