Richelle had said that she’d been consulting with a higher power for instructions—and the higher power had been his wife. She had cursed him somehow, and she was the only one who could release his curse.
Whoever she was, she wanted me dead. A tendril of rage threaded through my body.
Gods have mercy, I couldn’t let this be my grave. Aenor Dahut, Scourge of the Wicked—killed by her mate, because he’d had better things to get on with, and she’d gotten in the way.
Red hot rage split me open.
I didn’t deserve this.
“Aenor.” This time, his voice cracked when he said my name. And for a fraction of a second, that cold mask slipped, and I saw anguish there. The anguish of a fallen man, bereft of meaning and sense.
From her seat above us, Richelle bellowed, “Make your sacrifice, King Salem! Lift your curse! It is the only way to achieve your destiny.”
His fingers were still tight around my neck, hot on my skin. I was looking up into the face of the fallen god to which countless souls had been sacrificed.
And yet…
I wasn’t dead.
By now, he could have killed me a hundred times over if he’d wanted to.
Hot magic beamed from his body, warming me.
Maybe this wasn’t Salem—the man who’d walked barefoot after he’d fallen, who’d marveled at birdsong and dawn’s light. The man who’d felt terrible about killing a deer, and who’d locked himself in a cage to save me. The man who’d told me to trust him, to have faith. The Salem I knew didn’t wave his sword around like a dickhead.
We lived in a world of illusion and deceit. But the fact was that I either trusted him or I didn’t.
I brought my knee up as hard as I could into his groin, and he dropped his grip on me. Then I slammed the sea glass into his neck.
Blood spurted over me.
Wounded, he grabbed me by the shoulders, slamming me against the wall again—like the bull. His hand was on my neck once more. With his muscled body, he was pinning me to the wall, jaw tight with determination.
I hadn’t expected his reflexes to be so fast, but then, I’d never had to fight him before.
I reached into my bag and tightened my fingers around the hilt of the dagger.
His powerful body pressed against mine, crushing me. His smoking scent curled around me, and he breathed in, closing his eyes with the smell of me.
“King Salem will rule by my side!” Richelle’s voice carried over the arena.
Survive.
My thoughts were crystal-clear, and I saw exactly what I had to do. Darkness welled in me, the lust for blood that was my birthright.
I thrust my dagger into Salem’s chest, angling it up so it pierced his heart. Now, his streaming blood soaked my skin. As I stared into my mate’s eyes, my blade in his chest, the civilized me fell away. I was born of two murderers. Killing came naturally to me.
I pulled the blade out again, and Salem staggered back, stunned. I kicked him hard in the chest with my good leg, and he fell back into the water.
Lady Richelle thought I was a monster.
And you know what?
I fucking was. And that was why I was still alive.
Pain screamed up my leg, but I did everything I could to block it out. I turned, leaping up to grip the edge of the curved wall above me. Snarling like a wild beast, I hoisted myself up over the ledge. The crowd started screaming as I pulled myself level with Lady Richelle in her stony throne.
I had an idea of what I must have looked like to her—the ragged whore, soaked in the blood of a fallen god. Blue hair plastered to my head, dagger in my hand. Limping and deranged.
I was her monster.
And I was here to end her life.
She lifted her hands to blast me with magic, but I brought the blade down hard into her heart. Once more into her throat for good measure, and I pulled it out again.
Unlike Salem, she couldn’t survive this weapon. Her eyes bulged as she clutched her heart, and she slumped over.
Roars erupted from the crowd, probably braying for my blood. Aenor, witch slayer. Monster.
Before the mob could descend for me, I turned and leapt. I was aiming for Salem’s arms, hoping they’d be outstretched.
Because sometimes, falling was a leap of faith.
26
Aenor
Did I really think an ancient warrior god such as him would give up his entire destiny for a common fae like me?
Yes, frankly, I did. I still did.
