Текст книги "King of flesh and bone"

Автор книги: Liv Zander

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Chapter 9

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Ada

I was dead.

I had to be.

Time meant nothing to the dead.

Time meant nothing to me.

It no longer passed in hours, minutes, or even seconds, but instead, time passed in pieces of my soul chipping away one moan at a time.

“Enosh…” Clink. Dignity, gone.

“Enosh…” Clink. Duty, gone.

“Enosh…” Clink. Hope of escape?

Gone.

Whenever I was awake, the god worshipped my body in ways I hadn’t known existed, from feasting on my sex to rutting me from behind while he pinned me against his throne—sometimes the dais—strokes so violent, bonemeal dusted my breasts after.

He brought me pleasure so many times, it overwhelmed and exhausted me into compliancy. The kind where I often fell to sleep rolled up in my nest, or worse, sitting on his lap as he nuzzled my temple.

When I was his good little mortal—screaming his name across the Pale Court—he brought me flowers. He turned the dais into a garden of pink roses, fragrant lavender, and stunning lilies—all plucked from fields I would never walk again, placed into a cage of bone so I could watch them wilt.

And I wilted alongside them.

Limbs heavy and senses dull, I kneeled on the ground before Enosh, where he sat on his throne, and yawned. “I’m tired.”

“You only just slept, my little one.” He twirled a strand of my hair around his finger, once, twice, then draped it over my bone collar. “Your body shouldn’t be so tired, its weariness burdens even my senses.”

Had I just slept? “Is it night or day?”

“It is both and everything in-between.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, of course not.” Scooping me up from the floor, he rose and took that one step into my nest, letting me sink into the warm bed of pelts and feathers. “Would you like to paint?”

As if I had any canvas left. The surrounding dais was covered in paintings of roses and ravens. “You could take me outside.”

“Or I could bring outside to the court.” He showed me his hand, palm up, and let bone dust form into the skeleton of a bird. Shortly after, gray flesh covered it and black feathers appeared around it. Its wings soon flapped, lifting into the air, only for tiny feet to wrap around the edge of my hand. “You can play with it.”

“I’m not a child.” A hard-to-defend statement considering how I clung to his neck as he cradled me. “How can you not get bored in here?”

“I assume immortality cured me of that.” His fingers slipped underneath my skirts, stroking my inner thigh. “What happens when my little mortal is irritable?”

“That depends.”

A snarky remark? His cock down my throat. Pretending that I felt nothing? So many orgasms, it left me sore. Refusing to moan his name? His fingers pinching my nymph. Snarling at him, calling him a bastard, and cursing him to drop dead? His cock up my arse…

“I’m unclean,” I said after a while and, when wrinkles formed between his brows, I clarified, “My bleeding arrived when I woke.”

“I know. Why does my mortal woman think I had Orlaigh provide cloth and braise for it?” Something I might have called considerate if I wasn’t the prisoner of a lusty god. “How curious of you to call yourself unclean for something so… natural.”

“Helfa forbids a man to lie with his wife while she’s impure.”

I flinched at my words.

I shouldn’t have said that. Enosh hated few things more than talk about another taking his place beyond the Æfen Gate. On a much more serious note, I also shouldn’t have said it because I wasn’t his damn wife.

“I am your god.” Where I expected rage in his voice, I only found the slightly elevated pitch of a smile, as if he were so very pleased with how I’d called myself his wife. “And I see nothing impure about you or the act we share as man and woman while you bleed.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Very well. I’ll give you this one concession, my little wife.”

My pulse thudded faster.

Did he truly spare me the indignity?

Because I’d called myself his wife?

That… scared me.

I rubbed at my tired eyes. “I’m not your wife.”

“Indeed, you never gave me your vow.”

A sudden heaviness settled on my shoulder, followed by a voice I’d almost forgotten. Almost.

“Flesh and scar and skin and bone, feed her body to the throne,” the voice sing-songed into my left ear before it shifted to the other, curdling the blood in my veins. “Sweat and breath and soul and flaw, my brother surely… fucked… you… raw.”

