Chapter 19 #2
Every moment I wasted could be Maren’s last. She needed me to stay calm. And for her, I tried. I tried to organize my thoughts. I tried to stop my hands from trembling. I had to be careful and patient, when I had never been known for either of those qualities before.
“Take off her choker,” I said to Sagara, who seemed to be the least terrified among them all.
The white pearls that allowed Maren to breathe underwater clearly didn’t come from the god. They didn’t constrict her throat, but they were in the way.
“Now, bend her head forward and hold it very still,” I instructed.
The black pearls sank into Maren’s delicate throat like a garrote. I couldn’t dig them out of her skin without killing her with my touch in the process. The only accessible pearls were at the back of her neck, against her spine, where the bone prevented them from sinking into her flesh.
I reached for one there.
One wrong move, one slip of my finger, one jerk of her head, and Maren would be gone, lost to me forever.
Terror chilled my inside. I couldn’t allow myself to think about that.
The moment my finger connected with the smooth, glossy surface of one pearl, all in that one row turned to glass, snapped apart under the pressure of Maren’s body, and rained toward the deck. I touched the second strand right away, and it followed the first one.
Thank all the fucking gods in the ocean, Maren’s neck was now free.
The hag’s hands fluttered over the gory red marks left on Maren’s delicate skin.
But I had no time to linger. Hundreds of pearls constricted her chest, threatening to break her ribs and crush her organs.
Her arms and legs were trapped in them too, the god’s vile magic constricting the blood flow to her limbs.
“Keep her breathing,” I told the hag, in a rough, hoarse voice I hardly recognized myself.
The woman nodded, her expression pensive. Her eyes were unfocused, with her eyelids drooping, because what she felt was far more important now than what she saw.
She said her name was Daria.
I made the effort to remember her name. If she brought my beloved butterfly back to me, I’d reward her with anything she wished for and everything that was in my power.
One by one, I removed the strands from Maren’s torso, then worked on her limbs—one arm, one leg at a time. I didn’t dare look up at her face again until every single evil pearl was finally gone from her body.
Color returned to her cheeks. Her eyelids fluttered to life.
I kneeled in front of her.
“Maren, sweetheart, open your eyes, please,” I begged.
Her lips stretched into a smile before her eyes even opened.
“You sound so sweet when you really want to... It’s so easy to forget how fiercely you can growl or how loud you can roar too,” she murmured with a long, body-shuddering breath.
Fuck.
Relief made me weak. My muscles gave up, sending me down on my ass. I bent my knees and rubbed my forehead before finding my voice again.
“Take her to our cabin,” I ordered.
Our, because I was coming with her too. There was not a chance in the Abyss that I’d let Maren out of my sight ever again from now on.
THE HAG TENDED TO MAREN’S cuts, of which there were many.
Long and short, deep and shallow, every part of her body that hadn’t been covered by the pearls looked shredded by glass.
Her sun-kissed skin was smeared with grime.
And her entire body from her neck to her ankles was crisscrossed by purple welts left where the ropes of pearls had bitten into her skin and flesh.
She stood inside a large bowl placed on the floor in our cabin. Two servants cleaned her skin with damp cloths while Daria ran her magical hands over each scrape, cut, and wound, enticing whatever energy Maren had left in her body to heal her.
I sat on the floor far enough that even the servants’ swishing skirts couldn’t touch me.
Yet the women kept tossing cautious glances at me while going about their work.
I suspected it wasn’t just my curse that made them fear me.
If even a fraction of the rage I was feeling inside had made it out to my face, my expression must be murderous.
I clenched my jaw, fisted my hands, then flexed my fingers open, as I imagined getting them on Jahanam’s slimy neck, hoping he had one. It’d squeeze every drop of his divine magic from the blob of mud that was his body. I’d rip every single eyeball from his foul flesh. I’d...
My chest throbbed with so much anger, I feared it’d explode in a burst of fire.
One of the servants lathered Maren’s hair with soap while the other lifted a large clay pitcher, ready to rinse the soap out of her hair.
“I’ll do it.” I jumped to my feet, making all three women scurry aside like a spooked school of fish.
I sauntered closer, moving slowly as if approaching a bevy of skittish doe in a Sarnala forest on a full moon night.
