Chapter 9 EIGHT
Alaric
There’s a pounding on Melantha’s door just as her bony fingers tangle in my hair, and she releases me with a grunt of annoyance. I get to my feet, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, grateful for the interruption.
It has been three months since the disastrous cancelled match with Prince Kael, and the frustration of getting the princess wed and off her hands is making her majesty especially tetchy.
Melantha stands, letting her skirts fall to cover herself. “What is it?”
The door opens and a nervous looking footman clears his throat, tugging at the hem of his uniform. “Excuse me, Your Majesty. I am sorry to disturb you.”
Melantha lets out a long-suffering sigh, and I pity the poor boy. He’ll probably be demoted to stable work after this. “Get on with it.”
“Uh, yes. Only Prince Eryk has announced he is to leave in the morning.”
“Another one?”
He clears his throat. “Um yes, Your Majesty.”
“What is that girl up to?”
The footman’s nervous brown eyes dart to me as if to ask if he should answer. I give him a curt shake of my head.
“Fetch my maid. I shall see if I can talk him out of it.”
He shifts uncomfortably. “Ah, the prince has retired for the night, Your Majesty.”
“Oh very well. Tell her to wake me early in the morning. That will be all.”
The poor boy wrings his hands together. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but there is another matter.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake. What?”
“The king’s condition has worsened. The physician thinks he may not last until morning.”
Melantha pauses, her cold features icing over completely for a moment. “I see. In that case do fetch my maid. I will go to him.”
The footman scurries off and Melantha turns back to me. I expect her to command me to get back on my knees, but instead she gives me a speculative look. “That little brat thinks she can ruin my plans for her, but she has miscalculated. She has yet to realize she is now disposable.”
Wisely I say nothing.
“I have no doubt she is whining at her father’s bedside. I want you to fetch her and bring her out into the Gloamwald.”
“Now?” I cannot keep the disbelief from my tone. “What for?”
Melantha scowls at me. “You heard me. Immediately. Make sure that she does not return.”
I blink. I have always known Melantha was ruthless, but I never imagined she would stoop to the cold-blooded murder of her stepdaughter.
“Well? What are you waiting for?”
“You have no heart, do you?”
She laughs. “I have yours. Come to think of it, perhaps I should add to my collection. Do the deed. Bring me the heart by morning. Let us see if virgin’s blood works the same miracles as beast blood.”
The ice in her expression creeps into my lifeless bones, and I shudder. Cut out the heart of the princess? If I still had a soul I would refuse. I shake my head. “If the gods were real, they would damn you to hell for this.”
She only laughs again.
With a sigh, I rise and depart the room. Compulsion already fills me at her orders. There’s no way to fight it.
I gather the supplies I’ll need for the princess and stow them in Tharrok’s saddle bags. We’ll travel light. Be gone before morning, before anyone else must learn of this unspeakable deed.
I’ll need the princess bound and silenced if I’m to get her out of the castle without raising a fuss. She’ll fight me every step of the way. Ordinarily I would scorn her stubborn nature, but in this case, I can hardly blame her for that.
If only there was a chance she could win.
Not that I intend to tell her the queen’s plans. That would only add to the cruelty.
When I find the princess in the king’s chamber, I spare a glance for the dying old man.
He lies in the enormous bed, a tiny, withered skeleton under sheets of white.
His shrunken frame looks ghastly against the sumptuous bedding.
His chest rises and falls with a rattling breath, and his brows are knit tight over his closed eyes.
“Princess, a moment, please?”
Guinevere doesn’t even turn to look at me. “Leave me alone.”
It wrenches at the hole in my chest where my heart once beat to hear the bitter sadness in her tone.
Of all moments to do what must be done, now is the worst. Yet it aids no one to linger at the bedside of a corpse.
The king was gone hours ago. All that remains is the shell of his body, stubbornly clinging to lifelong habits.
His chest lifts and falls again, but there’s no soul within. “Her Majesty insists.”
Now she turns and fixes me with a fiery glare. “Her Majesty can go to hell. Where is she now when my father is dying?”
“Do you want her here?” I snap.
The princess blinks. “No.”
“Then I suggest you come with me.”
With a sigh she stands, leaning over the bed to place a soft kiss on the old man’s forehead. I step back, giving her space. She may as well say her goodbyes.
As soon as she follows me into the passage, I wrap my arm around her and cover her mouth. “What are you—?”
I cut off her cries with a blow to her midsection and tie her quickly while she is still gasping for breath.
Then I gag her and toss her over my shoulder.
