1
Everyone I loved died. Maybe I should start loving my husband so he would too. The bastard stalked toward me, and I backed into the countertop, unable to flee in another direction. “You stupid, worthless bitch,”
Vagach snarled, landing the back of his hand square against my cheek. My head whipped to the side, and I collapsed to the polished wood slats at my husband’s feet. Instinctively, I curled in on myself, covering my head before he could deliver another blow to my face.
The movement left my ribs vulnerable, and not a heartbeat later, he kicked them, sending the air screaming from my lungs. Something cracked, and a sharp pain robbed me of my next breath.
“How are you still not pregnant!”
He shouted. All I could do was brace and wait for his next blow. It landed on my shoulder with enough force that I knew it would boast a fat, purple bruise.
I coughed, attempting to push my feet into the ground and distance myself from Vagach. Instead, he straddled me, using the tip of his boot to force me onto my back. Both my ribs and shoulder twinged from the movement. I closed my eyes, trying to hold back the words and the tears that wanted to spill over. Doing either meant risking further wrath, and my spirit was already so close to breaking.
“How long has it been now that you’ve failed the Fates?”
Priestess Anara mused, not bothering to move from her position at the table across the kitchen, where she observed Vagach’s abuse with a passive air. The thick black cane that had landed across my knuckles and the backs of my knees too many times rested beside a mug of steaming tea in front of her.
Vagach and I had been married nearly eight years already, and for six of them, I’d dreamed of killing myself to escape the pain. Perhaps today would be the day he finally ended my life and released me from the prison he kept me in.
The Fates weren’t that kind to me. Neither was Priestess Anara.
“Eight years,”
I wheezed out, glaring at her. I hoped she saw the hate in my eyes through the sheer black veil all females were forced to wear. This cold fury never seemed to dull even after all the beatings I’d been given for defying her and therefore defying the will of the Fates.
“Look at me,”
Vagach growled, his hot breath somehow overpowering the wood stove threateningly close to my position on the floor.
I stole a brief moment to gauge the distance between my position and the doors that led to the gardens.
Too far to run.
Swallowing, I faced my husband. Flaming garnet eyes stared down at me, burning with so much hatred that I wondered for the thousandth time why he married me in the first place. I offered him a similar glower in return. “Maybe it’s you that’s the issue, and not me.”
He was on me in an instant, hand wrapped around my throat and shoving me harder into wood slats.
Please kill me.
“How dare you. After everything I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me?”
His fingers tightened, making stars dance in my vision. My eyes fluttered, and my vision tunneled in on a pinprick of dark—my way out. I raced toward it, grasping for the freedom it offered.
At this point, I would take anything.
Vagach lifted me by my neck, forcing me to look into his eyes. Then, with a sound of disgust, he released me. My skull bounced against the floor, and the world went black before returning blurry. A groan slipped out of me unbidden.
Priestess Anara’s chair scraped against the floor, and then her footsteps approached me. I didn’t need my vision to be clear to know that the cane came with her. “You must obey your husband, Assyria. The Weaver laid out a great path for you to marry a Kormánzó. You must serve him. You must snuff out this spirit of yours, for that is why the Reaper has cursed your womb. In all your years under my care, I never managed to accomplish the task, so now Kormánzó Vagach must. Apologize to your husband.”
Vagach was the Kormánzó of the largest vidék in the southernmost part of the Demon Realm and the head of House Olmuth. Which apparently gave my noble husband the right to use and abuse me as he saw fit.
Blinking, I stared at the two cruel figures above me, trying to smother the anger inside me that wanted to burn this fucking house down with the three of us in it. “I’m sorry,”
I managed to bite out, smothering the wince that came with movement in my ribs. I fucking hated that I was apologizing again; some of the emotion was directed at myself, but my husband bore the brunt of it. Perhaps we were meant for each other with the abhorrence stretched between us like a tightrope.
“You’re always sorry. When are you ever going to learn?”
Vagach sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. A strand of hair escaped the band of leather that bound it at the nape of his neck. He tucked it behind his severely pointed ear before lifting his head again. “You know I hate doing this to you. Why do you make me hurt you?”