My skin crawled wherever muscles tightened. I was mad, mentally unwell. My mind drained from the dullness and monotony of this place; why else would I now hear voices?

At the very first shiver gripping my arms, Enosh cupped my cheek, bringing my eyes to meet his. “Why is your heart racing?”

My shoulders hiked toward my ears, but it did nothing to ward off the cacophony of whispers hushing through my skull. “Heart and blood and veins and death, the third will come and steal your breath.”

“What’s this voice?”

 “Voice?” Enosh took my face between his hands, thumb stroking over trembling lips. “What does it say, little one?”

“Terrible things…”

With one quick move, Enosh slung his arms around me as though to shield me. “Get out of her head.”

“But it is… so…” The whisper turned into moist breath, breaking against my cheek. “Fun in there.”

A man took form beside us, his face inches from mine until he shifted back. He perfumed the air with sandalwood, staring at me with grass-green eyes. He straightened to an impressive height and skipped down the dais; long, auburn hair shifting on a brown felt jacket elaborately embroidered with golden leaves.

“Did John escape his grave? Who will take care of Pa?” Voice mockingly high-pitched, the man fanned himself as though he was close to a fainting spell, feeding my veins with liquid anger even as my mind struggled to understand what was happening. “Had I done my duty as a wife, my poor John wouldn’t have a—”

“Enough!” Enosh barked.

“—hole in his skull. His death is on my conscience. I am worthless. An unwoman.” The man clapped his hands. “Oh, what delicious agony houses behind those blue eyes of hers, matching your misery, Enosh, so per—”

The man choked on his words before a swell of blood pushed from his mouth. Thick and dark, it ran down his chin, dripping onto a spike of bone now protruding from his neck. The air turned heavy with the taint of metal. Glancing down at it, he wrapped both hands around the spike and dragged it out under gargling wheezes.

My stomach convulsed at the sight, my mind spinning so wildly that I hugged myself, unconsciously shifting closer to Enosh. “You killed him.”

“I wish.” With a sigh, Enosh wiped a palm down his face, which he then dismissively waved at the man who fell to his knees, chin sinking to his chest. “Ada, meet my brother, Yarin.”

Brother.

The word stabbed my temple.

As if Enosh wasn’t bad enough already…

A wet chuckle drooled from Yarin’s lips. “She doesn’t think well of you, brother. I dare say she hates your guts.”

Did Enosh just flinch?

I must have imagined it as he curled his fingers into my waist with a possessive grip. “How long have you been hiding between her thoughts?”

Yarin rose—the hole in his neck gone—and brushed his fingers over the blood staining his jacket. “I only had this tailored a fortnight ago. Now look what you’ve done. It took a great deal of traveling to find felt of such quality and craftsmanship.”

“How long?”

“Ever since you cheated Eilam and kept her from dying.” Yarin slowly spun, head shaking repeatedly as he glanced about the chamber, then his eyes settled on Enosh once more. “You’re notorious for taking what isn’t yours to take, Enosh, and it vexes him so.”

My gaze bounced back and forth between the men. “Who is Eilam?”

“Our brother.”

When Yarin winked at me, my head swung to Enosh. “You have two brothers?”

Enosh’s hold on me tightened. “Stop whispering into her mind before I needle your bitter flesh with bone!”

“You’ve always been so quick to threaten physical punishment. And no, Ada, we’re not brothers in the mortal sense.” Yarin’s eyes held mine captive. Adorable, how he stashes you away like his little secret. And look, he set a blue gemstone into your collar. “We’re purely bound by this brotherly love between us. Isn’t that so, Enosh?”

“You’re making her nervous,” Enosh grunted. “Stop muddling her thoughts, or I’ll have my corpses drag you outside and toss you onto a pile.”

