Chapter 3 #5
Straining his neck to keep his head away from me, he froze in a wide stance with his arms spread aside, as if afraid I’d zap him if he touched me. Looking stunned by my action, he made no attempt to free his hair from my grip.
“You know nothing about me, you arrogant snob,” I hissed the insult into his royal face, savoring the sound of every syllable.
“If you or that prick you call brack think you've got yourself a ‘cute little human’ for a pet to parade around on a leash, you both are sorely mistaken. I’ll fight each or both of you, I don’t give a shit when I’m cornered.
I don’t care what you’ll do to me or how long it’ll take for me to escape you, but I will survive this.
I’ll survive you. And I’ll find a way to return home.
Mark. My. Words.” I punctuated each word with a firm tug on his hair.
After each tug, he moved a little further away from me, his hair slipping between my fingers like the finest silk.
His eyes opened wider. His lips parted, drawing a long, full breath that expanded his broad chest. The skin on his high cheekbones appeared to glow especially brightly as his eyes sparked with life.
This was the most animated, unguarded expression I’d seen on him yet, brought forth by a raw emotion that he either forgot to hide or didn’t feel like hiding for once.
The last of his silky strands left my fingers as he tipped his head back and...laughed. It was a deep, loud, hearty laughter that exploded through the vast, empty space, echoing under the grand ceiling.
Leslo frowned, looking both pissed and confused.
The guards appeared dumbfounded, as if they’d never heard their king laughing before. Their lips curved into polite smiles while they ever so subtly backed even further away from him.
His laughter stopped as abruptly as it had started. His initial shock had eased into an expression of surprise highlighted by genuine excitement.
“I’ll tell you what, brack,” he said over his shoulder to Leslo while keeping his eyes on me. “I’ll make a deal with you after all, but on slightly different terms. I don’t need a human pet, but I’ll keep this one as a pledge of your return after you complete an errand for me.”
Leslo’s frown deepened. “What kind of errand?”
“I want you to go up to the Sky Kingdom and fetch a bolt of spider silk for me.”
Confusion etched on Leslo’s face. “Don’t you already have—”
The king snapped his fingers impatiently, not letting him finish.
“It can’t be just any spider silk,” he explained. “You’ll have to fetch it the moment the spiders finish weaving it, then bring it to the Moon Goddess Monastery on the border between Sarnala and Olathana immediately after.”
“Immediately? Like right away?” The confusion on Leslo’s face deepened at that request.
The king eyed Leslo doubtfully, like he was calculating the chances of the brack actually completing the mission he was sending him on.
He blew out a frustrated breath. “Exactly. I want the dew and the mist of the clouds still fresh on the silk when you deliver it to the monastery, do you understand? It’s very important. The dew is what binds magic to it. Otherwise, the silk is useless to me, and our deal is off.”
My mind raced, trying to decipher what this turn of events meant for me and my future, but I lacked the knowledge about anything the king was saying to predict the outcome.
Leslo scratched the back of his head. “Well, the sky king doesn’t want us in his kingdom, so...”
“Neither do I, but here you are, unwelcome and uninvited,” the king scoffed. “I trust you’ll find a way to get up there as well.”
“Like what? How am I supposed to get to the Sky Kingdom without any wings? Get a gargoyle to fly me?” Leslo mumbled.
“Or wait until some sky fae drops out of the sky and agrees to take me back up to his homeland? Or maybe I should try my luck with the River of Mists again and hope that Ghata forgives my failure?”
Judging by his tone and expression, neither of the scenarios he listed particularly appealed to him.
While mentioning the last one, a shudder ran across his shoulders, and his tanned face paled.
Whoever that goddess woman was, she didn’t seem to be a benevolent boss.
Leslo feared her so deeply, I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“You know what? Fuck it,” he grumbled. “I’ll try my luck with your uncle instead.”
Grabbing my arm again, he turned to leave. But the king caught up with him in two long strides.
“How dare you deny me, brack?” he growled threateningly, his voice dripping with so much disdain, I wondered how it didn’t burn his lips like acid.
Startled, Leslo flattened himself against a wall then drew his knife out. It was a wide, black blade. Red sparks crackled along it, looking strikingly out of place in the blue and green light inside the glass palace.
“Oh, God...” I sucked in a panicky breath and leaped away from them, afraid I was about to become a witness to a murder in addition to being the victim of a kidnapping.
Leslo didn’t just flash the weapon in warning. He aimed to kill as jammed the blade into the king’s side with force.