The words I wanted to say screamed through my mind, but instead of unleashing them, I slipped on the mask I knew all too well. Widening my eyes and sticking out my bottom lip, I tried to make myself look as innocent as possible. “Thank you for teaching me a lesson. I will pray harder to the Weaver and the Giver for a child, while begging the Reaper for forgiveness.”
That seemed to appease Vagach, because he rose and backed away, choosing to lean against the countertop as he studied me. His tunic was rolled up at the sleeves, displaying his forearms and the white knuckled grip he held over the elegant stone beneath his fingers. The shirt stretched across his belly, swollen from years of overindulgence. A half-empty bottle of liquor sat behind him, though the evidence wasn’t needed to know he was roaring drunk.
Gingerly, I tucked my feet beneath me, managing to sit upright without crying out. Priestess Anara didn’t offer me any help as I crawled to a nearby chair to hoist myself to my feet. The world swayed, and I sucked in a sharp breath, immediately regretting it.
“Clean yourself up and prepare for our coupling. With Priestess Anara watching over it, the Fates should shine their favor on us this day,”
he snarled.
Ice shattered through my veins, sending my stomach plummeting to my knees. With trepidation crawling its way up my spine, I looked between the priestess and my husband, trying to figure a way out of the situation.
Fates, not now. Please, not now.
A slow smile spread across his face; he knew he had won and I was at his mercy. Even if I wanted to slip out of one of the arched windows, my injuries would make it impossible, a fact I was certain he knew. All Demons possessed an innate healing ability, which gave us such long lives, but injuries this severe took hours, if not days, to heal.
Swallowing down the rising panic, I gripped either side of my long skirts and attempted to curtsey, pain flaring as I did so. “Yes, sir,”
I replied, dropping my chin to my chest and turning to exit the kitchen, trying to keep my steps light and even when all I wanted to do was bolt like a frightened deer.
Down the long, ornately carved hall I went until I reached our sleeping chamber, closing the door behind me before entering the attached bathing room. I shut that door too, if only to put a hair’s breadth more space between Vagach and me.
The deep stone tub called to me, and I avoided glancing in the mirror as I passed it, certain I would not like what I saw in my reflection. Perched on the edge, I turned the taps to open the flow, staring into the waterfall as if it were a crystal ball that held all the answers I sought.
Answers like, why did my husband choose me if all he wanted to do was abuse me?
His first wife died nine summers ago, and the next, he had decided I was to be his new bride. When Vagach appeared on the doorstep to our humble abode in the middle of a field of corn, my father, barely managing to feed our family, had readily accepted his proposal.
Perhaps it was my burgundy eyes, one of the most powerful Demon colors, or my long hair, or my body toned from years of working the fields with my mother, father, and sister. Perhaps he thought our impoverished state would make me more submissive to his whims. Perhaps it was none of those things.
Fates, how I wished I’d died in the plague that swept through the Demon Realm the past winter, claiming my parents, sister, and nearly a quarter of Stryi, the primary city in the vidék. The healers said the illness was brought back from the front lines of the war, some sort of curse or concoction the Angels had set on the Demons in an attempt to turn the tide in their favor. Priestess Anara said it was a warning from the Weaver that we needed to bear more children for the Kral’s mandate to exterminate the Angels and conquer all of Keleti.
Whatever the cause, I was still grief stricken; the mere thought of my bubbly, bright sister’s ashen face as she coughed the last bit of blood from her body would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my millennia-long life.
Warm water now filled the tub, and I stripped off my veil and dress, biting down on my lip as the overhead movement sent a twinge down my left side. One by one, I placed my feet into the water, sinking into its welcoming embrace and letting it soothe my injuries. Tucking my knees into my chest, I rested my head on them, silence enveloping everything but my thoughts.
Vagach’s determination to impregnate me was disgusting, but that was what females were for—bearing as many children as we could for the Demon cause. My husband was a social climber, and having multiple powerful offspring would raise his station and catch him more attention in Uzhhorod, the capital of the Demon Realm. The Kral might even offer him the title of Nayúr, which came with privileges like a set of apartments in the palace.
