by Renard, Loki
But in this particular moment, she needed nothing more than a good long thrashing. Her disobedience could not be countenanced any further. The shock of the loss of the king was over, and now her spoiled nature, which had been evident from the outset, was becoming even more entrenched.
Still, he would give her one opportunity to escape the pain through obedience.
* * *
“You need to bathe, princess, and collect your thoughts.”
“I’m not going back to sleep if I’m going to be turned into a bunny, or chained to a wall, or whipped with a cane. I’m going to stay awake forever!”
It was a juvenile declaration, but she felt a strength in saying it.
Kazriel’s expression became hard and stern. Those thick brows drew down over his eyes. “You think you cannot be chained to a wall or whipped in this real body of yours? You would prefer to feel the marks on flesh which does not shimmer and disappear with the coming of the dawn?”
She brushed the threat off, refusing to even countenance such a notion.
“I understand what you’re trying to show me! People are suffering! It’s not a terribly difficult concept. You do not need to teach me lesson after lesson, night after night. I will not be the kind of royal my uncle was.”
“What kind of royal will you be?”
“One who is kind and generous and just and...”
“Those are words.”
“That is generally how one speaks,” she said, perhaps a little too pertly given she was talking to a deity.
Kazriel gave her the kind of look it was better not to receive.
“You are still arrogant. You believe you understand that which you do not. You know words, but you do not know what kindness is—and you certainly do not know how to blend that with the cruelty any leader must be capable of.”
“What?”
“Vengar has been gone three days. Already word has spread outside your borders—and within them. You have generals thinking of insurgency. And you have enemies planning incursions. You will need to be adept in more than the art of submission. You will need to be strong enough to lead armies and crush enemies.”
“Or you could be a god and protect us from our enemies.”
“A god must slumber. A god who does not withdraw from humanity becomes nothing more than a hovering mother who never lets her children grow up.”
She shot him a dark look. “You mean a god must abandon his people, so he can have the pleasure of coming back and finding them wanting. Why provide guidance throughout time, when you can merely visit like a married man slipping in to see his favorite whore?”
“Watch your words, Princess.”
“Why? You will be gone soon enough and then I will say what I please, do what I please. You have no power here, Kazriel. Not really.”
She felt the ground quiver beneath her feet as the very foundations of the castle quaked at the impending terror of his rage. Yet she stood unashamed and without fear, her chin lifted, her eyes flashing.
“You wish to prove me wrong? Send me into another dream? That suits you, does it not? That is what you are like, a dream my family must struggle to awaken from. Maybe Vengar was cruel, and perhaps he went astray, but you cannot deny that he was free.”
Aya never thought she would find herself defending the memory of Vengar, but she would have thrown anything at Kazriel in that moment. Her fear was growing. She could intuit that pain was coming, and not the kind that would be gone in the morning.
“You wish to feel the real force of me, don’t you. You should not wish such a thing upon yourself, Princess. I could destroy you with a single touch.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Unfortunately it is a mere statement of fact. No mortal can withstand divinity.”
“Then you are nothing more than a bully.”
Without a word, Kazriel gestured, swept her up off her feet, and held her in the air. Not a hand was on her, but she was supported and held aloft nevertheless.
“A parlor trick,” she spat. “I have seen magicians in Vengar’s court do this, and do it better.”
“You need pain, don’t you,” Kazriel murmured. “You are begging for me to hurt you.”
“No, I am not. I am challenging your notions of godliness. I am telling you that a man who stands around in a rock wall for hundreds of years at a time is less useful than a chicken who cannot lay eggs. You are impotent, Kazriel.”
“Impotent?”
“Yes,” she said. “As a limp old man.”
Madness had gripped her, and it would not let go. She wanted to know how far he could be pushed. She wanted to assert herself, no matter what. She wanted to push against divine fury and find out what happened.
She was tossed upon the bed, her clothes disappearing from her, melting into the ether in an instant. In a second, she was utterly unclothed, and Kazriel was seeing the body that had been commanded be kept secret from all eyes.
Aya screeched and tried to cover herself, but it was useless. She was pinned face down, her bare buttocks vulnerable to a flurry of hard slaps that were delivered by the palm of the god.
He was using but a fraction of his strength. She could almost feel the way he held back to stop her from being truly hurt, but that did not matter compared to the blazing heat and pain that seared through her skin. She was being punished in the most juvenile way possible. He could have used a whip, or a belt, or a cane. He could have conjured any implement out of thin air, and yet he chose to use his palm, to have his skin meet hers, for her to feel his flesh meeting her tender skin.
The slaps went from the middle of her bottom all the way to the tops of her thighs, painting her with hot red shame. Not a word left his lips, not that she would have heard it if it had, she was making enough noise for the both of them. Cries of pain and spoiled rage filled the room as she writhed beneath that punishing palm.
