“You lured him away with the ghost kingdoms of the north,” Asha said. “The creatures he killed were yours. But their visage had not changed from the terrifying creatures they had become. If they had attacked all the kingdoms beyond the Jagged and the kingdoms before them, how could they still appear so starved?”
“No pleas for your life, Grayling? Not even now that you know you would have been next if I had not decided to implement my grander design?” Murial’s gaze lingered where Asha sucked upon her bloody fingers, but she nonetheless appeared well in control of herself as she stepped down from the platform.
“Cease,” the king said, short, clipped, and sharp to the ear, like the crack of closest thunder.
“You barely hold thrall over me anymore,” Murial said. “It may still carry your scent, but my blood is mine after so many years. You are not my king, and I am too old to be beholden to my sire. Your command means nothing to me.”
“The blood of the kingdom barely enriched them, did it?” Asha said, as though neither the king nor Murial’s reply to him had interrupted her interrogation. “Perhaps you gave them a taste, but I think you took most of it for yourself. You had them bring the kingdom folk over the mountain to you. That was why there were no bloodstains, no traces of predator or prey in the kingdom.”
“The Gray took much from you, but it did not take your mind. You please me, child.” Murial darted back to her and shot out her hand to bring her claws to Asha’s cheekbone in a parody of the king’s caress. “I have no daughters. I have half a mind to make you one of mine, though that would hardly be adequate torment for the king, knowing that a wife yet lives, albeit loyal to me.”
Asha barely flinched from Murial’s touch, but the hunger that twisted Murial’s face was quite unlike any that Asha had yet seen, neither lust nor bloodlust.
“The starving have no loyalty,” Asha said. “Their loyalty is bought. What did you buy it with?”
“With my blood,” Murial whispered in Asha’s ear, trembling with delight. “Animal blood does not satisfy. Human blood restores. They received neither. My children did not take the kingdoms beyond the mountains. My children are the kingdoms beyond the mountains. One by one, I took the households, drained the women and children and burned their corpses, chained the men and fed them my blood—first peasants, then knights, then merchants, then nobility, always beneath the notice of the next station up until I came for them. You know of such willful blindness, do you not, chief elder?” She shot a glance at Tumin, who had become paralyzed somewhere between affronted and horrified.
“It took centuries, but I was patient, becoming stronger on wives and daughters, replenishing my blood again and again every time one of my children took the veins I offered. I am the only pleasure they have known, the only satisfaction, and my thrall runs through their veins a hundred times over. By the time I set them on the kingdoms before the Jagged, even a thousand kills could not repair the damage I did to their minds or undo the effects of starvation upon their bodies. If I tell them not to consume the blood of the living, they obey. Their loyalty is absolute, their strength formidable, and their viciousness the stuff of legends. The king has his wolves, but they are no match for my dragons. For centuries, they have fed on the blood of rats and their sire. Would you like to see, dear Asha of the Gray, favored queen?”
“Why kill the mothers and daughters?” Asha asked. “Why not adopt them into your army? Why only men?”
“Because as you know, child, men are much easier to control.”
Murial lifted her head to the sky as though she intended to howl like Lysan, but instead of a howl, she strangled her hissing scream into a whistle like a flute, a note that vibrated steadily and strongly through stone, bone, and flesh and threatened to shatter these unshatterable things.
Men clapped their hands to their ears. Even the wolves seemed to cower against the high pitch. But like the wolves’ howl and the king’s call, Murial’s call invoked something deep within Asha’s chest to surface, but this sensation Asha could not name. It made her knees quiver, as though they wished nothing more than to meet the cobblestone, but it was not devotion Murial conjured. Asha’s nails ached to become claws, and her vision went red with stripes down pale, gray flesh, but whether she intended the violence against herself or the monster before her, she could not tell, for she did not yield to the pull coaxing her to kneel. She forced herself to remain upright, her gaze unflinching when Murial lowered her head again.
Asha only broke eye contact when answering hissing screams filled the sky. The torch flames illuminated their bare bodies, the gleam of skin much like the king’s when Asha had first seen him—inhuman, blue-veined, a white lightly grayed over the unnatural anatomy of their ribs and pelvises. Abdomens too long. Chests too broad. Legs bent.
The creatures circled lower, and Asha saw, for the first time, wings—broad, thin wings through which she could see the glow of the moon. Wings that neither the king nor Murial sported sprouting from their shoulders. Their faces more closely resembled that of the king’s without blood, but the bat-like quality had become more pronounced, their turned-up noses flared and a cleft revealing their longer, sharper teeth, that of the king when fully in the grips of bloodlust.
Like vultures who had caught the scent of the dead, they circled lower, close enough for the torches to illuminate them in their entirely. They wore nothing, not even loose trousers like the wolves. Cocks and scrotums swung freely, but between the saw edge of their teeth and the stone jut of their claws from long fingers and toes, their vulnerability seemed less vulnerable than that of man or beast. The closer they flew, the larger and harder their cocks became, signaling excitement that their twisted faces—no longer the least like a man’s—could not.