There wasn’t anything left for me here, so it wasn’t like it mattered whether we stayed or went. Besides, my body was no longer my own. I was nothing more than a brood mare for my husband, just as Priestess Anara had taught me to be.
Lifting a hand from the water, I flicked droplets onto the window beside me, watching them roll to the floor before repeating the motion. At least they were able to race away from here. This was what my life had come to—baths with broken ribs and daydreaming of dunking my head under the water and never coming up again. Hope of finding a way out of my situation had stuttered to an ember, and I wasn’t sure how much longer it would be before it was doused completely.
Though this soul-deep rage, at always being told I was worth nothing until my belly swelled, at everything I had endured first under the tutelage of Priestess Anara, then under the control of Vagach, had stayed my hand more times than I could count. Something burned within me that needed to be unleashed, and I had a sick feeling that explosion might spark this day if Vagach planned to couple with me in front of the priestess again. The last time, she’d held my hands above my head while he shoved up my skirts and forced himself inside me, humping furiously until he filled me with his seed. Then, she’d remained there with me until nearly an hour had passed and no hope of washing Vagach away remained.
When the water cooled, I tucked my feet beneath me and rose from the tub, wrapping a bath sheet around my body and walking to the mirror. A small cut decorated my cheekbone, the blood already dried on the swollen tissue around it. My normally symmetrical face, marred by my husband’s hand. I cleaned it with what remained of the bath water, then perched on a stool and brushed out my long, ebony hair before braiding it down my back.
As my fingers twisted and twined, I stared out the window at the sprawling garden. At first, the rows of roses had been my greatest joy, with their voluminous petals in dozens of shades that bloomed at different points of the year. I’d spent so long working the fields for sustenance that I’d never been afforded the luxury of cultivating something beautiful. Vagach bought me rare varieties from far flung parts of the Angel Realm, often difficult to grow in the southern part of the Demon Realm, but under my care they had flourished.
They were as dead outside as I was inside now.
Once the end of my hair was secured in a burgundy ribbon, I gave myself a final once-over. My almond-shaped eyes and plump lips would be hidden, along with the healing bruises, soon enough beneath another sheer sheet of black. With a sigh, I rose, slipping into the sleeping chamber again. From the wardrobe, I pulled out another plain, modest black dress and shimmied into it before donning a blood-free veil and pinning it in place. Vagach normally liked to see me without both when we coupled, but I wanted to save as much of my dignity as I could for this encounter.
My heart hammered helplessly in my chest, as if its racing could take us away from here, from what was about to happen. The beating came to a frenzy when voices drifted down the hall, accompanied by heavy footsteps.
They were coming.
Hands shaking, I managed to climb onto the wide bed and lay directly in the center, hands folded over my abdomen. The simple gold ring with a tiny garnet stone that had belonged to my mother twisted endlessly around my forefinger as I waited for the inevitable. At least, with my husband’s wealth, the mattress was soft. Our entire house was filled with fine furniture, yet I appreciated none of it, not when my existence was so caked in misery.
The door creaked open, and I stopped breathing as Vagach and Priestess Anara entered the room. They didn’t bother to close the door behind them. Every muscle in my body wanted to leap into action, to fight back against further torment.
But I was powerless; I was trapped, and there was nothing—never going to be anything—I could do about it. Not when females were subservient to males and we relied on them for everything.
“I will say a prayer before we begin,”
Priestess Anara stated, perching on the edge of the bed and yanking a hand away from my belly to hold. I flinched, but her grip was like a vise and my hand moved nowhere. Outside, birds chirped, and I clung to the sound, imagining that I was one of them, with the breeze ruffling my feathers and the ability to fly far, far away from here.
The sound of Vagach’s belt unfastening filled the air a moment before the priestess began a rhythmic chant that I’d heard far too many times in my life. I tuned it out as I willed myself to remain still, to not make this any worse for myself than it already would be. But that fire burned with me, hate growing so large and so thick that my small body was never going to be able to contain it.
Smother it, Assyria!
The wood frame creaked as Vagach joined us, and my knees involuntarily clamped together.