“Her thoughts are muddled already. Mortals do poorly if deprived of light and stimulation. I tried it. She slit her wrists.” A powerful set of teeth sunk into an apple Yarin had pulled from a pocket, ripping a bite with a wet crk before a sly grin formed on his mouth. “Anyway, given the poor state of your court, your threats leave much to be desired, and… um…” Yarin raked a lazy hand through his strands. “My, my, would you look at this shithole. No servants, no feasts, no music. Only the Pale Court stripped to its bare bones, so to speak, and my brother drowning in self-pity and the cunt sitting on his lap.” Green eyes snapped to me. “What pleasant company your mouthiness would have provided at my court.”

I straightened. “What court?”

“The Court Between Thoughts,” Enosh said on a groan. “Believe me, little one, you don’t want to go there.”

“Oh no, you don’t, Ada,” Yarin added. “It’s dreadful. All my entourage and I do all day is fuck and sing and drink… and fuck. On a more serious note, brother, I can tell you two converse little beyond the beastly grunts you exchange when you bed her.” Yarin lowered himself to the dais, one leg folding over the other. “See, Ada, Enosh rules over the bodily remnants of everything that once breathed. Your soul, however, belongs in my keep. And then there’s your life breath, of course, which was supposed to go to Eilam. Unfortunately for you, mostly, my brother here is so smitten with you.”

“Guard your thoughts or he’ll twist them,” Enosh whispered into my ear, lulling my muscles into a state of lethargy with calculated strokes along my spine.

“Oh, you don’t want me to twist them for you, brother?” Yarin’s eyes locked with mine, and whispers infiltrated my head in never-ending echoes.

“I’ve never been worth anything to John while Enosh locks me away like a treasure. When was the last time a man wanted me? Lusted for me? Does the god not tend to my needs? Kisses me so gently? How much longer can I deny there’s true pleasure in his touch, and—”

Yarin groaned.

Another sharp piece of bone protruded from his neck, this one shaped like a dagger, but he quickly pulled it out with yet another chuckle.

Pain bloomed around my temples. No, those thoughts hadn’t been mine. Never would be.

“If only you wouldn’t have done that, Enosh,” Yarin said. “She might have loved you on her next breath.”

Everything on Enosh stilled, and even his breathing suspended for an overlong moment before he said, “You’re testing my patience, Yarin. Why are you here?”

“Can you truly not tell?”

Enosh sunk his head into his palm, his dismay so obvious he almost appeared… mortal. “You came to demand the corpses.”

“Quite so. Three souls I once bound to their bodies for you.”

I perked up at that. That could only be Orlaigh, Lord Tarnem, and the commander.

“Precisely, Ada.” Yarin’s comment triggered a flinch. Between Enosh’s ability to control my body and his brother’s power to meddle in my thoughts, which one of these gods was worse? “We’re all equally terrible,” he whispered into my mind. “Now, I demand you supply my court with those four new corpses you owe me in return. The ones I have are starting to stink up my bed.”

“Three corpses.”

“Four. With interest.” Yarin smacked his tongue. “Or did you believe two hundred years wouldn’t come at a premium?”

“What a curious time to show yourself—a month after she arrived—when you’ve remained blissfully absent for over a century.”

“What can I say…? Eilam sought me out, lamenting about how you pushed the borders of your prerogative once again, keeping something from him that was…” Yarin sighed. “And so on and so forth. In any case, I expect you near the town of Airensty in ten days. Rumor has it the Tybosts will lay siege to it. Battering rams. Siege towers. Oh, what a spectacle it’ll be! You know full well how battles excite me.”

Enosh tapped a thumb against his chin, his voice a mumble. “Airensty…”

I breathed against the quickening beat of my heart, struggling it into a state of calm. Had Enosh noticed? Airensty lay several days’ travel on horseback from Hemdale. If I could convince him to take me with him—

“Surely there has to be another battle in another direction,” Enosh said. “Mortals quarrel all the time, and certainly not only beyond the Æfen Gate.”

