Chapter 11 A Stone Embrace #2
“Wife,” I spat the word like poison. “Is that what I am? The blood on your hands hadn’t even dried before you threw me in here.”
“Blood is the foundation of all meaningful bonds,” he replied, as if explaining something obvious to a child. “Ours is perhaps the most meaningful of all.”
I stared at him, revulsion crawling through me like ice in my veins. “What bond? You murdered my family. You slaughtered everyone I’ve ever known.”
“Not everyone,” Valen said, his voice soft but pointed. “I can be merciful, occasionally.”
My heart stuttered in my chest, but I kept my expression carefully blank. Lysa. Islode. If he was telling me this, it meant he hadn’t captured them yet. They were still free. But for how long?
“What do you want from me?” I asked, hating the tremor in my voice.
Valen crouched down, bringing his face level with mine through the bars. “Many things, Mireille. But for now, I simply want you to understand your position.”
His proximity made my skin crawl, but I refused to retreat. To show weakness now would only feed whatever sick game he was playing.
“My position is clear enough,” I said. “Prisoner. Widow. Orphan. All thanks to you.”
“Widow?” His smile was slow and terrible. “I’m very much alive, my queen.”
“My husband died the moment he revealed himself as a monster.”
Something flickered across his face—not anger, exactly, but a ripple in the perfect mask he wore. “You know nothing of monsters. But you will.”
“I know everything I need to. I know you.”
He reached through the bars, his movement too quick for me to evade.
His fingers caught my chin, forcing my face upward.
His touch was burning hot, like metal left too long in the sun, and I couldn’t suppress my wince.
His thumb traced the line of my jaw with a possessive familiarity that made bile rise in my throat.
“You speak of monsters as if they’re simple creatures,” he murmured, his breath ghosting across my face.
“But monsters are made, Mireille. They’re forged in the fires of betrayal and tempered in the ice of abandonment.
” His grip tightened, not enough to bruise, but enough to remind me of his strength.
“Ask your father about monsters. Oh, wait—you can’t. ”
I jerked away from his touch, hatred burning through my veins like poison. “Don’t speak of my father.”
“Your father,” Valen cut in, his voice suddenly razor-sharp, “knew exactly what awaited him after holding me here for so long.”
I swallowed, tasting blood and fear. A hundred questions burned in my mind, a hundred curses waiting to be hurled at him. But when I finally spoke, my voice hoarse and breaking at the edges, I asked the only thing that mattered.
“What did he do to you?”
He tilted his head, considering me. “Your father,” he said, drawing out the words like he was tasting them, “was quite the collector. Did you know that about him?”
I said nothing. I had known so little about my father. The man who had kept me at arm’s length my entire life, who had married me off to a monster for political gain, who had died looking at me with something like fear and regret in his eyes.
He stood and began to pace outside my cell, his movements fluid and predatory. Each step deliberate, measured, like he had all the time in eternity—which, I supposed, he did.
“Your beloved King Aeldrin kept me chained in these very dungeons for decades.” His eyes gleamed in the torchlight, ancient and terrible. “He bound me with iron and blood magic, all for mere scraps of power.”
I frowned, pulling my robe tighter around me despite knowing it was a futile gesture against both the cold and his penetrating gaze. “How is that possible?”
Valen’s attention returned to me, sharp as a blade.
“Your father was not the only king obsessed with the divine, with gods. There are many documents outlining how to capture us, but most fail in the act.” He hummed, a low sound that seemed to vibrate in the stone beneath me.
“Aeldrin was merely more... ambitious than most.”
I shifted, wincing as my raw feet scraped against the floor. “But you are a god, are you not?” I asked, the words still strange on my tongue. “Why would you let yourself be imprisoned? Why wouldn’t you just...” I gestured vaguely, unable to articulate what a god should be capable of.
“Imprisoned.” Valen savored the word like a fine wine.
“Such a delicate term for what actually occurred. Your father tore me from my rest. Summoned me like some lesser god, then bound me to his will using methods that...” He paused, his expression hardening.
