Time seemed to stand still. No life, no movement. No flicker of recognition in his eyes. I felt like the world stopped, like the sun had been snuffed out.
“Is he dead?” My voice was barely a whisper. He couldn’t die, could he?
Beira’s loud reply was like the ragged squawking of a bird. The sound was so terrible that I wanted to clamp my hands to my ears. “That would ruin the fun.”
“Did Lyr know?” I asked. Through the icy fog of fear, I couldn’t quite figure out why this seemed so important. But it was.
In response, she only hummed… high pitched, off-tune, the noise maddening.
My mind screamed. Frozen there, Salem looked so wrong. He was so still, silent. A frozen, broken god.
But no—she’d said killing him would ruin the fun. He was still alive, right?
What was the threat the other witches had issued? They had said they’d break his body into pieces, scattering the bits over the earth. It would be a living death, one that would never end.
On my knees, I tried to inch closer to him. I could melt the ice with the heat of my body. I wasn’t sure what the rest of my plan was, only that I wanted to be near him. I was moving just one millimeter at a time, propelled slowly forward by an overpowering instinct to be close to my mate. My knees slid and scraped against the frozen earth.
The sphere of light swooped around him, and I noticed it again—the iron key on a silver ribbon. Now, I realized was different than the other trinkets in this room—the only one not tucked into a little alcove.
My heart sped up. Was that the key to his shackles?
You see it, she said in my mind. Set him free.
Was this a game? She wanted me to see the key, to shuffle and scramble over to it like a worm in the dirt. It wasn’t as though I could get it with my hands and legs tied.
And yet… I had to try. Maybe I could use my teeth.
I faltered, falling against the rocks, and Beira’s laughter pealed through the room like a broken bell.
I clenched my jaw, leaning against the wall to try to inch closer to him. Did he know I was here? I didn’t think so. His eyes were looking down at the dirt, head bent like a penitent.
Beira kept laughing, the sound like ice under my skin. And underneath it, her voice was whispering in my mind, Failure. You lost your kingdom, your crown. You let your human die. You let your mate die. Failure…
But it wasn’t Beira’s voice anymore. It sounded kind of like… kind of like Mama.
The skin of my knees stuck to the icy earth, freezing as I tried to shuffle closer to Salem. Her words were eating through my veins like a poison.
Failure. Your mate let his kingdom rot. Mag Mell remains as cursed as he is. A true fae king has the power of life and death over his kingdom. It’s why you could never rule Ys. Mama knew… you were never good enough.
I gritted my teeth, lurching forward another inch along the wall. “Shut the fuck up, Beira, you miserable cow.”
You will die here, together.
Somehow, her words were infecting my mind like venom, and I saw myself like she did—crawling along the floor. Defeated and corrupted.
Never good enough… The words circled my mind like vultures.
He always planned to leave you, Aenor. This is a blessing. Now he dies, and you can save yourself the humiliation of that rejection.
I slumped against the wall, trying to catch my breath. I felt like all the fight had drained out of me, and he was still a few feet away. Pieces of skin had peeled off my knees with the ice, and my mind was starting to go dark.
He always planned to leave you, because you were never good enough.
37
Salem
Frozen solid, I was no longer entirely sure where I was. Pain ripped through my chest in two distinct points where I thought I had been pierced. Apart from that, I couldn’t see much of anything. I couldn’t smell, and it seemed like world around me had died.
For an instant, I thought Aenor might be here, and real fear shot through me. Aenor couldn’t be anywhere near Beira. But no… I couldn’t smell her or see her, so I had no real reason to think that.
How much it had killed me to keep silent about this. Every time someone had said Beira’s name, dread had sunk into my chest. But her wretched curse had stopped me from speaking about it.
Here, trapped in ice, I was losing my mind a little—because slowly, in the darkness of my mind, smoky cave walls were taking shape around me. They solidified, the color of sand streaked in smoke, until I was no longer in Beira’s lair. I found myself standing tall in my old, scorched cave.