Yarin tilted his head, lifting his chin in an almost taunting manner. “Ah, yes, the Soltren Gate then. Who wants to see oil poured over those men pushing the battering ram then set aflame, if we can instead… Oh, I just remembered… because you killed everyone beyond that gate.”

My fingers numbed.

Killed everyone?

No. Calm. I had to stay calm.

I didn’t even dare to lift my brow while the two brothers stared at each other, air tainted with aggression. After almost a month, I couldn’t afford more of Enosh’s suspicion. One way or another, I needed him out of the Pale Court to have a chance at escape, no matter how slim.

“You could always try to lure him toward the edge of the bone and push him down.” Yarin’s stare remained on Enosh, but something sinister played around his lips. “Maybe you can get rid of him like that.”

My eyes went to the ring of darkness surrounding the throne chamber. A gaping ravine of never-ending blackness that swallowed the glimmer of bone and the echoes of the Pale Court. What if Enosh’s immortality ended at the bottom of it? Could he be killed like this?

“He cannot, but you can always throw yourself down during an onslaught of madness.” Yarin scoffed a bitter laugh. “Now I’m certain she hates you. I suppose it offers cause for entertainment and… Whatever do you do all day, Enosh? You bury yourself in her womb and then what…? Stare? Drink? I say it is time for fresh– Orlaigh!”

The moment Orlaigh spotted Yarin, she gave him a dismissive wave, though a smile tugged on the corners of her lips. “Ach, as if yer brother dinnae trouble me enough already, now ye came to shush me about court?”

“Old Orlaigh, as plucky as ever. When was the last time my brother led you across the bone in a ceilidh, huh?” Yarin shot up, hurrying over to take Orlaigh’s hands. “Let us dance and remind my bore of a brother how lively the Pale Court had once been.”

“Nay, leave me old bones—”

“Nonsense!” Yarin wrapped his arms around the barrel-bellied woman, lifted her, and swung her around the chamber in circles. “Ada, won’t you join us? How could my brother resist a plea from lips I’m certain he had sucking his—”

“I refuse,” Enosh shouted, seething beside me, veins along his arms swelling with what had to be rage.

“Now, now, brother. You might want to reconsider, given the likelihood of you needing another soul chained in the future.” His eyes flicked to me for the fraction of a breath, but long enough to raise the hairs on my arms. “Did you forget what happened to your last woman? Poor Njala, bleeding out from her throat.”

A dark pit formed at the bottom of my stomach. His last woman? What had happened to her?

As though Enosh had noticed my unease—which, he probably had—he placed a kiss against my shoulder. “Airentsy. In ten days. Now leave my court.”

Yarin lowered a giggling Orlaigh back down before he bowed. “Madam, I thank you for the honor of this dance.”

She pressed a hand to her sternum. No doubt she would have blushed had her blood not gone black such a long time ago.

Even as Yarin straightened, green eyes searching mine, the god faded until nothing was left but the dull chamber.

That, and a final whisper. “Such a joy to be in your head. And Njala…? Well, he killed her dead.”

My blood cooled. “Who was Njala?”

Enosh regarded me, his cool demeanor crumbling with each frown forming between his brows, showing me a glimpse of something behind his arrogant wall of indifference I couldn’t name. “If I take you with me, little one, will you promise not to run?”

“If I promise, will you rot my husband’s bones?”

“I will not.”

I promise.

The lie brushed over my lips, but I licked it away and swallowed it whole. Enosh had already made me a whore, but I wouldn’t allow him make me a liar.

“Then I’ll promise no such thing.”

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Chapter 10

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Ada

“A, n, d.” Letter for letter, I put the sounds together like Enosh had taught me, finger trailing over black ink on yellowed paper. “A, an, and the g, o, d… g, go, god, and the god r… ra– Curses!” With a groan, I let my face sink into the copper pelts of my nest. “It’ll take me hundreds of years to read this damn book.”