And when Salem reached out to catch me around the ribs, I felt like the light of the stars was shining on me again.
I slammed into him, and he wrapped his arms around me. As he pulled me in close to him, his wings spread out behind him. One hand gripped my bum, the other locked tight around my waist. Without thinking about it, I wrapped my legs around his abs and slid my bloodied dagger into my satchel.
Salem’s fingers flexed on me, desperate for me. His expression had changed completely from that cold indifference to something fierce and primal, like he wanted to devour me. Around us, the mob was screaming, their cries echoing off the rock. They were climbing down from their stone seats, running for us.
“Aenor.” When he said my name, it sounded like a quiet prayer.
“We need to go,” I said. “Now!”
Salem’s wings started to beat the air, and we lifted into the rainy skies. He held me so tight—the grip of a drowning man clinging to the rope that would save him.
I let out a long, slow breath, silently thanking the gods that I’d been right to trust him.
But it had been there throughout the fight—drowned under the sea of my panic. That little fleck of light at the bottom of my brain that told me something was off about him. That it wasn’t really him.
At first, it had been the way he moved across the pit with his sword, slashing it through the air, showing off. That wasn’t his style. When he wanted to kill someone, he did. He didn’t mess around with flashiness. Someone had been controlling him, making it a show. Then there was the fact that he could’ve burned me to death a million times over.
And most importantly, it had occurred to me that Salem could still control my mind. If he’d wanted me dead, he could have compelled me to walk straight into his sword, or off the cliff.
I rested my head in the curve of his neck for a moment, catching my breath. From beneath us, the screech of the mob rose into the air, deafening even from here.
Lightning filled the sky. The fae of the Court of Silks had filled the arena, and their cries soared up to us like birds.
Salem’s wings beat a slow, steady pulse. I took deep breaths, in tune with their pounding.
“Aenor,” he whispered.
Just moments ago, I’d been close to ending his life. Now, one of my hands was pressed against his cheek.
Rivers of red flowed from his neck and down the front of his shirt where I’d stabbed him. The blood soaked my dress, mingling with the icy rain. Our lips were close enough that I could kiss him if I wanted, and he was still looking at me with that searing expression. There was something haunted in his eyes as they shifted from red to a dusky blue.
“Explain to me what just happened,” I said. “I have my theories, but I want to hear it from you.”
He let out an agonized sigh and nestled his head down by my neck. His breath warmed my throat. “I almost killed you.”
“I know. I was there. But tell me what happened from your perspective.”
“Lady Richelle was controlling my mind—the way I can control yours. It was the wine I drank, I think. She took over me completely, commanding my body to do exactly what she wanted. She’s far better at it than I am, frankly, an expert puppeteer. You must have figured it out, Aenor? When you killed her, you broke it. You knew I wouldn’t try to hurt you of my own accord, right?”
“I had moments of doubt.”
He angled his wings, veering over the forest of Mag Mell. His head was still nestled into the
crook of my neck. “When she made me hit you with my elbow…”
“I stabbed you,” I said, my pride demanding that my skill was acknowledged.
“You did. But Aenor, you must have known from the start that I wouldn’t swing my sword around like an ostentatious twat.”
“I did wonder about that.”
“It was stupid of me to drink that wine. I was so eager to impress, to play my role, that I was careless.”
My wet hair whipped into my face from the speed of our flight. I glanced down at the ground below us, and my stomach swooped. We were flying fast, high above the trees, in what seemed like a jagged pattern.
“Standing back while that glashtin attacked you… I was screaming in my mind while it went after you. It felt like I’d had my soul ripped out once more.” His voice was so quiet and bleak. “I wanted to burn everything down. I wanted to ignite the glashtin first, then grip Lady Richelle by her throat and slowly roast her in the flames of the burning monster while the people of her court looked on.”
I cleared my throat. “That’s… that’s one way to do it.”
“But all I could do was stand there, flipping my blade through the air like an idiot.”