“I have allowed you the privilege of learning lessons in your sleep, but no more,” he growled. “Now you will feel it all on your very own flesh. I will not give you respite. I will not allow you the kindness which you have only taken as weakness. You will be thoroughly dominated, Princess, and you will learn your place.”
If he expected her to whimper and beg for forgiveness, he was very much mistaken. Aya’s pride was ignited, and each of the stinging strokes was another impetus for rage.
“To the underworld with you!” It was the direst threat she could imagine making. “Go to your brother’s embrace, go to Karve!”
* * *
Kazriel held her in place, stunned for a brief moment at the sheer nerve of the little scrap of humanity who dared defy him still. This was the problem with those of strong royal blood. Their ability to fight and resist was so much more than that of the average being. She should have behaved as the nobles did when he first appeared, bowed and scraped and hoped not to be destroyed.
Aya clearly knew on some level that she could not be destroyed. She was too precious. And so she was spoiled to the very core.
Her words were blasphemous, as far as she knew. She had uttered as vile a curse as was possible, and yet Kazriel smiled, for she had given him a hint of something that might yet break through.
“You believe in Karve?”
“The prince of the underworld, the guardian of the dead, yes!”
“You don’t fear his name in your mouth?”
She hesitated a moment, then lied. “I live, so I need not fear him.”
A princess had less fear than most. If she remained connected to the source, it was possible she would live nearly forever. Kazriel had bestowed great longevity on the royal house, trusting them to guide and watch over his people.
That had been corrupted before her birth, and now he must set the corruption inside her straight as well.
“Tell me what you know of Karve.”
She sat up and composed herself admirably well for a naked young woman whose bottom was a blazing red hue, and whose naked flesh was on display.
A scream of pure fear escaped her mouth, for the great goodness of Kazriel had disappeared, and in his place stood Karve, a great demon whose head reached near the ceiling of her great vaulted chambers, twisted horns rising from his head and eyes that flashed with true fire.
His skin was scaled black and red, his visage was not the kindly human one that Kazriel wore. Instead it was like a cross between a bull and a lion, snarling and snorting, full of vicious fury.
She did not stop screaming when the beast began to speak, he whose name was death incarnate. He who took souls from the world of the living and drew them down to the core of the planet, where they were melted into the earth, trapped beneath the feet of the living forever more.
In the presence of death’s voice, her cries were nothing. They paled and were lost in the great booming of his voice.
“Know this, little princess. There is only one guardian upon this planet. You have been taught that there is one god of the living, and one of the dead. I wear different names, different faces, but do not be under the illusion that one is different from the other. I came to you in the form of your guardian, but I can be the demon if you need him.”
He leaned down, his great palm splaying on the bed, one finger reaching out toward her, a poison sharp claw at the end of it. Frozen with terror, Aya whimpered and wailed as the demon king reached for her, the very tip of his claw touching the end of her nose in a gentle boop.
“Do not make me unleash this on you, Princess. Do not make me take you into pieces, and make every single one of them scream. You are better to learn your lessons at the knee of my more benevolent side. Even I do not know if you would survive the demon.”
* * *
If Aya had a response, she was unable to make it. In the creature’s fiery eyes, she saw the death of all things. Her own, and all those who would come after her. She saw the world being consumed. She saw pain, disease, agony, death. She saw the rotting decomposition of a million bodies. She felt the end deep in her core, and it was so overwhelming she would not, or perhaps, could not stop screaming, not until Karve melted away and Kazriel stood in his place. He was all the more handsome for having been so ugly, but it was not enough to erase the horror.
She continued to whimper, curled up in abject, stupid fear that made it impossible to think or speak or respond in any way. Her red bottom was on display as she took refuge at the very far corner of her bed, pulling the blankets up to her face as if that might save her from the fury of the god.
“Leave me be, please... choose another king. There are many great nobles and generals. Many of them would be better suited.”
“None of them have your blood.”
“What is blood but a thing that can be spilled? My blood could be cut from me and drained. It means nothing whatsoever.”
“It means everything.”
Kazriel sat on the bed. “Come here,” he said. “We are not done with your punishment, Princess.”
She wanted to refuse, but the memory of Karve, and the knowledge that that beast lived inside the guardian who now called her forth, made her move.
She crawled across the bed on her belly, barely raising her head high enough to see where she was going. She could not meet his eye. She was so deeply ashamed of herself, of her weakness, and when he pulled her across his thighs and his palm began to fall once more, she did not curse or resist. Instead she did all a small human female could do in the face of the might of a god—she called for his mercy.
And she received it.
Barely a dozen slaps landed before Kazriel stopped and ran his palm over her heated skin. He could have absolved her of the heat and the pain, but he wanted her to feel it. He wanted the tightness of her seared skin to remind her with every step she took. He wanted her to remember when she sat down what would happen when she was a disobedient little wretch.