Worse yet, I would still be alive, stuttering around stories where one letter looked like the next. If the tail went up from the circle on the left side, it made buh. From the right side crossing to the left? Duh. If the tail went down, it made puh, but on which side? Left? Right? What fool came up with the idea of creating a letter and tipping it around in books?

“Patience, my little treasure.” Enosh folded an arm under one side of his head where he rested inches from me in my nest and tugged a strand behind my ear. “You did well.”

I hated when he praised me.

Loathed how something inside me soaked it up like the cracked ground did when rain came after a drought. ‘You did well’ sounded so much better than ‘You failed to conceive yet again.’

My finger went to the gemstone set into my collar, trailing around the smoothed edges that came together in the shape of a teardrop. “What’s this stone?”

“A diamond.”

When I glanced down hard enough, until chin hit chest, I could see it sparkling a deep, vivid blue from the bottom edge of my vision. “Where did you get it?”

“From the royal house of Nazameh. They’re long gone, decimated during one of the many quarrels about lands, wealth… power.”

“Is it precious?”

“To me, it’s something of beauty that matches the color of your eyes—a blue like the sea between the Kilafa mountains before the land split apart and drowned some thousand years ago.” His hand stroked over the sway of my hip and the thousands of black feathers that covered me as he rose. “But yes, mortals consider it precious.”

I’d never worn anything precious. Never held much value to anyone except Pa, even though a widowed daughter made for an expensive burden. Husbands were generous with their seed when it came to making babies, but stingy once the midwife came knocking. That some worried my fruitlessness might be contagious didn’t help matters…

Enosh let a high-collared jacket of black leather form around his torso, the bone buttons carved with skulls. “It’s time.”

My gaze drifted to the cloud of bone dust swirling at the bottom of the dais. It formed the distinct shape of a horse, coming together in sturdy bones as my chain dissolved where it rested on the steps. Hide soon followed, covering the creature in brittle skin before dull hairs arranged in a black coat.

I rose, brushing down the black feathers of my dress. “What’s this?”

“Yarin is waiting for us.”

My stomach bottomed out. “Us? You’re… you’re taking me with you?”

“I’d rather have you by my side where I can see you than return home to find your collar broken and the few corpses I left scattered in pieces across the court.” He walked up to me, his black hair framing his regal features so perfectly, and took me into his embrace before he whispered, “This will only hurt for a moment, my little one.”

My heart stumbled over a beat before it hit the back of my throat. “No, please, Enosh. Don’t do this—”

“Shh…” Warmth swathed me, coaxing my stiff muscles into a false state of ease. “Once we return, I’ll mend your bones.”

Crk-crk-crk.

Bone crackled beneath me.

Pain shot up and down my shins. It seared my flesh, pushing me toward unconsciousness. I heaved, wheezed in air, choking on my own saliva until—

“There, there. I’m already dulling the pain away.” Enosh caught me at my first sway, carried me down the dais, and propped me on the horse’s back.

I pulled on the train of my dress, sour bile sweeping up my throat at the sight of bone spurs stretching the skin along my shins so taut it yellowed. “I should’ve expected no different from you, you fucking bastard.”

His chuckle echoed from the surrounding bone as he gracefully swung himself onto the horse behind me, his voice a purr across the side of my neck. “If my woman wants my prick up her ass, she only needs to say so, and I shall oblige.”

Nothing but a quiet threat, all while he caressed me into a state of dull acceptance, slowing my heart until it beat evenly. I didn’t hate him nearly as much for breaking my legs as I did for calming the rage pumping through my veins into a mere tingle.

And a comforting one at that.

Bastard.

Enosh wrapped his arm around my middle, anchoring me to him, which was a good thing considering I’d never been one for riding sidesaddle—and there was no saddle at all. “We’ll ride over those hayfields you claim to miss so dearly.”

“And see the sky you promised I would never see again.”

He grunted.

In that, I took some small comfort.

