Becoming the vengeance.

“We will find a solution,” Enosh said, for he had probably sensed my unease, although we both knew that I’d turned this into an impossible situation when I’d threatened Eilam that I might just help, unprepared to follow through. “Until then, I shall gladly do the killing for you.”

As though no dreamier words had ever been spoken, I curled deeper into his chest. “You are awfully romantic tonight.”

But his ease around sending a bone spike through a stranger without even looking at him would make no difference—it didn’t need to. I knew now what I had to do.

I had to become the Queen of Rot and Pain.

Beautiful and terrifying.

Gentle and cruel.

Starting with those who’d killed me.

My husband steered our mount toward the row of crooked fisher huts, which slept quietly beneath the new moon. Its light reflected on the snow crystals which crunched beneath each hoofbeat, having frozen into a thin sheet of ice atop.

The cold tip of Enosh’s nose nudged my temple. “Show me where the man who did this to my wife lives.”

“Two men. One’s Rose’s b-brother, Henry. I know his house, but not where the other one lives or who he is.” To our right stood my old home, the door wide open and barely hanging on to its bottom hinge, with a dusting of snow scattered into the hut. “It’s abandoned, and Pa is nowhere in sight.”

As expected.

I’d never been a fountain of abundant positivity, but anyone with half a brain would know that Pa was likely dead. If not killed by villagers or priests, then by whatever had eaten up his lungs from the inside.

I pointed at the second house to the left of the brick well, the bit of smoke coming from the chimney proof enough that the bastard Henry was inside. “I don’t want Pa to wander.”

“We might find him yet,” Enosh said and slowed his horse when the corpses scurried into the shadows surrounding Elderfalls. “The latest death count, Ada.”

An odd wave of pride flooded my core, having counted every single one with Enosh’s help. “Six hundred and twenty-eight.”

He dismounted and helped me down, my legs stiff from the cold and hours on horseback. “Did he touch you, this… Henry?”

“Not that I remember.” I followed behind him to the oaken door, many homes of Elderfalls abandoned or quietly asleep, aside from a hound that barked somewhere. “The other was the one who d-drove in the knife. But Henry c-came after me just the same, and threatened to deliver me to the priests dead if I wouldn’t fo-follow him.”

“I hate how you’re shivering…”

Enosh kicked the door, letting its bolt break with a loud chink. The hound barked louder, adding howls to the song.

Groans and incoherent mumbling joined from the inside of the home, along with the familiar scent of salted fish. In the dim light coming from the poor excuse of a fire in the hearth, a figure struggled from a mattress of straw.

My molars pressed together. “Hello, Henry.”

“What’s this about?” Swaying from drink or sleep, or both, he gripped the rough-hewn beam that supported some sort of hay mow sitting above. “Who are—” His eyes locked on me and he sidestepped, stumbling over his feet before he slinked behind a rocking chair, bringing wooden spindles between him and us. “You! You should be dead. I saw it. Saw you bleed out from your belly. No, no, no… you’re dead!”

“I am.” The same fate would await him. At my hand. A choice I had quickly made peace with on our way here. “F-freezing my tits off because of you.”

I watched how the hollows beneath his cheekbones filled with shadows, making him look sickly and weak—not at all like the man with the felt hat who’d cornered me.

Now I cornered him, sidestepping, driving him toward his reckoning that was my deadly husband. Until Henry’s gaze flicked toward the hay mow. And again.

“Someone’s up there,” I said.

“I know, my love,” Enosh said. “Boom-boom-boom goes his heart, pumping liquid terror into his veins.”

“Let me k-kill this one.” The conviction in my tone died at another biting chatter of my teeth, extending itself into my arms as a tremble.

Enosh’s eyes wandered to my quivering hands, then met mine as he shook his head as though to say, “You will fail, further strengthening Eilam’s resolve.”

No, I would not fail.

The thought of taking a life terrified me, but I had to keep my wits together. If I couldn’t even kill those who’d brought about my death, then this would not end well. Would never give me my baby.

Now was the time.

“Give me a blade,” I said to Enosh, and his brow arched. “What your wife wants, your wife shall get, remember? Your wife wants a bone knife.”

Once again, that hungry glint flickered in his eyes as he opened his palm where the blade shaped, the handle carved with the same vines on my belly, offering a solid grip for my fingers.

“No! I… I… It wasn’t me who—” A gag hiccupped from Henry’s throat, eyes frantically darting between Enosh and the door. “Arne did it! My cousin drove the knife into you; I swear on my mother’s grave. It was him! He’s the one you want. He’s up there!”

My heart gave a jolt in my chest. Head tipping back, I stepped away from him for a better angle, stomach going queasy.

Then I saw it.

Nothing but the red glint of embers reflecting from the edge of a rust-speckled knife. Its pointy end rested on a wooden slat, and a finger tapped the handle while the rest of Arne remained hidden in shadows.

Devil be damned, there was no way I couldn’t kill that one. “That’s the man who drove the knife in.”

One quick step forward, and Enosh gripped Henry’s face. He slammed the man’s spine against the beam until the mow shook, letting threads of skin bind Henry to the wood as Arne scooted back into the shadows.

“Where is my father?” I walked up to Henry, pointing the blade at him. “What happened to him?”

“I swear, I did him no harm! Oh god. Oh, Helfa, help me!” Henry pleaded. “Rose! She brought the priests to him for coin, then up and left.”

So that bitch wasn’t even in Elderfalls anymore. “Where to?”

“Hogsbottom. Three day’s walk, upstream.”

“And the priests did what with my father?”

“Rose might know, but I swear, I know no more!”

Of no use to me anymore, then.

A thick swallow went down my throat. Heavens, I should have paid more attention to my husband’s killing. Just how did one kill another? I brought the pointy end of the blade right beneath his navel.

Like this?

“Very painful, as you might remember.” Enosh stepped up behind me, placing his arm around my belly and his whisper against my ear. “Death might not come for a day or two as he bleeds out, depending on the organs injured, poisoning himself from the inside with his own excrements.”

“Painful sounds good.” Yet, when the blade turned unnaturally heavy in my hand, I glanced over my shoulder at Enosh. “I don’t know how to kill.”

“Shh… Say no more.” He stepped closer to steady me while his fingers reached for my hand that held the blade. “Like this, my love.”

With his fingers closed around my wrist, he brought my hand to Henry’s throat, pointy end aimed straight at the bobbing lump there. My focus scrambled, however, when Enosh lapped at my earlobe and pressed himself against me.

He was hard.

His cock rested against my lower back as he kissed the sensitive skin behind my ear. Quickening breaths tugged on the fine baby hairs at the nape of my neck, sending a wonderful shudder over my pebbled skin.

An indecent moan escaped me as though I wasn’t about to stab someone. “You are depraved.”

“Says the woman who raped me on my throne.”

Now I had to grin a little. “I was cold…”

“Place your other hand on the butt of the handle, right here.” He released his arm from my waist, took my other hand, and placed my palm onto the wide, smooth end of the handle. “One hand holds it steady; the other hits the handle, driving it through his throat. Fast. Simple.”