Up close, the gaping wound in his neck was shocking—I’d cut right through to the veins. If he was mortal, he’d be dead now. I glanced at his chest, where I’d sliced his shirt near his heart. His blood was pumping hard. It made my throat tighten. Anyone but him would’ve died from that.
“Lady Richelle said you can’t ascend to the heavens with this curse, and the only way you can remove your curse is to murder me,” I said. “I know she plays with words, but she was very clear on that point at the end there. This is the only way to achieve your destiny.”
Salem winced. “Aenor, I need to take us in for a landing. This isn’t the most comfortable of positions to fly in. Especially not with the damage you did to my neck and my heart. Not that I’m complaining.”
“Are you changing the subject on purpose?”
The rain was lashing us, but his firm body was so perfectly warm against mine. “When you leapt off the stone balcony soaked in blood… I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen such a beautiful vision.”
“You have interesting taste.”
“I’m still losing a lot of blood. I need to take us down somewhere to recover. Then I’ll fly us away.”
He was swerving through the air in an irregular path. I held on to him tightly, legs clamped around his waist just like they’d been around the bull. And I felt like I was clinging on for dear life.
I peered over my shoulder. We hadn’t made it far. In fact, we were still careening over Mag Mell. It looked like we were veering toward the enormous castle that crowned Mag Mell’s mount.
“Hold on,” Salem whispered in my ear. “I’m taking us inside.”
He angled his wings, and I gripped on to him as tight as I could while the stormy air whipped over us. My hair was slapping into my face, but I stole a look behind me at where we were heading—and it looked like we were flying right for one of the towers.
My stomach clenched as we rushed toward it. “Salem, are you in control of this flight?”
“I sure as fuck hope so.”
His wings shifted, his body tilting, and we swooped upward before we hit the tower. Clutching me hard, he swept above the parapet and just barely managed to bring us down to a graceful landing on the turret floor.
Rain slicked the stones around us. Still in his grasp, I caught my breath for a moment. He unclenched his arms from around me and let me down gently.
I couldn’t help but take a moment to soak in the view around us. From here, we had a view of all of Mag Mell: the craggy slopes curving down from the castle, the vast swaths of forest stretching out to the shorelines.
On one side of the castle was a village—one of steep-peaked wooden buildings crammed along winding roads. Flecks of light warmed the windows, and I felt a sharp pang of longing to be inside in a warm home, wrapped in a blanket.
When I leaned on my injured leg, I inhaled sharply, grimacing. Without all the adrenaline of the arena, pain bloomed in my thigh.
Salem frowned. “Is your leg broken?”
“I’m not sure. My thigh hurts like hell, but I’m not sure what’s going on with it. The glashtin crushed it against the stone.”
He reached down and scooped me up, carrying me bridal style across the parapet. “I can’t heal your divine hex, apparently, but I can heal your broken leg.”
We were crossing to a wooden door, and he shifted me a little in his arms to free one of his hands. He pressed it against the door, and warm magic beamed out from his fingertips.
The door swung open into a dark, dank stairwell. He carried me down one flight of stairs, into a corridor. Thin windows interrupted the stone walls. Lightning struck outside, flashing brightly through the windows. Dark, thorny vines climbed the stones, twining with moss. It looked like nature was starting to reclaim its domain inside the castle.
As Salem’s footfalls echoed off the stone, I had to wonder what would happen if the mad King Tethra discovered us.
27
Aenor
“Do you remember your way around?” I asked.
“I think so. Sort of,” he muttered, turning off into a spiral stairwell. We descended for what felt like ages. “I’m just looking for my old bedchamber.”
“What if King Tethra is lurking around here?”
“Well, I’ll just have to put the enfeebled twat out of his misery, then.”
When he reached a mossy door inset into the stairwell, he stopped and pressed his hand against it. In the next moment, the door creaked open. I could hardly see in the dark of this new space, until another flash of lightning lit up the surroundings.
