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Ada
The Pale Court had turned into a maze of corridors, bridges, and staircases—a tangled labyrinth that knew no bounds and seemed to swell with each child who shuffled through the gate.
Its inhabitants?
The god, who sequestered himself away in the highest room above his throne; old Orlaigh, who cursed all the stairs she had to climb; and me, its rotting queen.
Oh, and my entourage of corpses.
They followed me everywhere—two boys who reached no higher than my hip, and a girl with one arm—serving no other purpose than to punish me. Clack-clack-clack made their fleshbare heels as they tottered behind me down the southern staircase, making sneaking about the court impossible.
Not that it mattered.
Once again, Enosh had seen to my appropriate attire. Thin braids of white and gray hair lined my bodice. From my waist down, it fa
I turned toward the throne room with purpose in my steps. With Enosh once more asleep, as though my failed ruse had exhausted him about as much as a fortnight of fire, Orlaigh remained the only potential obstacle between me and the truth. Something I’d prepared for, and…
And this was not the throne room.
“Curse these corridors!” I came to an abrupt halt inside the archway of what I called the great hall, appointed with a large table—where nobody ever ate—and chairs with backrests of carved antlers. The dome-shaped ceiling was decorated with thousands of white feathers, which hung from strings of skin. “Whatever did he do to the stairs toward— Ah!”
The children followed me up one short set of stairs and down another. At the next turn, we followed a narrow corridor toward the throne room, its walls shaped from the brightest bone and tooled with vines of roses and birds’ nests.
As expected, I found Orlaigh sitting on the painted dais with a book in her lap and promptly handed her two of Enosh’s shirts. “Before he fell asleep, he requested you wash these.”
“Ach lass, me bones start squeaking halfway to the spring with how vast the Pale Court has grown.” She struggled herself up, sighing as she took the shirts and frowned at the small spots of blood. “That deamhan, making such a mess of it. Where did these even come from?”
From my toe, where the bit of blood I had left pooled each day, until Enosh sent it rushing through my veins with a startling beat of my heart. “As if he’d tell me.”
“Curse the man, this will take forever to wash out.”
Good. “Best get to it. I don’t think he’ll sleep much longer.”
She stared at the children and furrowed her brows before her gaze met mine. “Ach, lass… ye were good for me Master’s head up to the point where ye got yerself killed. Now he’s stuck in such a rage and as mad as ever. Ach, he’ll keep me in his service for another eternity, never setting me soul free.”
“Is that why you ratted me out? Not letting me escape so I may replace you? So you might find rest?”
Fine wrinkles formed around her pursed lips. “Can ye blame me?”
“No.” Not anymore. “Death is rather boring state whenever Enosh isn’t busy punishing me.”
“It could be worse.”
“Yes, I presume he could have weighted down the train of my dress with little skulls.” My husband knew exactly how the sight of these children ached me, no matter their lack of awareness over this morbid display. “Whatever affection he might have held for me, if any, has all turned into endless hate.”
“Hate? Ha! Those he hates become a crown upon his head.” Book clasped beneath her arm and shirts bunched against her chest, she walked down the dais. “Those he loves get to wear one.”
“That’s not love, Orlaigh.” My sarcastic laugh echoed from the walls. “He melded children’s hands to my skull. Enosh is worse than ever before.”
“Aye, he is.” She lifted a scolding finger in the air as she turned toward a corridor. “Worse than a god in rage…”
… is a god in love.
My throat constricted, and my mind wandered back to the day I’d died. How Enosh had placed my hand upon his cheek, right where tears had washed off the soot from his marred skin.
Had he wept for me? Cried over my death?
Maybe a god’s love wasn’t gentle or kind… Maybe it was all-consuming, devastatingly painful, and destructive in its lack of moral restraints. Maybe he had given me his heart after all—the one he’d claimed he didn’t possess—immediately broken by my doubts, delay, and death.
When Orlaigh’s unhurried steps finally faded away, I turned toward the throne.
As always, Lord Tarnem watched me through the dull veil clouding his eyes where his face protruded from between intertwined roots of bone. The rest of him wove around the backrest of the throne in a tangle of limbs, making it impossible to say which arm or leg belonged to which corpse.
The claw I’d stashed away between the bone was gone, likely consumed in the construction of the palace. It was of no consequence, thanks to Enosh’s generous disdain.
Leaning over, I reached for one of the digits that strung along the seam of my train. With a sharp pull, I ripped the finger off, then broke the brittle thing in two. A tap against the splintered edge confirmed its pointed sharpness.
