Текст книги "King of flesh and bone"
Автор книги: Liv Zander
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King of Flesh and Bone
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THE PALE COURT BOOK ONE
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LIV ZANDER
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INK HEART PUBLISHING
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Contents
For Mature Audiences
Want to see the naughty version?
1. Ada
2. Ada
3. Ada
4. Ada
5. Ada
6. Ada
7. Enosh
8. Ada
9. Ada
10. Ada
11. Enosh
12. Ada
13. Ada
14. Ada
15. Ada
16. Ada
17. Enosh
18. Ada
19. Ada
20. Ada
21. Enosh
22. Ada
23. Enosh
24. Ada
25. Ada
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Copyright © 2022 by Liv Zander
ISBN-13: 978-1-955871-00-6
www.livzander.com
info@livzander.com
Cover Art: Darling Cover Design
Editing: Silvia’s Reading Corner
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, locations, or any other element is entirely coincidental.
Warning: This book is intended for mature audiences.
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Chapter 1
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Ada
“The dead are restless.” I glanced out the rain-blurred window toward the cemetery, the air inside the house thick with sweat and the sweetness of amniotic fluid. “You better start pushing now or my husband will dig out of his grave.”
As would the other corpses with the ground this soaked and soft. But my John as one of them…? Trudging across the village square with his skull exposed where he’d hit the rock two summers back, waterlogged skin swollen against his leather breeches? No, I would make bloody certain he stayed in the ground.
After all, I’d put him there.
“No. Not yet!” Sarah squatted at the edge of her bed, tears running down her red-veined cheeks, and dug her fingers into the straw mattress. “I can hold it in ’til the morning.”
Brushing blonde wisps from my forehead, I kneeled on the pounded dirt floor for a better look. No trickles running down her thighs, skin puffy-red and swollen, a thatch of dark hair crowning between her legs with no progress… By Helfa, had she shoved at the head all evening just to keep the baby in?
“No more stalling.” I stroked Sarah’s back through her sweat-soaked chemise, gathering the fabric higher while my other hand prodded her legs wider. “This child is coming, whether you want it or not.”
Ransacked by trembles, Sarah’s voice faded into a whimper against the straw. “Ada, I can’t bear the thought of not knowing if it’s dead or truly alive. How many hours ’til morning?”
“Too many to escape this fate.” Everyone dreaded the full moon, but none more than women cursed to birth a child on such a night. “Instead of weighing down my husband’s grave as I’m supposed to, I came here when you asked for my help.”
“To keep it in… not to get it out!”
A fool’s idea, risking both mother and child. The scalp had already turned more purple beneath the white film crowning its head. Was it dying? Already dead?
I’d only ever delivered four babies during the full moon—all alive the next morning—but I’d heard from other midwives who hadn’t been so lucky. Dead babes scream inconsolably, they reported, wailing in the same way the other corpses groan in the groanpits.
The groanpits…
I shuddered at that word.
The corpses we’d collected over the last month already resonated Hemdale with their ragged wheezes. We’d found most of them around the village, though they also had a habit of falling into the river on full moons, catching on the fish cages.
I looked back at Sarah. “Get the child out now and it might live to see the morning. Leave it stuck with the head like this… and it will be cold in its cradle once the sun rises. With you bleeding out next to it. You want to join the undead so soon?”
“No,” she cried, her voice as thin as my fraying patience.
No, none of us wanted that.
But it was what we all had coming.
Husbands. Elders. Mothers.
Everyone.
Even this child.
The thought of the dead resting and rotting in the ground was nothing but humbug in my ears. An evil curse upon the lands—old wives’ tales had it—cast by an enraged god. Internally, I scoffed. Nothing but a story where we all knew who was to blame.
Or what.
The constant patter of rain against the window tensed my muscles. “Sarah, please. No widow should chase behind her dead husband, but certainly not during such a downpour. Push!”
Her groan filled the house, mingling with the hiss of flames from the hearth and the occasional pop of poorly seasoned wood. At last, Sarah held her breath and labored, gaining a precious inch. A stubby nose appeared—Oh, pink!
Pink was promising.
“Again!” When the child’s head slipped into my hand, I angled it so one shoulder might pass first. “Only a few more. The head’s already out.”
The next contraction came with a yelp.
That, and the squeak of rusty hinges as the door opened, letting in a whiff of heavy smoke from the street. A monotone cadence of mumbles resonated outside. The priests, probably, calling for villagers to take up arms beside Hemdale’s groanpit.