She’ll have to make the first part of the journey hog-tied over my horse.
And she’ll need to remain gagged until I can convince her not to scream, or she’ll draw every monster in the Gloamwald straight down on us.
She struggles as much as she can with her arms and legs tied.
The look in her eyes is positively venomous.
I shove a hood down over her head and hurry to the place behind the stables where I’ve left my horse waiting.
He trots over at my soft whistle, black ears flicking as he sniffs the bundle I’m carrying.
I haul Guin over his back, put my foot into the stirrup, and sling my leg over.
With a nudge of my knees, we’re away. Tharrok is clearly off put by the unexpected weight of the princess across the front of the saddle.
Guin thrashes, and I have to hold her down to stop her sliding off and breaking her neck, an effort that seems somewhat wasted seeing as I plan to slit her throat myself later.
I can’t do that here, though.
At the gates to the inner keep, the watchman gives me a funny look, but the guards are used to my strange comings and goings with gruesome cargo. They let me through without a word.
Thornvale is subdued as we cross the bridge.
An old dog barks as we pass a narrow lane.
A dark creature scurries away into a bush.
The people are all inside their cottages, thick wooden shutters drawn against the cold and the monsters without.
Not that a monster has made it over the outer wall in years.
There are still stories, though. The elderly ones are old enough to remember.
The guards on the outer wall, though, seem to want a chat. One leans over the parapet to get a closer look. “What have you got there, then?”
No formality. Not even basic manners. I deliberately did not wear my livery, and now I regret it. “Just let me pass,” I snap.
He sniffs and calls across to his partner. “What do you reckon he’s got there?”
“Looks like a girl, ain’t it?”
Frustrated, I tense in the saddle, and Tharrok snorts and paws the ground. “This shrew needs to learn a good lesson about keeping her mouth shut. The hard way.”
The first man scoffs. “Good riddance to her, then. My missus could use the selfsame lesson.”
They wind the crank, and the gate slowly opens. Guin thrashes and tries to speak around the gag, but the men only laugh. “Should have thought of that before you gave your husband a tongue lashing.”
Their raucous laughter follows us into the dim clearing, beyond the light of the torches. Here the road narrows as if the path itself shrinks away from the thickening wood. Spindly branches reach for us from blighted trees, closer and closer, until they spread above and the wood closes us in.
As if sensing the change in mood, the princess quietens, going slack against the sides of my horse and ceasing her protests.
“All the better for you if you keep quiet, princess. There are things out here that even I have never met. I cannot make any promises about your safety if you make too much noise.”
Of course, I can’t make any promises about her safety at all. But she doesn’t need to know that yet. Melantha wants this done in the woods, away from prying eyes, and so that’s what must be done.
I expect her to try to speak. I’m not sure how to interpret the fact that she doesn’t. Perhaps she has realized how much danger she’s truly in. Guinevere is stubborn, but slow she is not.
We ride in hostile silence for some time.
I do not light a torch. Instead I conjure a magical flame, an ethereal blue light that floats in the air beside us, lighting Tharrok’s way along the path enough to let us find our way without drawing out the creatures of the forest angry to have their accustomed darkness disturbed.
By now we’re well into the woods. There’s not another soul around. No one to hear her scream. I could do the deed now and be done with it, but I ride on, battling with myself.
As cursed a creature as I am, I’ve never slaughtered an innocent.
It feels like an irrational distinction to make after the despicable things the queen has made me do over the years or the things I did when I was master of my own fate.
Yet for all Guin’s flaws, she is young still.
There might have been time for her to learn, to change. Her whole life is before her—or it was.
She might have made a good queen in time.
Even now she would be a better one than the woman who currently holds ultimate power in Blackthorn Keep.
But the choice isn’t mine to make. Disgusted with myself and suspicious of the princess’s extended silence, I stop my horse and dismount.
Pulling her free, I put her on her feet and remove the hood.
Her eyes widen as she takes in our location. I see fear flash in her blue eyes before she conceals it, correcting her expression into a glare.
There is the stubborn princess I am all too familiar with.
“I am going to let you ride now, if you do what you are told. I am sure it will be a more comfortable trip for you if you cooperate. Defy me and you will end up slung over my horse again.”
I watch her until she makes the slightest nod. Then I reach out and remove the gag. Then, cautiously, I untie the rope binding her legs to let her sit astride in front of me in the saddle.
There’s a brief moment when she’s quiet and still, the perfect picture of a humbled, obedient princess.
Then she turns and sprints into the trees, arms still bound behind her back.