Yes, this would do quite nicely.
I lowered myself onto the throne and, with a determined thrust, punctured the patch of skin that covered Joah’s mouth. “You first.”
A cloud of rancid breath hit me in the face, making me nauseous. It intensified with each tearing inch of progress as I cut the leather, making me gag as though my stomach had anything left to relieve itself of.
Joah’s green-speckled eyes squelched as they focused on me, as though the liquids of decay had collected in their sockets. Still, he was handsome as far as two-centuries-old corpses went, with tattered long brown hair and full lips, now cracked and dry. Enosh had restored the corpses some before he’d bedded down, but if they had retained their ability of speech remained to be seen.
When I’d assured myself of the presence of an actual mouth, I leaned back so he wouldn’t have to strain his eyes so much. “Were you and Njala lovers?”
There was a crackle at the back of his throat—like brittle leather stretching much too thin—before the black tip of his tongue pushed against the back of his gray incisors. “N-nj…”
“Yes, Njala. Were you lovers?”
“Uh-waysh.”
I sensed my facial muscles pull into a frown. Uh-waysh? “Always?”
Whatever did that mean?
His mouth gaped open, letting the remnants of leather at the corners of it tear like old parchment. “Fre-hever… love Nj—”
When a pop resonated from the black cavity of his mouth as though a sinew or muscle had torn, I quickly pressed my hand against his sinking jaws before the entire thing would come loose and rip off. “If you loved her, then why did you slit her throat? Because she wanted you to?”
“Yesh.”
Goosebumps sprouted along my arms. “And condemn her baby to death?”
His face vibrated in my clasp as he tried to shake his head where it sat embedded into bone, letting stiff vertebrae crack-crack-crackle at the base of his neck. “No. To save—”
Pop.
The weight of his lower jaws dropped into my palm and I frantically shoved at his limp face. “No, no, no…”
“Hrk-hmm… nhh…”
“Save how?”
“Gkrrr…”
A heavy swallow bobbed down my throat as his skin tore beneath his ear. Heavens, there was no use. His lower jaws would separate soon enough, and no holding it in place would give me any intelligible answer.
At least not from him.
I gingerly removed my hand from Joah’s face, then turned my attention to Lord Tarnem. As always, he grunted and heaved, pressing the tip of his tongue against the leather covering his mouth, which I made quick work of.
The gray-haired man opened and closed his mouth several times, wafts of decay souring the air between us. “Ada.”
I shuddered.
He knew my name.
Should that surprise me? Because it shouldn’t. After all, he also knew the size of my breasts and the lewd sounds of my pleasure, considering I’d groaned into his face on several occasions.
I pulled my knees against my chest as I draped the heavy train of my dress over the armrest of the throne. “I have questions.”
Another stretch of his mouth revealed a tongue still moist enough to slither and curl as though it relished the rare taste of freedom. “And y-you shall… shall have your answers.”
“Why did Joah—”
“After you pledged me… your he… help.”
Internally, I groaned. “Or I might just peel your face off in layers until you talk.”
“Child, I have been at your husband’s mercy for… oh, for two centuries. Such threats mean nothing to me.”
Neither did I have the patience to wait this out with how Orlaigh often guarded the throne room like a dog its bone. Literally. “What do you want?”
“You will convince the god of my… my i
A sad little laugh vibrated in my chest. “I can’t even convince him of my own i
“Old, rotting man…” I sat at his eye level, yet he managed to stare down at me with all the arrogance of nobility, even in his state of decay. “I am a lord.”
“And I am a queen.” A tap against my crown vibrated all the way into my skull. “As it so happens, I’ve recently grown sick of helping others only for myself to end up worse than before. Like dead, for example. Now that I gave you your mouth back, you can convince him yourself when he wakes.”
“She will make certain he won’t believe me, as she always has.”
“Who?” When he tilted his head as much as the throne let him, giving me the weight of his stiff, milky stare, I sighed. “Orlaigh.”
“Yes, Orlaigh,” he said. “Dear child, my success stands and falls with yours. If you convince our Master of your i
That piqued my interest. “What’s all this got to do with me?”
“Your pledge.”
“Fine, I give you my promise, for whatever it’s worth these days.”
“A great many things if I am correct in my suspicion. Now listen, and listen well.” He cleared his throat, sending me back half a foot with another puff of sour air. “It is true, the god and I had a disagreement over the amount of corpses he promised me for an army.”
“Enosh told me Njala came to talk sense into you.”