In that flash, I got a glimpse of towering windows and stone columns. In here, the air smelled of soil, moss, and oak, and above those earthy scents, the sweet perfume of bluebells. When lightning flashed outside again, I saw that wildflowers and ferns carpeted some of the floor.
Salem set me down on an enormous four-poster bed blanketed with moss. I leaned back against the headboard, and he sat on the edge, one hand planted by my hip. He pressed his other hand against my chest, and hot magic beamed from his palm, winding through my ribs.
Leaning in closer, he pressed his forehead against mine. “I like having you in my old home, even if it needs a bit of work here.”
His soothing magic coiled through my body, and I felt myself unfurling with relaxation for the first time in a while. He was heating the air around me, and it warmed the rainwater on my skin. I wanted to ask him why he was so determined to leave if he liked having me here. But there was that phantom woman between us, still. The secret wife.
“It looks like we need to find you a new witch, since you slaughtered the old one,” he said.
“She got what was coming to her.”
“I’d say so. Pity I wasn’t controlling her mind instead of the other way around. You’d be healed by now.” He lifted his hand from beside my hip and traced his fingers up my forearm. “But the hex looks a little better. She slowed its progress, and now we know that it’s possible for a witch to heal it. We just need to find another who is equally powerful.”
“It bought us more time.”
A crease had formed between his eyebrows. “I think you should be queen again, Aenor.”
“You’re really into this idea, aren’t you?”
“I’d know you were protected.”
I’d thought of it many times. I’d imagined the ceremony. “In my family, the Meriadoc family, there was a legend. There’s an old statue—old as Ys itself. It’s a stone carving of the first king of Ys, Caradoc of Cornwall. The legend was that anyone who could lift the crown’s statue from its head and place it on hers would be acknowledged as the rightful ruler of Ys. No one ever tried it, but I always imagined myself plucking the stone crown off the statue, resting it on my head, and then parading through the streets of Ys. Except Ys w
as no more.”
“And what about Nova Ys?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You turned the statue into rubble. I’d searched the ruins of Ys for Caradoc’s stony visage, over and over, but it was gone. My legacy was turned into dust. And they think I’m the reason Ys drowned.”
His eyes flashed with a deep blue. “Oh.” The wind rustled his dark hair. “And when you were a little girl,” he said quietly, “did you want to rule Ys?”
“Yes, when I was a kid.” My mind flashed with the image of myself standing by the side of a cliff back in Ys. “I made myself wildflower crowns, and I threaded them with seashells. And I told the other kids they had to serve me. Gods, no wonder I didn’t have any real friends.” I sighed. “I’d ask you what you wanted when you were a boy, except you never were one.”
“No. I started my life on Earth as a grown, broken man.” His eyes met mine, bright with fiery hues in the darkness. “Queen Aenor… Well, you’ll be my queen until my last days.”
“Is that so?” I shook my head as another old memory blossomed in my mind. “You know what? I don’t think I wanted to be queen. I thought I should want it, so I played the part. I wanted peace and quiet. I wasn’t perfect enough to be queen. I had lots of things wrong with me; I liked being around other flawed things.”
“Like what?”
“There was a Cornish oak by one of the cliffs. It was a crooked and gnarled thing, bent by the wind, and I loved it. One on side were jagged rocks overlooking the sea, but on the other was soft grass. I used to crawl under it for peace and quiet, and I’d bring a book. I fell asleep there more often than not.”
“So instead of being a queen, you wanted to tend to gnarled trees?”
“I would have. And I remember wanting to be a baker. I would have baked the most wonderful, misshapen cakes.”
As my eyes started to adjust to the dark, I could make out the perfect contours of his face, and the faint smile on his lips. “I think the only absurd thing about what you said is your notion that a sovereign should be perfect. They’re more often the opposite.”
Rising Queen Page 14