“What’s this?” William pushed the door shut, the brim of his black felt hat barely hiding the anger glinting in his eyes. “What’s she doing here?”
Since Sarah screamed through yet another contraction, I answered in her stead, “Getting this child out.”
“I don’t want you near my wife.” He hurried over to Sarah, kneeled, and took her shaky hands into his. “It’s bad enough you got my brother killed over that curse of yours.”
I flinched. “She sent the neighbor over to my house, asking for me to come.”
“And I’m asking for you to leave, unwoman.”
Unwoman.
Stabbing pain grew in my chest until the laces of my dress strapped my lungs tight. Barren, punished by Helfa himself, blighted with a twisted womb… Of all the things some people called me, unwoman was the worst—and the truest. What else would you call a woman incapable of giving her husband a son?
A child was a blessing from Helfa.
I’d never even managed a daughter.
Clearly, I was cursed.
I blinked the stinging burn from my eyes and rose, feigning as much pride as my rounded spine would allow. “You want me gone? Serves me just fine.”
My mule already stood harnessed in the stables in case I needed the old, stubborn thing to pull the cart onto John’s grave. But what good was this precaution if I wouldn’t get there before the rain made certain the wheels got stuck? None.
Sarah screamed as the baby’s shoulder dislodged. A gush of amniotic fluid soaked the dirt beneath my feet, splattering the hem of my dress, thickening the air with moisture.
I quickly bent over and caught the child, then whispered, “Please don’t scream.”
The boy arched his back, his limbs slippery, his skin coated in a white wax. Little eyes blinked up at me—blue like mine—taking in their surroundings ever so curiously. Warmth swelled in my core with how his mouth rooted toward my chest as if… as if he were mine.
I extinguished it with a deep inhale. Because he was not mine, and no child ever would be. “It’s a boy.”
Grave silence settled into the room.
Sarah dug her face into the mattress, shaking her head until the straw crunched beneath the motion. Her haunches sunk to the ground, letting the umbilical cord drag over the dirt.
William frowned at the child, relief and terror letting the corners of his mouth hike and fall. “Is he… alive?”
My mouth turned dry.
Was he?
The longer William stared at me and Sarah remained utterly still, both waiting for an answer, the more the air cooled around me. As a midwife, I’d watched my fair share of mothers cradle their still baby. Watching them rock their crying baby on a full moon, only to find it cold and still the next morning. What curse could be more evil?
Cradling the boy in one arm, I grabbed a knitted blanket from a stool beside the bed and draped it over him. He might not need the warmth, but I would damn well provide it until we could be certain. A first scream built at the back of his throat, like a wet gargle from the remaining fluids in his lungs, running a shiver up my spine.
It meant nothing.
All babies cried.
“Can’t say until the morning.” Neither did I want to. “Pray that he’ll want to nurse, but… prepare yourself for the fact that the dead have no hunger.”
William rose, lifting his arms as if to take his son, only for them to drop by his sides again. “But he… he’s trying to wail.”
Wail. Wander.
Corpses did it all during a full moon, ever so restless in their pursuit of reaching the Graying Tower in the south, only to cry when it denied them entry. It called to them like a cruel siren, the stony castle surrounded by piles of corpses, where the devil responsible for our plight lived. Evil in flesh, the priests called him, an unearthly creature from a wayward realm.
The King of Flesh and Bone.
I handed William the child, no matter his reluctance. “Cut the cord, wait for the afterbirth, keep him warm until the morning… and pray. I have to weigh John’s grave down.”
Letting my head retreat into the hood of my cloak, I stepped outside, raindrops pelting the felt in hurried thud-a-thud-thuds. The occasional grunt resonating from the groanpit mixed into it, filling my veins with a restless tingle. That thing had gotten overly full this month. Had corpses truly burned in the past?
Probably just another story…
I turned the corner of the courthouse and passed the brick archway into the cemetery. Rivulets of water trailed between the graves, glistening with the soft sheen of a full moon glowing behind clouds. Sacks of grain lined the wrought-iron pickets, though villagers had moved some onto the graves.
“All that grain would have fed me for a year,” I mumbled, heading toward the oak door which leaned against the fence.
I gripped the edge, dug my heels into the soggy earth, and… Devil be damned, this thing was heavy. The door dragged slowly, corners ripping bushels of sod from the ground. Sweat formed at the nape of my neck and muscles soon ached. Just a little more…
The door hit the ground with a slosh, burying my planted violets underneath the incessant drum of rain on wood. A sound loud enough it quenched what had now turned into a chorus of groans from the pit, but by Helfa, it did nothing to muffle Pa’s protest.
