Chapter 8 #2
Elianne sucked in a sharp breath. Stared at him. He delivered it so coolly, so calmly, with nary a flinch nor tremor nor hint of sorrow. “Andresa is dead?”
Horror pooled in her veins. She reached out again to steady herself against the wall, calculations storming through her mind.
She could run, but he would throw an ice wall into her path, and her reflexes weren’t good enough—she’d slam into it rather than melting it as quickly as he created it. Dae would have a hope of escaping, even Ember or Logi or Eldrid, but her?
Useless. Her only hope was to postpone the inevitable, buy enough time to make a plan.
She was no good at plans. Had never been good at plans. That’s how she’d gotten herself in this mess to begin with.
Isidor came a step closer. “Her funeral is tomorrow, and I will of course observe the requisite forty days of mourning. Then I must see to the punishment of the terror-maker’s accomplice. But after that, I will announce my search for a new consort. I will need a new heir as quickly as possible.”
He radiated cold. She let her anxiety warm her.
Let—ha. As if she could stop it. But she enjoyed the consequences of it this time, anyway.
Perhaps she could distract him. “Shall I warn the others that we should expect a sacrifice? Or will you let him freeze in the prison?”
Yes, she chose Dae’s word just to see if it would get a reaction.
And it did. Isidor’s eye twitched, his nostrils flared.
“It is an execution. Not a sacrifice. I am not trying to appease the volcano nor your invisible deity. But if it excites your daemon friends to think of it as such, then call it what you like.”
The fire inside her blazed hotter, resisting all her efforts to bank it. “I am one of them, Majesty. If they are daemons, I am too.”
“You are not. You are different.” He stepped closer still and lifted a hand, rested it against her cheek.
A normal man would have cried out at the heat, jerked away. But not him, of course. He was so much stronger in his ice than she was in her flame. He cooled her rather than being heated by her.
“As I told you then, Elianne, you did not stand condemned. What has worked for evil in those others is a gift in you. You have been down here only to train, to learn. So that when you take your place at my side, you can do the work of those daemons for our people, and they can be obliterated once and for all.”
If she pulled away, it would only enrage him. If she argued, he would dismiss her concerns. If she tried to convince him that Dae and Eldrid, Logi and Ember were far from evil, he would accuse her of blasphemy.
So she offered him the simple, careful truth. “I fear I will disappoint you, Majesty. My magic is weak and undependable, even after all this time.”
Because she never, never tried. Every time Dae said practice, she nodded but silently refused. Every task he gave her, she did as minimally as she could, relying on the others to help.
She couldn’t be strong. Couldn’t be capable. If she were, it would be her destruction, she’d always known that.
Worse—their destruction, as she’d long suspected too. If the king had her to do this work, he’d kill her friends.
But she’d thought she had more time to plan, to find a way out.
Isidor sighed. “You will improve when you must. Even my third born has unfortunately discovered this. Her strength has increased in surprising amounts these last few days. But you needn’t worry, I have already made arrangements for her.
Our children will be the next rulers of Fjordlandi. And from there…”
Perhaps he thought the thundering of her pulse—which he surely noted—was excitement. Attraction even, given the handsome face she had indeed once sighed over as a young woman. He couldn’t know it was fear. Loathing. Resentment.
He had stolen her from her life. From all she’d ever wanted, cared about, needed. He had stolen her and tossed her into the mouth of a volcano. Sentenced her to decades down here, until his wife died, and why?
For whatever was in her blood. Whatever kept her from burning in the lava flows, whatever connected her to them. “But what if it doesn’t work that way? How can you be so sure I would even be able to carry a child?”
Never mind the union she didn’t want, all it would entail. That wasn’t the true horror. The very thought of conceiving only to suffer the knowledge that her own body had killed the helpless babe…anything but that. She couldn’t survive it.
The king pressed an icy finger to her lips.
“There is no cause for such doubts. And every reason to believe we will create something new and powerful together. Did the Sea King and his Wind Witch not conceive within weeks of their union and produce two healthy children? Children with both their magics?”
“But water and wind are complimentary. Water and fire, though—ice and fire…”
“Enough.” His finger fell away, but only to her chin, which he tipped up. “You have had ample time to prepare yourself for your destiny. In thirty-six days, you’ll leave this place and join me Above.”