Night had fallen, and flames from a bonfire wavered over the walls. I heard delicate footfalls, and I turned to find Beira standing behind me. It was Beira as she’d once looked, all those years ago. Her hair gleamed white, and dark eyelashes framed her large blue eyes. “Husband.”
Nausea was rising within me. I couldn’t quite remember where I was supposed to be, but it wasn’t here.
I leaned against the wall and pulled out my flask of cognac, feigning confidence. I had no idea what the fuck was going on, but I never liked to let on when that was the case.
“Husband?” I repeated. “I don’t think so.”
She cocked a hip. “We married, didn’t we?”
Now, this part I remembered. At least, I remembered the aftermath. I took a sip of the cognac and rolled it over my tongue. “Did we? The night we married, you poisoned me with wormwood. Don’t you remember? You and your father had filled my wine with it—and something else, making me intoxicated. Our alleged marriage happened on a night I can’t even remember.”
She shrugged. “You were always drunk in those days. I don’t see what difference it made.”
“Not like that. I remember nothing of our wedding night. Only the morning, and waking to find you with a crown on your head, proclaiming yourself Queen of Mag Mell. Amazing that you thought I’d just go along with it.”
Her lip curled. “You made a vow.”
“So you say. Tell me, did I verbally make a vow?”
“Your head nodded. We made sure of that much. It is enough to make it legal, so said the priest.”
“I figured as much. The priest, was he also your father?”
She seemed to grow larger before me. “Do you know how humiliating it was to be publicly rejected after my father announced our marriage?” She took another step closer. “Do you know how alone I felt? And then you ran off with a little nymph from the Court of Silks. I wasn’t good enough for you, was I? Not pretty enough? Not rich enough? What, exactly, was so lacking in me?”
I stared at her. “Beira, those were not the problems. The problem was, quite clearly, that you were, and are, a terrible person.” I brought the flask to my lips, then thought better of it, considering who I was with. “Really just revolting on the inside; rotten like an old fruit. You drugged me to marry me. You don’t see an issue with that? Why I might object?”
She gritted her teeth. “I was good enough to be queen. But when you left me, I became a laughingstock. And I wasn’t the only one who loathed you. You fucked everyone’s wife, didn’t you? It wasn’t hard to banish you. Everyone wanted you gone.” She crossed her arms, taking another step closer. “And it wasn’t hard to curse you, because I scarcely had to change a thing. You were already evil and broken. You know that, don’t you?”
I felt her words like claws around my heart. “Yes, I do. The fall from the heavens corrupted me.”
She pinched her fingers before her eyes. “It was like squeezing the head off a mouse with a broken neck. Nearly dead anyway, and all it takes is a final little pop to make it official. That’s what it was like to curse you.”
I stared at her. “The fact that you would consider that a good metaphor is an example of why you’re a terrible person.”
“But as I rip your body into tiny pieces and scatter the bits over my home, I want you to understand that. You were already twisted. You were already standing on the ledge, r
eady to fall. I just gave you the teeniest, tiniest of pushes—”
Her words, rip your body into pieces, sent shock waves of realization through me, and I stopped listening to the rest.
My mate, Aenor. I remembered her now. Where was she? Where was I? I couldn’t be in my cave with Beira, because none of this made sense. She wanted Aenor dead, didn’t she? And how would I protect Aenor when Beira trampled my particles into the earth?
Fury slid through my bones. “You need to leave Aenor alone.”
Beira cackled, and the sound skittered up my spine. “But that’s the whole point.” She was hysterical with mirth, tears streaming down her pink cheeks as she doubled over. She could hardly speak. “When you watch each other die, knowing you both failed—” The laughter cut off her sentence, and she waved a hand, crying. “Oh, it’s just so amazing. She came right to me. Lyr sent me for help! It was just what I wanted.” Another fit of laughter, and she wiped the tears off her cheeks.