“Drenched to the bone, but she has to weigh the damn grave down.” He wrapped gout-gnarled fingers around a sack of grains, his graying hair pasted to his skull, cursing the weather as he dragged it onto the door. “You can’t hold him forever, Ada.”
“Twenty-three months and counting,” I said, my cheeks tingly from the cold dampness. “Twenty-four if you help me put the mule before the cart. Ground’s too soaked to keep him from digging out, so I best put the cart on the door.”
“If the wheels get stuck, we won’t get the cart back to the stable ’til spring.”
“If John gets out, I’ll have to chase him, bind him, and still get the cart to drag him back to his grave,” I said, my eyes going to Pa’s crooked digits as they fumbled with his red-smudged handkerchief. Had he coughed blood again? “The wheels will get stuck no matter what. Preferably atop my husband.”
He quickly pushed his handkerchief into his leather vest pocket when he caught my eyes on the stained fabric. “Your eyes are red, the tip of your nose shiny. You’ve been crying.”
Just almost. “Sarah had a son.”
“Dead or alive?” When I shrugged, he slowly shook his head. “William paid a coin for your help?”
“No, but I bet he would have paid a coin for me to leave. Too bad I was in a rush.”
“Wretched man,” he grumbled. “You’re too good, and that’s not a compliment. Always taking on the problems of others. Always weighing down the grave of a man long cold.”
“A person’s only worth as much as his promise,” I recited Pa’s words like the prayer they’d been all my childhood. “I disappointed John in life, but I won’t fail him in death.”
Five winters ago, I’d sworn an oath inside the Tarwood Chapel, promising John the obedience of a woman, the fruitfulness of a mother, and the dutifulness of a wife.
Three promises given.
Two promises broken.
The third, I’d keep.
Pa tilted his head and frowned at me before he let his steps splish-splash over the flooding ground. “As stubborn as your mother.”
We rounded the western corner where the bathhouse stood whitewashed and proud. Beside the building, two of the Fletcher boys squatted at the edge of the groanpit—nothing but a deep hole in the ground, reinforced by palisades lining the dirt edges.
Boar spear in hand, Gregory, the oldest, reached out and poked a corpse’s head.
The dead man groaned.
The deep vibration, the desperation, the agony in its undertone—like a whooping cough rattling through a throat lined with weeping pox—put a sour tang in my gums. The corpse dragged fingers worn down to the knuckles over the sleek wood, which kept him from climbing.
Gregory thrust the spear into the man’s belly. The wings carved a large enough hole that purple guts poured out, ripping a violent hiss from the dead man. Corpses usually didn’t bother us unless provoked… but then they might maul you to pieces.
A nearby priest cut the boy a glare. “Do not disturb the dead.”
“Nothing but a stranger,” Gregory said with a shrug. “Never seen the man’s face around here. I’m not poking anything that keeps him from wandering once you open the pit. If anything, the dead disturb us.”
“And they will until we destroy this devil.” The priest turned toward the village square, the hem of his black robes swaying about his naked feet as he let his voice shatter through the busy night. “Hear me! Your loved ones shall find no rest until the good people of this realm have helped us capture the King of Flesh and Bone!”
“Grandma said nobody can enter his kingdom, so it’s not like we can drag him out,” Gregory said, which earned him a few nods from idle bystanders and those preparing to open the pit’s gate. “Met a trapper once who works around the Blighted Fields. Said he saw dead beasts go through the Æfen Gate, but never a man, dead or not.”
“Pray to Helfa,” the priest said, stretching his arms to the sky. “Pray that we will capture him soon.”
I scoffed, hooked my arm into Pa’s, and led him up the path toward the house. “As if the priests and temples haven’t tried for… for what? The last hundred years?”
“Longer.” Pa shuffled up the hill, the daub on the walls of our home weatherworn. “The question is, what do you do with a creature of such power?”
I crossed the garden in the direction of the stable beside the house. “Someone once told me he’s been captured before and contained with fire. Said there was a book—”
“Shh…” Pa glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t speak of books this close to the priests. You know how they get with ungodly writings about this devil—”
Bang.
The entire stable shook at the violent kick of iron against wooden boards. Panicked snorts followed, letting my heart match each beat as it all repeated with aggressive fervor.