“May the Weaver look kindly upon this union and thread a path to children for Kormánzó Vagach and Assyria. May the Giver offer their child abundant, rare magic. May the Reaper cast her shadow elsewhere so that Assyria’s womb bears fruit.”
Priestess Anara finished her prayer with a touch of our joined hands to her forehead, and I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the inevitable feeling of Vagach settling between my thighs.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sound caught my attention like nothing had in recent months, and my eyes snapped open. Priestess Anara and Vagach’s attention were torn by it too, both looking at each other and then around to the door. My focus bounced between them, the door, and the windows as the drumming grew louder, closer, much like the beat of my own heart against my ribs. But it wasn’t the footfalls of someone else in the house. This sound was like distant rain mixed with rumbling thunder, the type of storm that informed you of its approach before it cracked open the sky above you and swept away everything in its path.
A whinny broke the still air, and my eyes widened as I realized what the sound was—hoofbeats. Disregarding my husband and Priestess Anara, I raced to the paned window. Our estate was on the outskirts of the Stryi, which meant we were always first to spot new arrivals, though a sprawling garden surrounded by wild, thorny bushes blocked most of the view.
Poised on the tips of my toes, I tried to peer over them. Dust kicked up off the main road in the distance, though the forms were indistinguishable in the mid-morning light.
“Out of my way,”
Vagach growled, shoving me to the side. I barely managed to avoid colliding with an expensive vase on a pedestal as he filled the space I had occupied. The priestess joined him, hushed whispers passing between them. I crept around toward the window closest to the bathing room, desperate to see who had come to Stryi in such large numbers.
“Assyria,”
Vagach barked, and I spun to face him. He tucked his tunic back into his pants and refastened his belt. “Stay in the house and do not come out for any reason.”
“Why? What is going on? Who are those riders?”
I asked despite my better judgment. I’d never been great at keeping my mouth shut. Priestess Anara shot me another warning look, like I didn’t already know I’d pushed the limits of what the two would tolerate that day.
“No one you need to concern yourself with,”
he snapped, smoothing his hands over his long, neatly tied hair—always a source of pride to my noble husband.
The corners of my mouth dipped down, causing a twinge of pain from the bruise on my cheek before I smoothed my expression again. Vagach narrowed his eyes at me as I stood before him, twisting my fingers together, my lifelong nervous tic. I dropped them away and patted my skirts, “What about temple?”
“You may skip temple today,”
Priestess Anara stated, and my heart leaped at the thought of a day free from hours of prayers on my knees, the priestess, and her wicked cane.
Vagach wasn’t finished with me, unfortunately. “I still expect you to pray to the Fates and ask for them to weave you a destiny that includes powerful children, Assyria. Later, I will check that you have made the proper offering as well. We will couple when I return.”
I offered my husband a saccharine smile that felt more like swallowing a bitter potion. “You are so thoughtful.”
What I wanted to say was that he was controlling, but with the dark cloud that clung to him, I didn’t want to risk another bruise decorating my face. Priestess Anara would only say I deserved them all for failing to bear children, and I was tired of hearing how much I was failing at something I had little desire to do.
“I mean it, Assyria. Do not leave the house. You are too important to me.”
The wood floor creaked as Vagach shifted closer to me. I suppressed the urge to take a step back.
I sighed, then offered him a nod. “I will remain here.”
“Thank you.”
He reached out to touch me, and I flinched, regretting the move instantly. He clenched his jaw but continued forward, grasping the hem of the veil and lifting it. The way he kissed me was vile, and the pungent alcohol on his breath made me want to gag. My lips did not purse against his, and too much time passed before he pulled away.
I stood there, stiff and holding my breath, until the door to the room slammed shut behind them. Only when I no longer heard their footsteps did I relax.
The urgency with which Vagach and Priestess Anara departed left me more curious than anything, and I needed to know what was happening. After all, who would travel so far south in such large numbers?
A small smile turned up the corners of my mouth as an idea sparked in my mind. I’d use my magic to make a temporary escape from the house and satisfy my curiosity. A sense of giddiness filled me as I crafted a quick plan. These small moments of rebellion were what I lived for, and with how reckless I already was with my life, why should I deny myself the opportunity to taste freedom, if only for a few precious moments?