I thought of killing her, of course, but I knew we weren’t really here. This was all playing out in my mind.
Without warning, all the mirth left her face, and her features contorted with rage. “Don’t you get it? You don’t make the rules anymore, King Salem. You’re in my realm. The one you created for me when you locked me here.”
I shook my head. “Oh, my wife, I didn’t create it. That would be beyond my skills. You have my mother to thank for that. She trapped you here for my sake. I’d say it was only fair, don’t you? A curse for a curse. The only terrible thing was that I couldn’t get to you here. I couldn’t end your life. I suppose, in a way, my mother kept you safe here. Perhaps you should get down on your knees and thank her.”
“Safe.” Beira hugged herself, shivering. Now, her expression was haunted. “First, you cast me off as a wife. I’m not sure if you know what it’s like to be cast out like that. Abandoned. It was like my chest was carved out. I was an outcast, wandering among the cursed. The sound of derision rang in my ears wherever I went.”
“Oh, yes, Beira. I’m quite familiar with that feeling.”
“I wanted you to feel what I felt,” she said. “I wanted you to live outside the boundaries of civilization, among the animals. Reviled, like I was. I wanted to turn you into the most loathsome, most hated creature who ever existed. And how did I do, Lucifer?”
“You did a bang-up job, Beira. The only thing of significance you ever achieved, I’d wager.”
“And then I found myself trapped here.” Her teeth began chattering. “And the cold was infinite. And there was nothing here for me but the silence and the leanhaum-shee. And they can’t love, or speak!” She started to transform before me, growing taller, her eyes sliding together. “And that’s what made it so cold here—being cut off from love.” She towered over me now. “The isolation gives you frostbite, cutting swaths through your flesh right down to your bones. Until you become a monster. That’s what loneliness does to you!”
Not all problems could be solved with fire, and this was one of them. “Do you really want me to feel sorry for you, Beira? You cursed me to burn people in caves!”
She shook her head, and I stared in disgust as her bloodshot eye blinked. Her lips and fingernails took on the purplish hue of death. “And look what happened to me.”
38
Salem
I kept my mask of calm, but panic was inflaming my mind. Could I still charm her? If I had to live in this frozen hell world with this hag to set Aenor free, so be it.
“You’re lonely here,” I said. “I could stay here with you. I’d make better company intact. Who better to provide you warmth than me?”
She grinned, exposing her long yellow teeth. Was this actually working?
“We’ll make a home,” I went on. “You and I.”
She rubbed her long fingers together. “No. But I like that you’re begging for me. Your bride again. Our time is done. You may go free; that is your prize. You may return to the heavens. First, kill your mate.” Her voice was now a creaking rasp. “Penance.”
Fuck. “Let her go.”
“No, she must die,” she croaked. “You’d only abandon me again if I fell for your trickery. Leave me cold. My feet will bleed… I will walk alone on the frozen earth. You should have loved me then, you wretch. I was your one true love!”
Had she always been this demented? I suspected she had. I held my hands out in a calming gesture. The thought of staying with Beira forever made me want to die, quite frankly, but I’d do whatever I had to if it meant she’d leave Aenor alone. “Just let her go, and you can feel my warmth—”
Beira’s teeth grew longer, yellower, and she started to speak in my mind. You love her. She must die. You will never be free until you feel my torment. The isolation warped me. The loneliness… When I crush the pieces of you into the earth of my home, you will feel my pain. Her voice was a deep whisper in my skull. I will walk on the fragments of your body, and you will have only one thing to think about. The memory of me killing Aenor while you watched. You could kill her fast, you know. But when I do it, I will make it hurt. I will draw it out. You will remember her screams for eternity.
Panic stole my breath. I was losing her, losing control. Did she really have Aenor already?
The vision of the cave started to fade around us, giving way to stone walls frosted with snow and ice, lit with a dull silver glow. I was in her home now, chest pierced with iron spikes, a collar around my neck. My hands were bound behind me, clamped to the wall.