Bang. Snort. Bang-bang. Snort.
Another kick.
Wood splintered.
My heart clanked against my throat as a hoof shot through a wooden board. Was there no end to this miserable day? I ran toward the stable, cursing the damn mule—that animal couldn’t have chosen a worse day to die.
Pa hurried up behind me. “That damned animal. You should’ve sold him to the butcher, like I said, when the beast refused to get up last week. He’ll tear the entire stable down.”
Should have, could have, would have…
None of it kept John in the ground.
I turned toward the cart. “I’ll get ropes so we can hobble him.”
“The beast will head toward the Blighted Fields the moment you open the stall.”
“Serves me fine since the cemetery lies that way,” I said and grabbed a set of ropes. “At least the stubborn thing will go in the direction I want him to for once. He can rest his bones with the King all he wants, but not before the cart stands on the grave.”
I returned to the stable, stealing nervous glances through the gaps in the wood. “Stand aside.”
The latch quivered in my clasp with each kick and trembled with each whinnied squeal that ended on the distorted haw of the mule. Old Augustine had been stubborn in life, and chances were, he wasn’t any better in death.
“Easy now.” Slow steps carried me to his stall, hands working one end of the rough rope into a catch noose. “You pull that cart for me one more time, and then when they release the corpses, I’ll lead you to the village gate myself.”
He flared his nostrils and pawed at the ground, eyes wide with panic, pupils staring at the open stable door with purpose. His leather harness hung crooked. A strap dangled loose where it must have caught on something before it had ripped.
I swung the rope over the beast’s neck and lowered the noose to the ground where hooves trampled. “It’s too dark, Pa. Open the door wider.”
More moonlight filtered in.
Augustine’s deafening squeal ran gooseflesh across my skin. When the damn thing finally stepped into the noose, I pulled hard and fast, tightening the rope around its pastern. I swung the rope to the other side and prepared a second noose. The mule stepped into that one fairly quickly. Hobbled like this, Augustine kicked with more fervor, and the stable moaned its age beneath the force.
“I’ll bring him out now.” I tied the rest of the rope around the mule’s neck before I climbed the wooden partition and tied the end to the harness.
Pa’s voice filtered in. “You’ll get yourself killed.”
Reins in hand, I led a hobbled Augustine out of the stable, the beast hopping beside me toward the cart. “I won’t let John escape just so some Fletcher brat in another village can carve him to pieces.”
Pa hurried away, tugging on the shafts a moment later. “I’ll turn the cart.”
Augustine reared, the breath coming from his nostrils already so cold it no longer billowed. The reins burned inside the tight grip of my fist. I wouldn’t let go.
“Hardheaded bastard.” I righted the harness before I led the mule to the cart. “Come on now!”
Augustine’s demeanor grew frenzied, whinnies taking on the wheezing qualities of the corpses in the pit.
He reared once more.
A hind leg slipped.
Augustine staggered.
Leather ripped with a crrk-shk, slapping my cheek like a whiplash. I stumbled back, my shoulder crashing against the mule’s unforgiving rump. Heels sunk into the mud before I slipped.
The ground pulled out from underneath.
Thud!
Pain spread through my skull.
Darkness crept into my vision
Something tugged on my ankle.
“Help! Catch the mule before the beast drags her to death!” Pa’s voice hollered around me, but it soon faded into the clip-clop of shod hooves.
That, and the incessant cries of a babe.
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Chapter 2
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Ada
Damp fabric clung to my skin.
Thud.
Something knobby prodded my spine.
Thud.
Pain ate away at me, inside and out.
Thud.
What had happened?
I blinked my burning eyes open, staring at a dark lavender sky. Was it… almost morning? God’s bones, where was I? Another thud around my shoulder and my head tilted to one side, pupils catching on tattered clothes, gaping wounds, black-veined skin—
A scream formed at the back of my throat, but it lodged between raw muscles. Shocked into silence, I stared at the corpses lining my left and right.
They stared right back at me.
A young man missing a hand.
Thief.
A boy with blisters on his skin.
Pox.
Both stared, but not the soldier beside them, his breastplate edged with rust, his eyes pecked into a set of black, gaping holes. Perhaps by the crow sitting on what remained of his shoulder, arm dangling on little more than skin long dried around the shredded edges.
Something cracked beneath the weight of my shifting body. Twigs?