“Here. Give me the pitcher.” I extended my hand to the servant holding it.
Her violet eyes grew as wide as saucers. She clutched the pitcher to her chest as if it was her firstborn.
“I mean no harm.” I seethed with impatience but made the effort to gentle my voice. “Put it on the trunk and step away. You can have it back once I’m done with it. It’ll be a glass pitcher by then, but you’ll still have a pitcher.”
I plastered a smile on my face in an attempt to put the poor woman at ease.
“Yes, Your M-majesty,” she stuttered, placing the pitcher on the trunk, then scurrying out of my way.
I wrapped my fingers around the handle. The white clay immediately turned into clear glass. The women gasped. I shrugged. And Maren smiled.
Naked, bruised, and abused, she fucking smiled at me.
A barely familiar warmth spread through me.
I didn’t even bother to identify this feeling, fairly certain I couldn’t accurately name it anyway.
I just knew I could no longer sit idle, stewing in my hatred, anger, and helplessness. I wanted to take care of her.
I wished I could wash and treat all her wounds myself.
I wanted to wrap her in a warm blanket, then hold her in bed while she slept peacefully in my arms. I wanted to sing to her, to kiss her hair, and to whisper the sweetest things I could come up with into her ear while my breath caressed her neck and my kisses guided her to the land of the most magical dreams.
But the closest I could get to any of that without killing her was to hold that damn pitcher. So hold it I did.
Maren closed her eyes, turning her face up to the stream of clean water.
The servants expertly slid their fingers through Maren’s hair, teasing out the suds.
And I realized with a start that I had no idea if I was doing it right.
This was the first time I’d ever helped wash someone’s hair.
Fuck, I’d never even washed my own until all my servants had fled, and I had no choice but to learn how to take care of myself, including bathing.
Thankfully, neither the servants nor Maren complained about the quality of my services.
Once Maren’s hair was soap-free, I gently poured the rest of the water over her body, relishing the view of clean water rinsing the last night’s remnants off her skin along with the soap suds.
The servants then ran their palms over Maren’s hair and body, drying her more effectively than a towel ever would.
After they put a long, soft tunic on her and Daria led her to the bed, I ordered, “Now give her a hug.”
The hag tilted her head, turning her ear to me as if confused about what she’d just heard.
“I...I beg your pardon, Your Majesty?” she asked tentatively.
“She’s been to the Abyss and back in the past few hours,” I said.
“She deserves at least a hug to soothe her. I’d love to be the one to give it to her, but we all know how that would end.
So, please,” I added emphasis to the word I’d hardly ever used in my life.
“Please, give her a hug before you leave here.”
Daria bowed her head to me, before turning to Maren and dutifully wrapping her arms around her.
With a wide smile, Maren hugged her back.
Her arms went around the woman, but her gaze found me.
She didn’t say a word, just looked at me with that big, happy grin.
I inhaled deeply, imagining her arms around me instead, and I could almost feel them tightening around my torso with her nose buried in my neck.
The illusion was vivid. Sweet and painful at once.
“Thank you,” Maren said softly as the hug ended and the two women stepped out of each other’s arms.
“It was my honor, mistress,” Daria bowed.
But Maren never took her eyes off me, and I knew her gratitude was for me just as much as for the healer.
Too exhausted to eat a full meal, Maren only had a cup of broth before going to bed.
“Is there no bed for you?” she asked, climbing under the covers after Daria and the servants had left.
“Even if there was, why waste a perfectly good bed?” I shrugged. “You know it’ll be as hard as the floor the moment I touch it. I may as well just stay on the floor.”
I leaned against the wall opposite her bed. I was tired, but I knew sleep would not come to me yet, even if I tried to court it by lying down and closing my eyes.
I liked sleeping. Fuck, I’d spent most of the past ten decades in some sort of sleepy haze, often loathing waking up at all. But the memory of Maren’s terrified voice calling to me from inside the glass palace haunted me.
Sitting on the bed, with her hands placed on her knees, she said, “You didn’t try to get some sleep last night, did you?”
“No.”
“I told you not to lurk around. But you lurked, didn’t you?”
“I did,” I confessed.