“The time has come, Cyric. You came after us a little sooner than I anticipated. I thought you would be more reluctant to tear yourself away from a new wife, and I had hoped to consume more souls before you found us. I had to sacrifice enough of my children for you to believe the deed had been done and evacuate the rest underground, where I kept them chained until you left. We had always intended to follow, then race around you to take your kingdom before you arrived, but you moved with such haste, I confess I was intrigued by what could possibly inspire speed that taxed my children, their flight more physical than yours or mine.”
Murial caught Asha by the throat and lifted her from the ground. “But this is all you rushed home to. Just another wife, little different from the desperate damsels you always chose, except this one was not nearly as distressed as the last few, the ones you saved solely from self-destruction. I witnessed you sink your teeth into her, by all appearances for the first time. The little chit nearly saw me.”
“Let her go.” The captain’s growl rumbled around them as he entered the crowd.
“Ah, yes, the jealous wolf. I expected you to catch my scent when you spied upon the king in the windows with me, but if you did, you must have believed it your master’s. My children’s blood is more distinct from his. In the pouring rain, I had thought my curiosity my downfall, but your jealousy provided me added cover. I enjoyed the scent of your desire as much as the sight that the king and queen provided. He does enjoy forcing his pleasure, does he not, love?” Murial tightened her grip.
“Release her!” The king strode forward.
But a dragon from above dove to tear at the king’s robes as Murial brought Asha down and against her. She kept her hold on Asha’s throat but exposed enough of it for her to bring a long, black claw to the blood-rich vessel in her neck.
“No,” Murial said coldly. “It is time for you to decide how much you want her, your bleeding joy, your wolf-slut and devil’s whore, just another pariah of this forsaken kingdom you created and discarded like your wives. This one is a delight, darling, but no more than many other of your wives. I am sure the Gray has other women who look like me, other women who crave death and will accept yours when you offer it.
“This place… How it has ch
anged from when I lived in its slums, yet how little. If ever a kingdom deserved to go ghost, it was the one you made, Cyric. I came here to take it from you, purge this wickedness you helped create, burn it to the ground, before coming after you with the blood of your own strengthening me. Witnessing you with the girl, though, brought another option to my mind, because absence from her pained your dead heart more than leaving your precious roses. Since returning, you have visited them only once—red petals have gone white, yet you occupy yourself with her. You break kingdom vows to find her. It makes a woman curious.”
She ran her tongue along the line of Asha’s jaw, ending in a kiss that reminded Asha nothing of Callina.
“You were going to let her go at the end of the year. You would never have known that I killed her, would never have sought her out. You might have wondered what became of her, but you would have had a new diversion to occupy yourself after the next Longest Night. So if I kill her right now, her fate merely arrives sooner.”
Murial bared her teeth against Asha’s cheek. “You know now that I still walk this earth, Cyric. You know that you still seek me in your women. I know what I am, and I know how you taste. If you have lost the pleasure of ruling a kingdom with tooth and claw, I can teach these damned peasants what it means to cower. I could refashion us a better kingdom, one worth keeping. You can have your wolves and your roses, your servants and objects, your women every year. Everything can continue more or less as it was. And I could have my dragons and my kingdom. All in exchange for her.”
Asha gave a strangled cry as Murial curled a finger and punctured her neck to the base of the claw.
“Shhh, shhh, dear. If you stay very still, the wound will not tear, and most of your blood will go where it should. Or I can remove my claw and send your blood spraying over the stone. Not another step, any of you, or your darling Grayling goes red and white before any of you get your teeth into her.”
Murial turned Asha half away from the king so that Asha could see that Callina and the captain had moved closer as well. Callina lowered herself into a crouch, her full set of wolf’s teeth pushing against her lips. The captain had a dagger and a smaller knife in his hand. He stopped at Murial’s command.
“This is a mortal wound, Cyric. It will take you more time and effort to heal it. If I let her go, you can let her bleed out. Or you can take her away from here, and my dragons take your kingdom. They can consume it from plains to cliff without becoming men. When we have finished with the last drop of life in this kingdom, then we will come for you. I do not think you have enough life in that castle to compete with what we shall take into our bodies, and my dragons are far more loyal and powerful than your wolves. But you will have the queen you chose at your side…if you think a newly sired child, even one who has proven herself quite scrappy with the right motivation, can fight against me.”
Murial shrugged. “It depends on whether you want, say, another week with her or whether you want the one you have really sought all these years. To spare her now would not be mercy; to give you time would not be mercy, though it might seem foolish. It is only that I have waited this long, and you could prepare for a hundred years and still not best me. My dragons will sacrifice themselves for their mother. Will your wolves sacrifice themselves for you? Will she, a Grayling survivor?”
Murial stroked Asha’s forehead. “I am not unsympathetic, Grayling daughter. But that your blood might have come from my own line does not grant you reprieve. Many of your kind have died before you, and while killing you would give me no great pleasure, neither will it cause me great pain. If he lets you bleed to death now, your quick death will be the only mercy I grant. If he chooses you, however, I will make your eventual death linger. To rip his heart out would do nothing to his inhuman body—I must make do with what I have.”