“Let’s just say he was thorough in his questioning. ”
The implication hung in the air between us. Torture. My father had tortured Valen in these dungeons.
“I don’t understand,” I said, my voice strained with frustration. “If you’re so powerful, why didn’t you simply escape?”
Valen sighed, seemingly bored by my question. “Some cages are more complex than iron bars, Princess.”
This God-King was so infuriating. “Do you always speak in riddles, Butcher?”
He chuckled as he resumed his pacing. “To answer your question, sparrow, these dungeons were built long before your father’s time—before Vareth was even a kingdom.
There are only two cells left in the mortal realms that can hold beings like me.
My kin and I have destroyed all others, but this one still stands.
” His gaze drifted toward the wall that separated my cell from the adjacent one.
“But how?” I pressed, needing to understand. “How is it possible to cage a god?”
“The cell itself is just stone and iron,” Valen explained, his tone taking on a soft cadence. “What makes it special are the runes carved into its foundation, the sacrifices buried beneath its floor. Ancient power, Princess. The kind your people have forgotten—or chosen to forget.”
I tried to process this information, to reconcile it with everything I thought I knew about my father, about Vareth, about the world. “Why didn’t your... kin come to rescue you?”
Valen’s smile turned vicious then, a baring of teeth that reminded me of his true nature. “That is not my story to tell,” he said, his voice suddenly cold.
A silence fell between us, filled only with that distant drip of water.
I found myself staring at the untouched clothes he had brought—a simple dress of dark fabric, far removed from the finery I had known my entire life.
Was this to be my existence now? A prisoner in the dungeon of my former home, dressed in rags, at the mercy of a vengeful god?
“So, then what? You waited all this time for revenge?” I asked, trying to make sense of this twisted history. “You married me just to… what? To make my father watch you take his kingdom before you killed him?”
Valen considered me for a long moment, his expression inscrutable.
“Revenge is a simple word for a complex desire, Princess.” He moved closer to the bars, his fingers wrapping around the iron.
“I wanted your father to know what it was to lose everything. To feel powerless. To watch as all he built with my power crumbled before him.”
I stared at him, at this being who claimed divinity yet harbored such mortal hatred. In the flickering torchlight, shadows danced across his face, highlighting the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the cruel curve of his mouth. He looked entirely human, beautiful even, in a cold, dangerous way.
“Are we truly married?” I asked finally, the question barely audible. “In the eyes of gods and men?”
Valen met my gaze with a slight, enigmatic smile. “We are married,” he confirmed, “and will remain so for eternity. The vows we exchanged were binding in ways you cannot begin to comprehend. Those weren’t just pretty words, Princess.”
A leaden weight settled in my chest. Eternal. The word echoed in my mind like a death knell.
“I’ll be leaving for a time,” Valen said abruptly, changing the subject. “Affairs of state require my attention. Your former kingdom doesn’t run itself, after all.”
“How long?” I asked, hating the desperation that crept into my voice.
He shrugged, the gesture strangely human for a being of such ancient power. “A fortnight, perhaps longer. Conquering a kingdom requires attention to detail, and Vareth’s nobles need... convincing that their new king is here to stay.”
My heart clenched at the thought of what that might mean for my people, for the citizens of Vareth who had no part in my father’s sins or Valen’s revenge.
“Before I leave, you ought to know,” he added, “your sister and her companions reached Dothra safely.” His tone was casual, but his eyes watched me closely, gauging my reaction. “You are welcome.”
I froze, my breath catching in my throat. My sister was alive. Safe. Dothra was a city just outside Anorath. The relief that surged through me was so powerful it made me dizzy, and I had to press my palm against the cold iron bars to steady myself.
“Are you telling me this out of kindness?” I asked, suspicious of this unexpected mercy. “Or is it a threat?”
Valen’s laugh was soft and genuinely amused. “Always so distrusting, my queen. Consider it... information freely given.”
I studied his face, searching for deception. “Why would you tell me this? Why let them escape at all?”
“Perhaps I’m not the monster you believe me to be,” he said, though his tone suggested he didn’t particularly care what I thought of him. “Or perhaps I simply enjoy giving you hope. The hunt is always more satisfying when the prey believes it has a chance.”
