My molars ground together until my jaws ached. “Why would I want that?”

“Because you’re half enamored with her already,” he whispered, letting my spine adopt the stiffness of the rock behind me. “So unpredictable. Love. If you do not stir it one way, it may just stumble another. Ah, how Njala’s soul called out his name when it came to me… Joah. Joah! Oh, where is my beloved Joah?”

The name pounded inside my skull like a never-ending echo, heating the blood in my veins until sweat dampened my forehead. “Do you have a wish to drown as well?”

“Who would have thought that the very man who stole her away from you would gain her heart and affection during those months you searched for her? Chased her into her death, really. So unwilling was she to return to you, the father of the child growing in her belly, she instead chose to die at Joah’s blade. Tragic. Oh, so… tragic.”

I pushed down the rage, the bone-deep fury that caused the stalactites above to vibrate. Yes, a tragedy, how my companion had sworn me her love from the sweetest of lips… wicked, wayward mortal turning a god into a fool.

But it would not happen a second time.

I shook my head. “I have no need for more illusions.”

“You are so difficult to negotiate with,” Yarin said. “Very well, no illusions. New offer. Fix him, and I will not make your wife love you. Instead, I shall give you… let’s say… fifteen words.”

“Fifteen words?”

“To relay to your wife, forged to penetrate her in a place that might take you centuries to reach, if ever. Do not send a spike of bone through me for saying this, beloved brother, but your understanding of a woman’s heart equals Eilam’s ability to find his genitals.”

His offer roused a flutter around my organs. Hmm, fifteen words to reach into her soul, stoking affection for me. She would adore me; she would love me.

That damn muscle would give.

Against the hairs rising along my arm, I fixed the corpse with a mere thought. “Fifteen words.”

“Plus, one of advice, because you are truly my favorite of brothers,” Yarin said. “Deliver those words during an act of kindness, giving her something she desires. It will touch her so deeply. And if it fails…? Well, you can always slit her throat and replace her with another mortal, like you have done before.”

I turned my head and stared at him. “The mortal Joah Mertok slit Njala’s throat.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” he said with a chuckle. “I just never figured out if he was alive when he did it, or if he was already dead.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 18

OceanofPDF.com

Ada

The polished fangs adorning the bodice of my dress clanked with each step as I headed across the bridge toward an empty throne. Enosh had left through the Æfen Gate earlier, undoubtedly assessing if soldiers lined the Blighted Fields in an attempt to cap—

“…keep yer rotten mouth quiet.” Orlaigh’s hushed mumble invaded my thoughts, putting a hitch into my next step.

She glared up at the throne from the bottom of the dais, one hand clasping Enosh’s shirts in need of washing, the other shaking a scolding finger at… at one of the corpses?

A shudder lifted the hairs at the nape of my neck. Had they groaned again? They did that sometimes, their muffled nocturne almost forming words; wasn’t it for how the sounds broke against the skin pasted over their mouths, distorting it all into blood-clotting grunts.

“All it’ll do is get me bones braided into the throne right next to ye,” she said and pressed a palm against her forehead, releasing an exasperated sigh. “Ach, if me Master ever finds out the truth… Foolish, foolish girl.”

My heart beat faster, no matter how I tried to breathe it into quiet compliance as I inched closer. Orlaigh had called Njala a foolish girl, but what truth was she talking about? And to which of the corpses in the throne?

Another step.

Another clank of my fangs.

Orlaigh spun toward me, lifting a smile too tense around the corners. “Ach, lass, I was about to get ye.”

Arms wrapped around myself, I crossed the rest of the bridge and walked up to her. “Who did you talk to?”

Her belly shook with a chortle. “Talk? Dinnae have no soul to talk to in this place but ye.”

Me, and two soul-bound corpses. “I heard you from the bridge.”

She swatted the air dismissively. “Aye, time makes yer own head yer best companion. Dinnae mind me chattering to meself like a goose.”

“But I—”

“Me Master has a surprise for ye, lass.” She stroked her palm down my arm. “But ye cannae go like this, letting the autumn winds howl across yer neck.”

Whatever suspicion my body held fell away, quickly replaced with a buzz of energy tingling my toes. “Enosh is taking me outside?”

“Aye, lass. Did ye eat the pudding I brought earlier?”

My pulse quickened at her question, then some more when I said, “I woke feeling a bit ill and had no appetite.”

The way her eyes dropped to my belly roused an expectant flutter around my heart I couldn’t afford. Probably nothing but an upset stomach. That, or the sad mind of a woman who’d always welcomed her monthly bleeding with tears. It was too early for me to have such signs of pregnancy, no matter how subtle.

“Wait here while I fetch ye a fur,” she said, then made her way toward my room.

My eyes wandered back to the corpses in the throne. Enosh had the terrible habit of restoring them some, only to let them rot away until their faces crumbled off in pieces. If they had mouths, what stories would they tell?

Hesitant steps brought me closer. One more, and my shins pressed against the throne until they ached. I leaned in close enough that I caught a whiff of their subdued stench, like soured milk mixed with the fumes of burnt incense.

Lord Tarnem’s eyes made a blood-curdling sound as they shifted to focus on me, like boots sinking into deep mud. Gray and woven with hairline cracks, his right jawbone shifted, and the brown skin across his mouth groaned as it stretched and—

“Hmmp… mhh.”

I shifted back on a gasp as my heart thundered like the boom of hooves in my chest. His mumbles continued with such urgency, a tendon slowly frayed at the motion. Heavens, I couldn’t make out a single word. What was he saying?

Back and forth, my eyes followed the movement of his tongue pressing against the skin from the other side. And if I cut into it, would I find a mouth behind it? Did I want to know what it had to say?

I clasped one of the fangs dangling from my bodice, pointed enough it might pierce the leathery skin. Seconds passed with nothing but the frantic rush of blood in my veins. What would this serve me, other than to feed this skin-itching curiosity?

It would gain me nothing. Trouble, perhaps. And still the fine thread of skin gave a crk as I ripped the fang off. I lifted it toward Lord Tarnem’s mouth.

He mumbled faster, louder.

Sweat broke on my forehead.

I pressed the fang against the skin.

I pushed down, and—

“What are ye doing, lass?”

Letting the fang retreat into my palm, I trailed my finger over the brittle skin, then turned to Orlaigh. “Just looking if he still has a mouth.”

“Aye, one full of lies.” Orlaigh’s heavy stare remained on me for another moment, the valleys beneath her cheekbones filling with patches of shadows. “Time has a way of twisting the truth.”

Apparently, in a way that put her at risk of gracing the throne. For that reason alone, there was no point in pushing her for it.

She came up the dais as I let the fang clank to the ground on a cough, put a light fur around my shoulders, then ushered me toward the Æfen Gate. “I prepared me Master a satchel with enough food and drink ye dinnae have to find a tavern. Aye, ye best have yer wits about ye when ye go home.”