After Orlaigh gave me a satchel with bread and dried meat, we left through the Æfen Gate. Hooves clopped over stone and up the incline, back through the passage Augustine had dragged me through. At the surface, I clenched my eyes shut against a sun suddenly too bright for eyes accustomed to the dim glimmer of the Pale Court.

Enosh’s chest hardened behind me, his entire body rigid while the cracking of bones and squishing of flesh drove out the faint chirping of birds. “Keep your eyes closed for another moment.”

“Oh please, as if a carpet of smashed corpses is worse than how one of your decrepit servants dropped his jaws into my soup during the last meal.” When he made a gruntled sound at the back of his throat, I casually asked, “Will rot follow you to Airensty?”

“No. It is something I purposely do, going so far I can even distinguish between which body rots and which will not.” So I’d achieved nothing. “Open your eyes. See your sky and your birds.”

I kept them closed for another five breaths, sucking in the moisture of the dew beneath us, the waft of soil climbing into my nostrils, and the first traces of winter berries lingering in the air. My lungs expanded until the leather bindings of my bodice moaned, sun and shadow playing over my face in a caress of warmth and cool.

My eyes blinked open and my heart ached at the sight of a crow circling the pink-streaked horizon. “It’s beautiful.”

Enosh glanced down at me, brushing one of my strands tousled by the breeze off my shoulder. “Indeed. So captivatingly beautiful.”

Did we speak of the same thing? My head turned to glance back at him, but I stopped myself. If it had been flattery, it meant nothing coming from his lips.

“Don’t you enjoy this?”

“Very much. But what I enjoy even more is the lightness coming over your chest after you’ve been so sluggish as of late,” he said, as if it came as a surprise to him that chaining a woman to a throne in a dim chamber might have this result.

His fingers stroked over my belly as if ensuring himself I was, indeed, still here, infusing my body with… nothing.

No prickle.

No pleasure.

So I wasn’t going insane after all.

Which could only mean one thing… “You have no control over my flesh out here, do you?”

“Only over the dead scattered across these lands.” As though he despised admitting it, his voice hardened. “Make no mistake, my little one, I have an endless amount of bone at my disposal to make certain you remain by my side.”

As if he needed such drastic measures. “You broke my legs.”

“Twisted,” he corrected with a sigh of annoyance. “A necessary precaution, because even gods are not all-powerful. The living are wicked, the lands we ride dangerous from what little you told me. I can’t satisfy my brother’s demand, keep you from running, and avoid danger all at the same time.”

“Danger? You can’t die.”

“No, but you can.”

“My god, are we riding into battle?”

When he kicked the horse into an unnatural speed, I shifted out of balance, but he quickly steadied me against him, saving me from a fall. “Mortals are wayward creatures.”

“Toward the god who’s abandoned them.”

His low chuckle vibrated against my spine, but it held no humor. “Do you believe this is the first time mortals would rebel against a god? The living have chased me since the beginning of time like the waves chase across the seas, ever so predictable in their hither and tither with ebbs of worship and floods of them doubting my divinity.”

My stomach clenched, my mind going back to what Orlaigh had told me. Was this the life of a god? To be chased and chained, disemboweled and burned?

“Why?”

“Because I require flesh and bone to maintain the Pale Court,” he said. “Something mortals aren’t always willing to give up. The higher they are in station, the more they treasure the bone of their kin, as though it makes a difference to me if I drink from a baron or a beggar.”

Neither would I want Pa to span a bridge. “But the dead walk toward the Pale Court on a full moon on their own, anyway.”

“Only because I deny them to rot in the ground. I have no control over it. Naturally, the dead seek my closeness because I am their master.”

“Is it true corpses once burned?”

“The only curse I cast about the lands.” He nodded and pressed his lips into a grim line, a gesture so human, it looked out of place on the face of a god. “Of all the deaths I didn’t die, my little mortal, the one where they burned me at the stake for a fortnight was the worst. To this day, the stench of ash follows me, as if my skin somehow trapped it when it returned.”