A chill ran down my spine. “If you harm them—“
“You’ll what?” Valen interrupted, his voice still pleasant but edged with warning. “Remember your position, wife. You have nothing with which to bargain, nothing with which to threaten.”
He was right, and we both knew it. I was powerless, caged, at his mercy.
He turned to leave, but paused near the adjacent cell. Leaning in close to the bars, he smiled—a faint, cruel curve of his lips that made my blood run cold. “Still refusing to eat, I see,” he murmured to whoever was inside. “Such pride never served one as well as you.”
Then he straightened, glancing back at me over his shoulder. “It might be in your best interest to stay far away from that wall, Princess. Some things are best left undisturbed.”
My pulse pounded against my ribs. Was I not alone in this darkness? Did someone else languish in the cell next to mine, someone else who had drawn Valen’s particular attention? Someone else who was captured by my father?
With those final words, he departed, the heavy outer door closing behind him with a finality that seemed to steal the breath from my lungs. The darkness closed in again, but now it felt different, charged with the awareness of another presence nearby.
The silence stretched, filled only with that maddening drip of water and the skitter of unseen rats. I wet my lips, gathering my courage before making my way to the wall separating our cells.
“Is someone there?” I called softly, pressing myself against the stone.
No response came, not even the whisper of movement. Was Valen merely playing a cruel game, trying to make me believe I had an ally, a friend in this isolation, only to reveal another deception?
A sound came then. Not a voice, but a slow, deliberate scraping. Metal against stone, rhythmic and purposeful. Then silence again.
I held my breath, waiting, every sense alert.
“A little fawn,” came a voice finally, so low I almost didn’t catch it. A man’s voice, rough with disuse but cultured beneath the roughness. “Lost in the forest, are we?”
The mocking endearment sent goosebumps across my skin. He unsettled me, my body immediately recognizing the predator in close proximity. Yet, I couldn’t see him, couldn’t gauge if he was friend or foe, if he was mortal or some other captive god wearing mortal flesh.
“Who are you?” I asked, pressing closer to the corner of the wall where stone met iron, straining to catch a glimpse of my neighbor.
A soft, humorless chuckle drifted through the darkness. “No one of consequence. Just another trophy in the collection. Another prisoner of your father’s ambition.”
My heart sank. Another accusation against my father, another layer to the mystery of King Aeldrin’s apparent sins.
“You knew my father?” I asked, desperate for any scrap of information that might make sense of this nightmare.
The scraping sound came again, followed by a clink of metal—chains, I realized, moving against stone.
“Oh yes,” the voice replied, a smile evident in its cadence despite its roughness. “I knew your father quite intimately. As he knew me.” A pause, heavy with something I couldn’t name. “And now I shall know his daughter, it seems. How delightfully symmetrical.”
My spine tensed at his words. Whoever—whatever—waited in the darkness beyond my cell, I sensed that my encounter with him would be no less dangerous than my confrontation with Valen.
Perhaps even more so.
I drew back from the bars, retreating to the far corner of my cell where the shadows were thickest. There, huddled against the cold stone, I wrapped my arms around my knees and tried to make sense of a world suddenly populated by gods and prisoners who spoke in riddles.
I pressed my palms against my eyes until lights danced behind my eyelids—the only stars I was likely to see for a very long time.
Tomorrow, I decided, I would try to eat and drink, keeping up my strength for what lay ahead. Tomorrow, I would begin planning my escape, my revenge, my survival.
But tonight, alone in the dark with the ghost of Valen’s smile still haunting me, I allowed myself one moment of pure, primal fear.
One moment to acknowledge the enormity of what I faced…
imprisoned by a god, bound to him by blood magic I didn’t understand, separated from everyone I had ever loved or trusted.
I pressed my fist against my mouth to stifle a sob. I would not cry. I would not break. I was Mireille of Vareth, bastard daughter of a king, wife to a monster. And somehow, I would find a way to turn this nightmare to my advantage.
Even if it took an eternity.