“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.

Except at the Pale Court.

That realization sunk in.

Sunk in and festered.

I blinked back useless tears. They neither untwisted bone nor changed how he’d tricked me. “Did you lock her up, too?”

“Njala came and left as she pleased until wicked mortals stole her from me in their never-ending pursuit of power.” A kiss to my head. “You will remain by my side for eternity.”

I stole from me Master.

My fingertips numbed, so I stroked them through the horse’s mane. “That’s why you condemned Orlaigh to your service… She’s the one who stole her?”

“In a lapse of judgment only; otherwise, she would grace my throne like those responsible for Njala’s death.”

Her death.

The more I learned of all this, the less sense it made, mostly because everyone told me something different. What did Orlaigh have to say about this? She once told me that mortals feared what they didn’t understand, and I had no inclination to spend eternity in fear. Who was this creature who held me captive?

A god with no conscience?

A man with a grudge?

His next words came calm, but concise. “Heed my words, little one, you have no friends out here, not anymore. Word will spread of the woman who rides with me, eats with me, beds down with me. The wicked might go to great lengths to get me to remove this… curse, as you call it, stealing you away to use as bait.”

Bait.

My mouth turned dry.

I truly was doomed, wasn’t I?

My voice came out a mere whisper, vocal cords thin. “And how far would you go to see me returned?”

Did I have any value anywhere?

His answer came as the click of his tongue. The horse galloped over the land, hooves thundering so loudly underneath, it almost distracted from the deafening rush of blood in my ears.

Never my whore, forever my woman.

Those words had meant something to me when he’d spoken them, if only for the bit of dignity they’d returned.

His silence stripped it away once more.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 11

OceanofPDF.com

Enosh

“Why did you refuse me your promise not to run?”

After hours of silence, the question startled my woman enough that she hissed under the ache of her sore muscles. “Lying’s a sin, and I’ve piled up enough of those in the last month.”

“Had you given it, I may not have twisted your legs, little one. Maybe you could have escaped.”

For a while.

She shifted from one seat bone to the other. Hours on horseback had taken its toll on her flesh, but not once did she so much as whimper, as though leaving the Pale Court was worth the pain.

Feet wiggling whenever long strands of grass brushed along her ankles, lungs expanding wide when we passed fragrant flowers, a gentle smile lining her lips whenever a breeze wafted around us. When had her mortal body ever felt this light, this warm and alive in my arms?

Never.

Perhaps Orlaigh was right. I couldn’t lock her away between bone inside a kingdom as quiet and cold as death. It hadn’t always been like this. Winding staircases adorned with the most intricate motives, bridges spanned over statues so detailed you could see the veins of the animals they depicted, rooms appointed with the finest furniture… Ah, the Pale Court was a shadow of its former glory.

Because I’d made it so.

I had given an oath never to receive mankind’s bones again and look what it got me. My woman’s chain had been so short, a good part of the dais around my throne remained unpainted. How fine the other part looked with her vines and those delicate roses shedding their petals.

“You wouldn’t believe me anyway,” she said after a while. “If I have to be a whore, then at least I want to be an honest one.”

“I don’t recall ever paying you.” She shifted again, her muscles souring with shame, her bones growing heavy with guilt I failed to make sense of. “Why so much distress over a word?”

She shrugged, her gaze drifting toward a waterwheel that spun along a creek, the wings of the mill cutting the air. “A man is free to divorce his wife after three years of fruitlessness. Can even sell her to the whorehouse. John never did.”

I shifted sideways, clasping her chin to bring her gaze to mine. “Fruitlessness?”

“I never gave him a son, as is a woman’s purpose.” Her voice was so strangely thin compared to that bite she often carried. “To make it worse, I was the one who sent him for pinweedle moss. Healers say it cures a barren womb, you know. So up the falls he went to where it grows, only to hit his head and die. It’s my fault.”

Her fault?

Oh, my little naïve mortal. Her womb was neither cursed nor barren. Perhaps the only thing I would have rectified, no matter how I adored her imperfections, for she would carry my child, painting eternity with life and laughter. Giving me the purpose of a man instead of the ungrateful duty of a god.

But a babe in such a bare place…?

Oh, what a predicament.

“Is that why you’re so desperate to rest his bones, little one?”

She nodded. “It’s the least I owe him.”

“So devoted to a man who never claimed your heart?”

“It’s not the man I’m devoted to, but the promises I made before—” She stopped herself right then. “Well, you know. I swore an oath before a priest, vowing to be a good wife, and I intend to see it through in death, for I didn’t in life.”

“An oath before a false god.” All forgiven because she worshipped me so nicely when she kneeled by my feet, dozing off with her head on my lap while I stroked her soft hair. “And a pathetic act of guilt.”

She spun around, her blue eyes narrowed. “An act of duty and commitment. Not that I expect a god who abandoned his duty to understand its meaning.”

Ah, there was that bite again.

Adorable.

I rewarded it with a kiss to her temple. “Duty. Vow. Oath.”

She used those words often.

All things she remained faithful to over a husband tossing in the ground with each full moon. And all it had taken was a ridiculous vow before a priest who worshipped a god who didn’t exist? For all the things I understood of Ada’s flesh, her soul eluded me, as was my nature.