Muscles strained, aching, I glanced back over my shoulder, fighting against the darkness blurring the edges of my vision. A trail of mud and misery lay behind me, paved with crushed corpses poking from the ground where they didn’t pile in heaps as tall as five men to each side.
My breath stalled.
Many heaps.
In fact, I’d only ever heard of one such place.
I lifted my head, glancing toward the slosh of hooves sinking into the mud before each one lifted with a wet pop. Hobbles gone, Augustine trudged along the parting crowd of corpses. He walked over those too dismembered to move, trampling them into the ground with blood-curdling cracks.
I was dragged over what was left.
Devil be damned, I had to free myself.
I reached for the piece of leather wrapped around my ankle. A little more… Almost…
Pain seized my muscles.
My head hit the ground and blood seasoned my tongue.
From the corner of my left eye, a gray structure rose above me, casting a cold shadow over my shivering body. The damn mule had dragged me to the Blighted Fields, but I couldn’t pass the Æfen Gate into the Graying Tower. No human could enter—
Sloshing stomps turned to echoing clip-clops.
Sudden cold paralyzed my muscles. It accompanied me along a passage into darkness and crept into my veins as panic flooded my head. I shouldn’t be here. Felt it in the marrow of my bones that I was in the wrong place.
The whistling of wind followed us for long moments but faded away the deeper we ventured. In its place, a violent crshh echoed from the surrounding stone.
“Wine. Always… wine.” The voice was a low rumble, followed by another crshh, like shattering plates. “Did they all run out of mead? Wasn’t there a single ale to be had?”
“If mead’s what ye want, ye have to keep the rot from me body long enough so I can go another day past the nearest village. As if I dinnae have enough trouble already finding enough wine for ye muddled head.”
The deep voice growled, “Mind your tongue, Orlaigh.”
A final clop and Augustine stopped.
His swishing tail blocked most of my view, though I could make out white steps where pieces of clay jugs lay scattered. Wine dripped from them, red puddles on the pale alabaster surrounding it all.
“Ach, they worked ye poor animal to death, dinnae they?” Black boots appeared between my mule’s four sturdy legs, and Orlaigh’s voice came softer. “Dinnea bother taking the harness off, huh? What a fine animal ye are, bringing weary bones to rest with yer master.”
Bones to rest with their master…?
A violent tremble grabbed my body, lungs heaving against the mounting desperation rattling through them. Was I truly inside the Graying Tower? No. This had to be a bad dream. A dream. Yes, only a dream. Just a dr—
The harness jiggled, sending such a stabbing pain into my ankle that I sucked in a sharp breath…
…and choked on it.
A gargle played around my ribs, expanded, swelled until my chest hardened against relentless pressure. Something warm and thick clogged my throat, bubbling underneath coughs until, turning my head, it all dislodged at once. It coated my gums, filled the gaps of my teeth, and dribbled down my chin like cod-liver oil as I heaved it all out.
Blood.
Too warm to be a dream.
Clop. Clop.
Footsteps.
“Ah dhia!” Orlaigh swung both hands to her chest, her pale features streaked with the same thin black veins that feathered across the white of her eyes.
A talking corpse?
But… how?
Gray braids shifted as she turned her head toward the stairs. “Ye best come see this.”
The man sighed. “Does the mule carry mead?”
“Nay.”
“Ale?”
Orlaigh shook her head, hands slipping down until they rested upon wide hips draped in a simple, green-checkered cotton dress. “It’s a young lass.”
Pottery crunched beneath slow steps, but the grind of soles upon clay soon made room for the rushing of blood in my ears. My heart ached with incessant pounding, but only until a man stepped around the mule… then my heart stopped.
No, it couldn’t be…
Cold, colorless eyes locked with mine, set in a face with a straight nose and firm jaw, all framed by long black hair. It brushed over a white, untied shirt, barely hiding his well-thewed chest, hem shoved into black breeches.
No rich embroidery.
No gold chains.
No embellishments.
Nothing gave him away as more than a man—a wicked creature not of this world—yet I recognized him as who he was. Not from his proud posture, the arrogance on his arched brow, or even the liberties his eyes took as they roamed over me. No, what gave him away as the King of Flesh and Bone was the very air around him, like a chill coming off him in ripples and waves. That, and the twisted curl of disgust tugging on his upper lip.
He tilted his head, hands clenched into fists by his sides. “How did this mortal enter my court?”
Orlaigh scratched Augustine’s rump and gave a one-sided shrug. “Kin tied the lass to the mule.”