Aya lay across his legs, sobbing her heart out. “This blood is a curse. I wish I could drain myself of it.”
“It is a gift, just one you do not know how to use yet. You have been kept in the dark, Princess. You have played small because you do not know what your potential is. The corrupt king made you nothing more than a trinket to be admired, but you will be more than that in time.”
She was not sure she believed him, but she knew she was tired. It was exhausting, doing battle with a god, and she was all out of strength. Sleep was coming upon her all too quickly, and though she feared what it might bring, she could not resist it. While still lying over Kazriel’s lap, she fell into regal slumber.
Chapter Ten
Aya awoke in surprise. She had expected to be cast into a dream of punishment and pain, but instead she had experienced nothing other than a good night’s sleep.
Kazriel was not there. She was alone in bed and for the first time in many months, perhaps forever, she felt the strength of her self flowing through her.
The memory of the previous day was still quite strong. Seeing the guardian become the demon would stay with her for quite some time. Kazriel was good, but that was because he chose to be. If he wanted to, he could rampage through the castle and the land beyond, consuming souls and listening to the cries of the lost.
She shivered even in the warmth of the room. Would she see that side of him again? She had more or less called him forth by invoking his name, and she would not make that mistake again.
Kazriel was the face the guardian had chosen to show her most of the time, and she was grateful for that. There was no doubt he could have chosen to destroy everything and recreate it from the beginning. His tolerance had been merciful, perhaps more than she had acknowledged, almost certainly more than she deserved.
Rising from bed, she resolved to begin the task of becoming queen. The title would be bestowed in due course, of that she was certain, but it was her actions that would decide her rule.
Filled with motivation and confidence, Aya put on a gown and left her chambers. No sooner had she stepped into the castle proper than she was accosted.
“Your Highness, how may we serve you today?” Two nobles appeared at her side, their faces bare like hers and twisted with obsequiousness. She liked being able to see the expressions of those around her; it gave her a window into the intentions of others she had not had the benefit of before.
These men did not strike her as trustworthy. Though she did not recognize their faces at first, when they spoke she knew them by their voices before, Lord Flyff and Lord Splyff. They had been high advisors to Vengar, and as such had treated her more or less like a dumb ornament.
Aya did not know what to say, so she said nothing at all, merely swept by them with a regal haughtiness, which belied the nervousness she was feeling. She was queen now, and though Kazriel was keeping the nobles in line, the threat of annihilation too great for even them to ignore, she knew that it was only a matter of time before the god returned to his slumber, and then she would have to be able to handle these vipers on her own.
“Have we offended you, Your Majesty?” They followed after her, whining in a way she found most unbecoming for men who were at least two decades older than her.
Aya made no reply. She was hungry and she wanted her breakfast—not in the privacy of her quarters either. Today she intended to eat on the balcony that overlooked the city.
Servants who knew their place set the table for her, and on her request brought her bread and eggs. She was hungry, for the first time since Kazriel’s appearance.
“Your Highness...”
“If I hear your voice again before you are summoned, I will have you cast into one of my uncle’s punishment pits,” Aya remarked casually as she buttered her bread.
Not another word was spoken. She heard the soft sound of their kid leather-clad feet retreating at high speed and smiled to herself as she bit in
to a corner of her toast. She would never have taken repast where others could see her before, but she was beginning to believe that many of the things she had been led to believe were shameful were not so shameful after all.
“Boy!” She called a servant over to her. “Call the chancellor to me. I wish to discuss matters of finance.”
The chancellor colored, his face becoming nearly beet red when he saw Aya with her feet upon the table, leaning back with a piece of bread in her mouth, her entire demeanor one of relaxed calm.
“I will return when Her Majesty is not indisposed...”
“You will stay and speak with me now,” Aya insisted. “Have the food stores been opened to the public?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“But I decreed it yesterday, did I not? I decreed that an allowance should be made such that every mouth should be fed.”
“We were not certain if the decree would be upheld.”
“And why would it not be?”
“Well, Your Majesty, it is understood that there is something of an absence of power after the sudden abdication...”
“There is no absence of power. I am queen. Open the food stores, or it will be your head! If I do not see cherubs chewing the finest tubers and cheeses from this balcony within the hour, I shall be very displeased.”
“Yes, Your Majesty, of course, Your Majesty.” The chancellor took his leave with no small measure of speed.
“I do not know whether to be proud or concerned,” Kazriel’s deep voice rumbled from behind her. “You rule with the same callous tones your uncle used.”
“They’re used to it. If I don’t threaten them, they’ll get ideas. Like stabbing me the moment you turn back to stone. You said it yourself. I need to prove my strength.” She dropped a grape into her mouth and shrugged, her long hair cascading elegantly back behind her.
* * *
She made quite a sight, this princess become queen, not quite certain how to assert herself, but knowing it must be done.
