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The bone strangled her scream into a choking gargle while my throne reshaped. It swallowed her limbs beneath waves of thickening bonedust, weaving them into the backrest to the symphony of cracking femurs and joints that dislodged with several pop-pop-pops.
Ah, how satisfying.
The gruesome sight robbed Ada of breath, filling her empty ribcage with… something. Something I couldn’t quite name, but it had her spine straighten and her shoulders square.
“Do you wish me to stretch her limbs, hmm?” I dove my face into the crook of Ada’s neck, taking in the scent of salt and minerals from how I’d washed her hair in the spring last night. “Shall we needle her organs with bone, letting it spread through her like those roots of mortal’s corruption? All you have to do is say it.”
A swallow visibly ran down her throat, but she shook her head. “No, this is… this is punishment enough.”
Perhaps another time.
I led her along the hallway toward the Æfen bridge as Orlaigh’s whimpers faded behind us. “It is time for us to confront my brother. After that, we will ride for the village where I found you. From there, to the high temple.”
When the hallway opened to the bridge, her legs froze. “Where did they come from?”
With a slow wave of my hand, I beckoned her gaze to pass over the corpses that lined the bridge, each armed with swords, pikes, and daggers of bone. “From the piles beyond the gates, sworn to defend us.”
“I thought no mortal other than the children would ever enter your court again.”
So much surprise in her voice over something she’d begged of me for an entire month, as though she’d all but forgotten her former goals.
Perhaps she had.
“Even gods make mistakes.” Why hold on to a vow given over the death of a woman who had betrayed me three times over, and deprive my wife and our child of the protection they deserved? “From what I sense, the Æfen Gate is blocked by a significant force of soldiers. How kind of High Priest Dekalon to supply me with an army and deliver it to my doorstep. Still, never again will I allow harm to come to you.”
She turned to lift a brow at me. “Enosh, I can’t die.”
“But you can suffer, and you had enough of that.” I let a dapple-gray horse shape in front of us, lifted her onto its back like I had done a dozen times before, then swung up behind her. “Suffering the pain of flesh is my duty; protecting you from it is my vow.”
I willed our horse into a walk toward the gate, calling upon the dead to follow. Groans and stomps resonated in the Pale Court, and the bridge shook beneath the thunder of two hundred fleshbare heels marching toward the Æfen Gate.
“Do your master’s bidding!” My shout joined the beat of hooves in my requiem of ruin, carrying it up the incline before it scattered into the wintery winds. “Seven men you shall bring me, alive and bound. Kill the others. Kill them all!”