The King’s gaze wandered to the leather straps which dug into my skin before his eyes snapped back to mine. “Is this a new trickery? You dare come to this court uninvited? Unwanted?”
My lips parted, mute, each apology drowning in the back of a throat already pooling with blood again. Specks of light and dark flickered around my vision. I needed to wake up.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake—
“Speak!” The King’s shout shattered from the walls before it battered my bones. “You look at me from eyes still burning with a soul, and I demand this answer while you still have your wits about you.” He walked up beside me, the tip of his boot brushing against my waist as he squatted down. “Is this a new trickery of your wicked kind? Tell me now, and I might show mercy by taking you outside before I snap your neck. Or remain silent and learn the damnation of eternal fealty.”
“Now, now,” Orlaigh mumbled, all straightness gone from her spine, “let the lass speak—”
The King silenced her with little more than his hand rising toward her face, eyes still fixed on me. “Shut your mouth before I sew your lips together and let you choke on your own tongue. The one I want silent won’t stop pestering me, and the one I demand answers from won’t speak.” Sinking to his knees, he lowered his lips to my ear, his voice a whisper. “Listen to my words, mortal. You better answer before I find you employment at the Pale Court. If you believe wandering the Earth for all eternity is a dark fate, then let me assure you that serving me is the greater punishment for the wicked crimes of man. Ought I to refuse entry even to the beasts now?”
I swallowed past a lump of blood and fear. “F-forg… ough—”
A violent cough cut through my effort, crimson droplets speckling the King’s loose shirt, the skin of the broad chest behind loose bindings, and even half his cheek.
Orlaigh shook her head, thick brows wrinkled, and a hint of pity hushed over her face. “Lass is drowning in her own blood.”
The King reached for his face, wiping the blood off before he stared at his red-streaked fingers. Fingers he extended toward me, hesitantly, his lips now parted.
He cupped my cheek.
Skin connected with skin.
I flinched at the unexpected warmth.
So did the King.
He pulled his hand back as if I’d burned him, pushing himself up to stand, and stumbling back a step all at once. “So… warm.”
He stared at me from those unnerving eyes, irises the color of autumn clouds foreboding a storm. “Who sent you? Some mortal king? They no longer tie their harlots to the trees to lure me out, but now strap them to beasts?”
“Ye won’t get answers from a lass half-dead,” Orlaigh said. “From the looks of it, she hit every skull and was dragged over every sharp bone on the way in. Foot’s twisted. Dinnae look like a trap to me.”
The King stepped toward Augustine. “The looks of mankind are deceiving.”
He grabbed the twisted leather strap tied around my ankle and pulled. With little effort, the strap broke and my leg hit the hard alabaster. Pain pricked my skin, seared my flesh, twisted around my body like ropes. I screamed loud enough that even the mule danced once more until the sound drowned.
“No mortal will die and find rest in my kingdom.” The King’s command resonated a chamber void of life, stripped bare to the white paneling on the crooked walls, the distorted ceiling, the very ground on which he stood. “Drag her outside and toss her onto one of the piles of corpses…”
His voice faded along with everything around me. Darkness invaded once more, and with it, another voice—a strange one, like the comforting embrace of a loved one, luring me toward where darkness paled into a path of the brightest light.
“Come to me,” the voice beckoned. “Let me take your breath.”
Limbs stiff, unmoving, I stepped toward the light. Brightness encapsulated all my being, chasing away the pain, the suffering, the—
“I forbid you to go to him!” the King snarled and a heavy weight settled onto my chest. “I’d rather mend your flesh and keep you alive than have you die and make me an oath breaker.”
Pain returned twofold, choking me, ripping me away from the light. Lungs burning, legs kicking, back arching… I fought against death until, with a long, deep inhale, I filled my chest with the cold air of the chamber. It seared down my throat, through ribs, burning deep into a cavity now fully expanding. The tang of blood vanished from my mouth and the pain dulled into little more than faint throbbing.
My eyes fluttered shut.
“Orlaigh, leave through the Nocten Gate,” the King said. “Buy food from the nearest settlement, and whatever else her… mortal needs require.”
My body shifted, heavy limbs tugging on sore joints as they flapped about. Warmth pressed against my belly. Something was wrong with the scent wafting around my nose, like ash sprinkled over a layer of fresh snow.
“Your heart will beat for eternity, and no age shall befall your warm body while in my service, little mortal.” The King’s dark whisper hushed against my sweat-pearled temple. “Welcome to the Pale Court.”
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