“Why my death rather than his?” Asha asked, although to speak pulled her flesh against the wound.
“It is not my intention to kill him. True torment, like true love, requires one’s subject to survive the experience,” Murial replied, almost cheerfully. “Time to choose, lover. Your kingdom or your little surrogate whore.”
Murial slid her claw from Asha’s neck. The blood spurted out, arcing in ruby droplets that pattered upon the stone like rain.
Asha fell to her knees. The opening from which the blood flowed was too thin for her to bleed out like Cerval, but it still escaped her faster than anywhere the king had bitten her.
She had no love for the kingdom that had birthed her, but the king loved to possess it, and if his pursuit of her had merely been because she reminded him of one of the first Grayling daughters he had taken, his decision to let her bleed out in the square would not surprise her. She pressed her hand to the wound, barely staunching the flow, only forcing it to flow down her body. It mingled with the blood already on her hands.
“Are you just going to leave her there?” Callina protested. “My lord, how can you—?”
“Let her sacrifice herself. We can strike a bargain.” Tumin’s face turned red, his syllables clipped in an effort to keep himself from stammering. “You can eliminate any laws we have written with which you do not agree. We can bow before our real queen. I am sure there is much we can do together. I am at your disposal.”
“Oh, you are, chief elder, believe me. At my every disposal,” Murial said. “I would love to view that ruddy cheek go pale. Shall I make him one of my dragons for you, my love? With blood from both of us feeding him, he will forget any traitorous thoughts.”
“Damn you, Cyric,” the captain shouted, “if you will not save her, we will.”
“Not if you value your lives.” Murial whistled. Some of the dragons flying low landed on the stone between the wolves and Asha, their roars so high-pitched that the wolves clapped their hands over their ears again. Asha would do the same, but she had more important care to maintain.
Asha’s racing heart pumped her blood out faster, though the pressure had lessened. Her vision had gone bleary and gray once more. She fixed what gaze she still had upon the king, that his image might imprint upon her last memory. Despite her anger, she accepted his indecision, as she had accepted his abandonment. She was just one wife of many before her, never meant for more than that. Less than three months might not have been enough for him, but watching nine months bleed into the Tapestry was hardly worth losing everything else he had fought for.
Her eyelids fluttered shut as weakness loosened her limbs, and she started to fall to the side. When she opened her eyes again, the king was in front of her. She cried out again as he inserted his claw into the opening that Murial had created, plugging it, though trickles escaped through the slightly enlarged wound.
“My king, do not be a fool,” Asha whispered. She tried to touch his face, the black places on his lips, the sharp teeth within, but she could not convince her arms to lift that high. “Finish me. Lay me to rest before I do it myself. Rip the artery wider. My heart needs no more of my blood.”
“I am already a fool, and your heart will know my own,” the king whispered back, with earnestness that startled her vision into focus for a moment, brief but long enough. He gathered Asha into his arms and raised himself into the air, though the other monsters still filled the sky. “Take the kingdom, Murial. Burn it down if that is your wont. If it is a heart you want, you shall have to fight hers, too.”
He sent his own call through the square. The wolves shifted so fast it seemed almost against their better judgment, but they fell forward onto four paws, even Lysan.
Murial’s expression contorted for a moment, serpents sliding under the skin around her eyes, but she gestured her dragons to fly to the sides to give the king a path.
“Yes, you are a fool.” Murial snatched Tumin by the robes. “You have gone too soft from the warrior king you were if you could be such a fool, enamored of a woman who cannot be enamored of you. You deserve to lose your kingdom.” Then she raised her voice, filling the square with the same effortlessness as the king i
n his castle chambers. “The king and his wolves have their reprieve. As for the rest, leave none alive.”
The men of the crowd shouted and attempted to run or stand their ground with swords and torches. A few fell to their knees and begged, offering wealth and influence, but the dragons seemed to understand none but their queen. They dove down into the conveniently herded livestock, latching onto them like leeches—although a leech would never let that much blood go to waste. Murial sank her teeth into Tumin’s neck, ripping him where she had been careful with Asha. Her black eyes gleamed nearly red in reflection.
The wolves turned from the people they had once sworn to protect, and the king flew beyond the creatures, past the peaked roofs of the Tapestry toward his castle, with screams following them until they reached the forests that separated the castle from its kingdom.
8
“What were you thinking?” A wisp of a voice was all Asha could conjure.
The king wrapped her in her quilts against the shivers that winter and blood loss wrung from her. He stuffed a corner of one of the blankets into the hole Murial had made. He had tried to heal it while flying them to the castle, but at best he had stopped most of the bleeding.
“I need to give you my blood,” the king said. “I do not think anything else will suffice. I cannot coax your body to restore your blood fast enough, and I do not know which of my servants could best restore you. This was not how or when I wanted to turn you.”
“You gave yourself a death sentence. You signed over your whole kingdom to her and gained nothing. Why did you not let me die?”
Grayling: Nocturnal Creatures Book 3 Page 18