I slapped a hand over my mouth, trapping a scream of horror inside. Over my career as a criminal defense attorney, I’d had to deal with the gruesome aftermath of a murder. Never before, however, had I actually witnessed one. Terror struck me, rooting my feet in place.
The moment the blade touched the king’s body, the metal lost its color, turning transparent. The red sparks were gone, and the blade broke, dropping to the floor in flat shards of glass.
“What the...” Dumbfounded, Leslo stared at the knife’s glass handle left in his hand.
The king tilted his head with a mocking smirk.
“Aw, was it Nerifir iron? That’s too bad,” he chuckled with mock sympathy. “It must’ve been expensive. I guess you won’t be needing this anymore either.”
He touched the knife’s leather sheath on Leslo’s hip. The leather turned to glass too. Leslo shifted with a sound that was both confused and terrified. The glass sheath broke from his belt and crashed to the floor with a small explosion of glass splinters.
“Now, how about a handshake before you go?” the king taunted, bringing his hand toward the brack’s chest.
My stomach hollowed in horror, yet I watched, unable to look away.
Could the king do that? Could he turn a living, breathing man into a block of glass too?
And more importantly, would he?
Leslo swallowed hard and sucked in his stomach in a desperate attempt to widen the distance between his body and the king’s potentially lethal hand.
“Don’t,” he croaked, keeping his body still like a statue.
Amusement slipped from the king’s face. Dark storm clouds drew over his expression instead.
“Dare defy me again, brack,” he challenged, with a threatening rumble under his breath.
“I am a man with nothing to lose. I’m the ruler of the ocean I cannot control.
A siren without a song. The king of the people I murder, whether I want it or not.
Nothing can stop me from doing whatever the fuck I please to you.
Do you think your goddess can save you? Think again.
What can the gods do to the one whose soul has already been cursed? ”
He dropped each word like a stone, meant to maim and crush.
“Please... Don’t kill me,” Leslo mumbled, looking sickly green in the shifting, rippling light reflected off the glass walls.
“Oh no, I won’t kill you. Not today anyway.
” The king’s voice changed to an almost benevolent murmur, which didn’t make it any less frightening.
“But I could. Don’t you ever forget that, brack.
I know you can’t disobey your goddess. I know you have no choice but to get her what she sent you here for.
As such, you should do as I say. Get me the silk, and in exchange, I’ll order my sirens to start gathering womora as of the next full moon.
Unless, of course...” He pushed away from Leslo, “unless you prefer to grace my halls as a glass statue that I’ll turn you into if you keep trying my patience. ”
Leslo shook his head quickly. “I don’t want to be a glass statue.”
“Good.” The king curled his lips, sliding a dismissive glance down the brack’s bulky frame. “You’d make an ugly one anyway. Now go, bring me what I want.”
He turned to the guards who cowered far by the entrance to the hall, shaking in their pretty armor but afraid to leave without being dismissed by their king.
“Get the brack everything he needs for his journey,” the king said to the guards. “Gold or diamonds for the payment. He needs a new knife too. And get someone to clean these up.” With his bare foot, he kicked the shards on the floor with a grimace of disgust.
Leslo drew in a shaky breath, tentatively peeling his back away from the wall.
“And her?” He tipped his chin at me.
The king paused his gaze on me with an unreadable expression.
“She’ll stay,” he said. “Until you come back with the silk. If the spell works, you can have her back. Meanwhile, guards, get the servants in here. The human will need a proper bed and much better clothing.”
I inhaled to say something but was unsure what that should be. My current choices were limited. Leaving here meant going with Leslo on his quest to the Sky Kingdom. Wherever that place was, it probably wouldn’t bring me closer to home, even if the king allowed me to leave here.
On the other hand, the king seemed to know how I got here. Maybe I could get him to explain it to me? Only then would I have a chance to figure out how to find my way back to New York.
Leslo straightened, jerking his shoulders uneasily. Before leaving me to my fate with the beautiful, murderous monster, the brack took a long look at the king’s hands.
“What made you like this?” Leslo asked.
I didn’t think the king would answer that. He had certainly made it clear how little he thought of Leslo, or anyone else for that matter. I had every reason to believe the arrogant king didn’t feel obligated to answer anyone’s questions, especially the brack’s whom he despised.
Yet he met Leslo’s gaze straight on and replied with a bitter ghost of a smile, “My mother’s love.”