Chapter 26
Maeve was in a deep sleep. Mal could feel it all the way in the dungeon beneath Castle Morana.
She hadn’t slept so contentedly without his Magic sedating her since she’d arrived there. Each night spent tossing and turning, her dreams becoming more vivid as she cried out restlessly.
Now she lay in his bed, high in the north tower, surrounded by soft silks with a resting heart-rate. The dreamless and deep sleep she deserved at last.
He’d left her two gifts for when she woke. The first was his Dread Ring, which he slipped on her finger before he left her. Back where it belonged. And the second was the Dread Locket, which lay beside his bed in a crystal, velvet-lined box. She’d worn it briefly before his coronation, but he longed to see it drape across her chest once more.
As Orator Moon shook before him deep under Castle Morana, Mal envisioned her wearing them both and taking the Orator’s life.
Moon’s wrists were chained above his head. Mal had removed each of his fingers with the Dread Dagger. Blood drained down the Orator’s arms from the bloody stumps at his knuckles.
Roswyn delivered a punch to the Orator’s face after tightening his chains. Mal’s eyes moved to the inscription on the dagger. He read the ancient language with ease, the foreign tongue rolling off his. He looked up at Moon and asked, “Do you know what that means?”
Moon’s head hung, his distant gaze on the stone floor.
“Forever wounded,” said Mal. “No Magic can heal you, even if someone was coming to your aid.”
Blood dripped from the dagger in Mal’s hand, where he leaned against the dungeon wall.
“Which, it doesn’t appear that they are,” finished Mal.
“Why did you wait so long, Malachite?” Asked Moon, his voice weak.
Mal answered without hesitation. “Because I wanted to share the taste of revenge with my Dread Viper. It has taken me months to resurrect the fearless and feared Witch you squashed with your recklessness.”
“There is no one to blame but yourself for the death of her father,” said Moon, blood spilling from his broken nose and busted lip. “Or do I not recall that you handed him that Goblet.”
Mal’s lip curled, but he refused to take the bait. “I don’t have many questions, but you will answer them.”
“I won’t,” Moon spat. “You can bring her in here to look into my mind, but I won’t voluntarily speak.”
Mal smiled. “I never said it would be voluntary.” He pushed off the wall and stepped towards Moon, bending over until their eyes were level.
Moon’s body relaxed. His face flushed as Mal’s Pathokenesis abilities took hold.
“Did you think she was my only means of discerning the truth?”
“Truly,” said Moon earnestly, no longer in control of his own discernment.
“Did you know it was poisoned?”
“We didn’t know for certain,” replied Moon.
“We?”
“The Committee of the Sacred. The Double O.”
“They ensured the Dread Goblet made it into my hands?”
Moon nodded desperately. “It was my plan. They ensured the St. Beveraux girl made it to your side.”
“Did Ophelia know?”
Moon sighed and smiled up at Mal, as though he was so pleased to be hanging himself. “I haven’t the faintest idea. It didn’t matter to me.”
“Dirty fucking politician,” sneered Roswyn from the corner.
Moon beamed at Roswyn. “She was just a means to an end.”
Mal placed the tip of the Dread Dagger under his chin and forced the traitorous man to look up at him. Moon shook as the steel blade made contact with his skin.
“Why Vetus? Why do all that when you could have gifted it to me yourself?”
Moon swallowed. “You did not trust the Orator’s Office. Neither did Ambrose. Not anymore.”
“How could you have known I’d give it to Ambrose?” Asked Mal.
“I didn’t,” said Moon. “You alone were meant to die. No others needed be harmed.”
Mal clicked his tongue. “Do you take me for an idiot? No one at my coronation mattered to you. Do not feign as though that was a concern. You allowed a deadly weapon that anyone could have drunk from to be presented to me.”
The constrictions around Moon’s neck tightened as Mal recalled the many occasions he and Maeve shared a glass of sparkling water. “Maeve could have drunk from it.”
Moon’s eyes grew large, his neck turning a brighter shade of crimson as his jaw fell slack under asphyxiation.
Mal continued. “Can you imagine the pain I would inflict upon you had you caused such a thing? If you had taken the one I love?”
The word slipped from him before he’d even registered it as such.
Moon thrashed against the chain as his eyes slid closed.
“You have destroyed her entire world,” said Mal. “And now I am going to destroy yours.”
Moon’s heaving and gasping breath filled the dungeon as Mal stepped away. He coughed and choked until he could finally speak freely.
Mal’s Pathokenesis abilities lifted.
“My children,” he pleaded, “I will do anything to ensure they are not harmed.”
“Such a vague word, ‘harmed’,” said Mal. He turned back towards Moon. “Open to such interpretation. Besides, your ‘children,’ as you call them, are soldiers in the Bellator Sector. Perfectly capable of discerning who they are willing to die for at such an age.”
With the wave of his hand, darkness encased Moon’s suspended body, slashing his skin slowly with Dread Magic. Mal turned on his heel, Roswyn close behind. The orb of Magic remained around Moon.
Mal did not look back at the disgraced Orator as he delivered his final words. “We may have been born into your world, but you will die in ours.”
She stirred as his fingers brushed her cheek. Her brows pulled together and a small groan resonated from her throat.
Mal pressed taunting Magic into his fingertips, trailing them down her neck and across her chest. Her pale skin prickled to life beneath his touch.
Her eyes fluttered open.
“Hi,” she said groggily, her eyes finding the windows along his chamber wall. “What time is it?”
The round tower sat high in the castle. Dark walls circled the small space.
Mal leaned over and hovered above her. “Late. Early. It doesn’t matter.” He pressed his lips to the soft spot of skin between her neck and shoulder. “I want you all the same.”
Maeve craned her neck to give him better access, a smile blossoming over her lips. He pulled back, taking in her content expression.
“You said I needed rest,” she muttered.
He lowered himself onto her and slipped his hands down her stomach, gripping her hips. “I’m the Prince. I changed my mind.”
Maeve chuckled. “I suppose I can’t deny the Prince his pleasures.”
“You most certainly cannot,” he agreed.
His lips pressed against her soft and sweet mouth, rolling over until she was on top of him.