The hairs rose on my arms as I thought back on the witch the priests had burned last winter, her high-pitched screams forever branded into my memory. Hemdale had reeked of singed hair for days, bitter and biting. Imagining Enosh screaming like she had…? For a fortnight?

Bile licked my throat.

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t want to be, but the apology slipped from my lips without consent. “Why did Lord Tarnem capture you? Because you wanted his wife’s bones or something?”

His deep inhale pressed against my back. “He sought me out nearly two centuries ago. Asked me to raise an army of dead for him so he could fight off a group of barbarians invading his lands. Gods ought not to meddle in the affairs of mankind, but… what he offered in exchange…”

I turned back to look at him once more. “Offered what?”

“His daughter Njala.” It wasn’t so much the name that offered me another puzzle piece to a picture I struggled to grasp, but how old traces of pain roughened his tone. “She was supposed to be my companion for eternity.”

Something pinched beneath my ribs, then again when I took in the features of a god gone ashen. “Did you love her?”

His features hardened, brow taking on an audacious curve. “Your question suggests that you think me capable of love, little one.”

At first, I hadn’t, but the longer I looked at him, the more I had my doubts. More than just his general smugness shone in his eyes, like little flickers of agony hidden behind an immaculate mask of cold-blooded ruthlessness.

It had cracks.

Nothing but fine veins weaving through it, scratching away at his usually arrogant demeanor, his divine superiority. Did I dare find out what was behind that mask? If he’d loved her, why would he have killed her? Perhaps Yarin had said it to twist my head?

When my temples ached from all the wondering, I looked forward again. “Orlaigh once told me you love and lust like any mortal.”

“Love is a painful curse,” he said. “Now I only lust, slaking it in the tight holes of my little treasure.”

I flinched.

Was that a blessing… or a curse?

I’d never wanted his lust.

Cared even less about his love.

“Did she have love for you?”

 His fingers curled where his other hand rested on my hip. “Take a guess. I long to hear your judgment on this matter. Could a woman love this cruel bastard?”

My attention lifted to his shiver-inducing eyes, the smooth cheeks beneath without a single whisker, and the soft curvature of his lips framed by inky strands. Enosh was magnificent to behold, no mistake, a perfectly constructed trap to catch the silly hearts of young, unknowing girls.

The way he kissed me often, combed my hair with his fingers, and read me stories too difficult for me to decipher… There was a gentler side to him whenever he wasn’t busy breaking my legs. If Njala had seen more of it, had not been a plaything but a companion, might she have loved him?

I gave my nod of approval. “I think she might have.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw, quickly hidden beneath the sly curve of a self-satisfied smile. “You think me worthy of love?”

“No,” I said, watching the grin slip off his lips like molasses in winter. “Some two hundred years ago, perhaps, before you turned your back on your duty.”

The sun retreated behind clouds, casting his face in terrifying shadows, but he said nothing.

When he slowed to a walk by the edge of a dense forest, I asked, “Why are we stopping?”

“There is little bone in these woods. We’ll have to ride around it. Follow the trail of the dead so I can call on them should mortals be foolish enough to corner us.”

“Corner you,” I corrected. “You cursed their loved ones to wander, not me.”

“If the King of Flesh and Bone rides these lands after nearly two centuries, tell me, Ada, what might be the worth of the woman he holds in his arms? If they took her from him, what would the King be willing to do to get her back?” The more I thought about the question, the more I tortured my lips, but I didn’t break skin until he added, “From the moment we left the Pale Court, you were hunted.”

My stomach convulsed, dread seeping into my core, where it clashed with bile. “Is that why you took me with you? To put another shackle on me once I understood that even escape would bring me no freedom?”

That bastard patted my thigh as if rewarding me for a lesson learned. Priests all over the realm called on people to capture Enosh. High Priest Dekalon wouldn’t want a god to ride the lands again, undermining his power and authority. Once word spread of Enosh’s presence, there would be no safety from my own kind… for both of us.