“But—”
His lips silenced hers. The cold of them was a shock, yes, but not nearly as much as the sensation of a kiss after decades without any touch beyond a helping clasp of a hand, or the occasional pat on her shoulder from Ember.
It was not what she remembered. Her head didn’t go light, her pulse didn’t pound, heat didn’t…maybe that was the problem. How could heat compound or pool, when she was already consumed by it, and it had nothing to do with pleasure?
Or maybe it was the fact that this kiss was not requested, not welcomed. She would rather swim through a flow to the very center of the earth than help him expand his tyranny.
Heat slammed into them, a wall of it so heavy she staggered and fell into Isidor’s chest. She pushed away and spun, fully expecting to see that a flow had broken through the tunnel.
And it had. Sort of. With a bit of help from the furious man who stood in the center of it, veins aglow with his internal fire.
The first time she’d seen him, standing in the lava that she’d expected to deliver death, she’d thought all the stories her omma had told her were true after all.
That the Great Betrayer, king of the daemons, more beautiful than any other, really did live in the center of the earth, where he waited for a chance to devour unsuspecting humans.
“Daemon. Get that away from here.” The king barked the order even as he fought the heat back with ice that melted as soon as he created it.
Dae made no move for one beat, two, three.
Just long enough to make it clear that the king’s ice couldn’t prevail against his fire.
Then the lava flow sank back, a new layer of crust forming, the heat banking.
He tilted his head—a parody of a bow—in a way that revealed the inked design on the shaved parts of his scalp.
“So sorry, Iz. I didn’t see you there. I was only following the water. ”
Following her, more likely.
Isidor bristled. “You will show me respect, spawn.”
“Will I?” Dae’s smile was as much a parody as his bow, but still it was beautiful.
Deadly, but beautiful. “No, I don’t think I will.
But I do thank you for the refreshing stream of water that has been flowing just as I suggested long ago you should do.
To avoid so many unwanted trips Below. But then, perhaps the trips weren’t as unpleasant for you as you always wanted us to believe. ”
When Dae’s gaze flicked to Elianne, she felt it like a slap.
The king stepped between them. She didn’t need to see his face to read his posture—the confident challenge in it. “Your place is not to question me. I am the arbiter of the Giver’s will and you—”
“Daemon spawn. Yes, I recall.” Dae ran his tongue over his teeth as if inspecting them for stray bits of food. As if they’d had any food in days. “Though you don’t seem as opposed to that as you always intimated either.”
Once, shame burned. Now, it hardened into rock. Not a protective shell around her heart, oh no. A weight in her gut to pull her down.
Isidor gave Dae his back. Met Elianne’s gaze.
Said something with his eyes that she didn’t care to try to decrypt.
Then strode toward the wall. “There will be more clothing, food, and containers for your water in a few hours—even ink and needles for your ridiculous tattoos. Until then, enjoy your long-awaited stream. It’ll dry up before I return. ”
She didn’t watch him leave through his ice wall, didn’t dare take her eyes off Dae. If she gave into the urge to drop her gaze, he’d vanish into a flow before she could work up the nerve to say something. Anything.
Or apparently he’d just shake his head and spin on his heel, stalk off like a normal person.
“Dae, wait!” Flames, she sounded like the girl she’d once been, desperate for approval from a boy who’d never given her a second glance. “It’s not what you think.”
He stopped at least. Turned, though given the fury on his face—worse, the betrayal—she almost wished he hadn’t. He wore the leathers he always did, black and fitted and flame-resistant, showcasing the form he’d chiseled from countless years spent wrestling an angry mountain into submission.
What had he looked like before? When he walked the surface like any man, clothed in wool and cotton, and tilled the land with his family? With sunlight glinting off his blond hair instead of lava-light?
It shouldn’t matter, any more than his beauty did now. But she always had to find something to argue with him about, to remind herself of that. Remind herself of where her heart belonged.
Not with the king, no. But not down here either. Her heart still beat Above, in the dome that had once been home.
“Not what I think?” He made a show of looking past her, to the ice wall. “The tyrant-king of flaming Fjordlandi wasn’t just kissing you?”
She winced, even as she cursed herself for it. “That part was what you think. But I wasn’t kissing him back.”