The world seemed to tilt under me as I realized I could smell Aenor. She was here with me. I wanted to move my eyes to search the room, but my head was frozen, bent, eyes on the ground.
I tried to summon my magic, and I found it rising sluggishly under the primordial ice. It was there, but encased as I was, I didn’t think I could modulate it. I felt like it was trapped under the ice, like a volcanic eruption ready to blow. It would be a fireball or nothing.
From where I knelt, trapped, I could now see Aenor’s knees shifting into view, the hem of her dress. She was trying to get to me, while Beira’s broken-bell laughter echoed off the walls.
I shifted my gaze a little to the left and saw what Aenor might be heading for. An iron skeleton key dangled from the wall above me, a silver ribbon looped through it.
I heard Beira’s voice in my mind, a throaty whisper. Why don’t you just grab the key?
More laughter trembled over the stones. She knew neither of us could get to it. Aenor looked like she could hardly move, and she’d have to melt all the ice before she could even unlock me.
Then Beira’s voice again: You could free yourself with your fire. So easy to free yourself with the fire.
Aaah… and this was where the real genius of her plan came into effect. With this primordial ice encasing me, the fire would build up under the surface. With enough heat, with enough fiery rage, I could let it explode out of me all at once. It would be an apocalyptic storm of fire.
And Beira was right: I could set myself free that way. I could run, try to find the portal Aenor had come through. All I had to do was unleash flames hot enough to melt the iron and ice, and I’d be out of here. The type of volcanic heat I’d used to turn brains to glass.
I’d have the pleasure of burning Beira with it, too. She wouldn’t die—I was sure her magic would revive her—but she’d burn, and I’d have a chance to escape.
This was what Beira wanted me to choose. Because if I did that—if I chose to save my own life—I’d be slaughtering my mate as well. Incinerating her.
I glanced at Aenor’s legs as she struggled to move closer, inching along the wall toward me. One of her shoulders rubbed against the icy stones, and she shifted her hips to get to me, trying to propel herself forward. I wondered what was shackling her.
It took me a moment to see the ice around her ankles. She was lurching ever so slowly forward, trying to get to me, to the key.
Beira laughed with delight. The rage inside me started to bubble and sim
mer. Lyr must have set this up. He’d opened the portal.
I stared with dread at the veins of magic in Aenor’s skin. They strained for her heart. I wanted to speak to her, but even if I could move the muscles in my jaw, what would I tell her?
The panic in my mind was so intense that I couldn’t think straight. I hadn’t felt this sort of fear since the day I’d fallen—the darkness, plunging through the air, unmoored.
Her eyes were wide, gleaming. Her knees bled on the ground, probably from her skin sticking to the ice-slicked earth. She shivered, her lips blue.
Think, Salem, think.
She had such a look of determination on her face—her brow furrowed, gaze locked on the key—that I thought she might have a plan, one I hadn’t yet fathomed. If she could somehow manage to unlock me, I’d rip Beira’s head off so fast that the witch wouldn’t have time to scream. We’d be at the portal within moments.
If Aenor could manage it—with her mouth, maybe—if she could warm the ice enough that it melted…
But why would Beira stand by while that happened?
Aenor reached the key. She strained her neck, trying to reach it, and opened her mouth to try to pull it down with her teeth. Her tongue shot out, curling around the ribbon—
That was when Beira ripped the key off the wall and flung it across her house. She unleashed a demented cackle that made me feel like I was losing my mind.
Aenor was catching her breath, and her eyes shone in the dim light. A single tear slid down her cheek, then froze where it was. I needed to warm her.
The inside of my mind was a rage-fueled hell. I was flames charring flesh. I was the ashy bones of my enemies. I was the wrath of a god. And yet all I could do without exploding completely was to melt the ice off the tip of one finger.
Beira’s voice rang in my mind. I promised I’d kill Aenor slowly. Over months.
Rising Queen Page 20
