6
“Don’t try to hedge this,” the king began with irritation after Valine’s failure to answer. “I know you’re a mage. What I don’t know, is exactly what sort. And do not lie, I will discover it.”
Valine shifted and hid her fear and uncertainty under the pretense of leaning against a desk. “Do I have your word that you will not share this information?”
Malik raised a brow. “I am your king. You do not get to make demands of me, if I feel fit to hold a ball and announce your status, I will. But regardless, yes you have my word. You are my advantage. I’d not sully it by giving away our secrets.”
There was something about the way he said “our” that sent butterflies through her core, even when he was nearly threatening her.
Valine sighed and pressed two fingers to her forehead. “I’ve never told anyone living this.” She looked up at him, meeting his inscrutable gaze, her voice the barest of whispers. “I’m a necromancer.”
Malik gave no indication of shock if he felt any. He did not startle; his mouth did not drop. The only sign that he’d truly heard her was the arching of a brow—he seemed to do that a lot. A touch of lightheadedness struck her, and she wavered from the flash of anxiety.
“You’re powerful, then. Much more than I’d anticipated.” A feral smile spread across his handsome face. “Valine, you have made me quite the happy man today.”
Her lip curled. “Pleased to have had the privilege, Your Majesty.”
“Do you have to touch to kill?”
She was silent for a beat. “No.”
“Interesting. And how many times can you bring a soul back from the threshold?”
This time, a sinister smile tampered with her features. “As many times as I want.”
Memories of Captain Ishaq fluttered through her, along with previous marks and kills. Her father was among those prior thoughts—she could still remember the way he’d begged. Men were awfully pathetic in those final moments, blubbery messes upon their faces and soiled linens in their pants. It was the women who’d surprised her. Women saw a resolve in her, and with that came their calm resignation.
“Show me.”
“And how do you wish to see this?”
“I have a few prisoners in need of questioning.”
“Of course, My King.”
Malik approached her, a careful sauntering step in his fancy black boots. He came close enough that he was all she could smell. Black orchid. Tobacco. Cinnamon. Cloves. Leather. He was in her senses, in her lungs. He reached above her, and there, balanced on a bust of a long-dead queen, was an ebony crown, heavily spiked with obsidian and black diamonds, the latter only found and hewn from the Laskava Mountains.
Placing the expensive piece upon his brow, he collected an onyx velvet cloak from a solidary armchair and tossed it onto his shoulders, attached by spider-shaped epaulets. Sweeping an arm elegantly to encourage Valine to join pace with him, several guards melted from the shadows and silently led the way.
It was no small thing to say, Valine startled. She had not noticed the guards surrounding them, but truthfully, she couldn’t be surprised. She was an assassin, and he was a king—a king who did not yet trust her. What did reassure her, though, was the fact that they were much too far away from the saffron chair to have heard her reveal her identity. Even so, he leaned into her.
“They did not hear our conversation.” His voice was barely a breath.
She nodded, and Valine kept these small anxieties to herself. She followed the procession of guards out and down. And down. They delved further into the depths of the opulent castle until the gloom permeated, and not even the valiant rays of sun bathed the depths of the lower levels. She was guided silently, the king striding powerfully beside her, and she knew that, despite her reservations, she also appeared powerful. These guards didn’t quite know what to make of her, but they knew she was no simple guest. It was also an aura she’d perfected: a low thrum of danger that pulsed against instincts, her sharp eyes, her cutting smiles, the too-clever looks, the hands that were best at ease with a blade in hand.
The flights of stairs turned from carpeted stone and glossy wood to damp cobble beneath their feet. A guard in front of them snapped their fingers, and sparks of gold erupted and formed into a molten ball—a luxmanxer. Light mages were low on the risk scale, but they did have a penchant and ability to blind. Valine recoiled at the thought.
One of the guards hurried ahead, coming to the bottom of the staircase and pushing open a set of vertical bars. The dungeon doors. Valine squared her shoulders and sauntered through with the king at her back and guards on her heels.
Malik leaned into one guard, hushed conversation following, bitter tones flowing between the two. It was strange—she couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Malik’s whole demeanor had her neck prickling with unease as he bit out each word. He was ensuring the guard knew he was in command, and it was only moments more before the guard hung his head in shame and acquiescence.
“Valine and I will be visiting the prisoner alone. Do not follow. Am I clear?” Malik announced, and she didn’t show the surprise that gripped her.
“Understood,” the three guards chorused.
With a roguish smirk, the king welcomed her forward with an upturned hand. She grinned a daemon’s signature and took it, walking through the gates and holding hands with a devil.
The further they traversed into the dungeons, the more permeating the cold and dark became. Valine still held the king’s fingertips but only did so because Malik had not parted them, and the guards were still within eyesight. The luxmancer had gingerly passed the light to the king, and now the fluctuating ball of light followed the king and assassin. It was a temporary magic, and the flickering and intermittent waning proved it.
Without further informing, Malik took a left-hand turn and then began the sounds of prisoners. Reedy breathing, thin words, whispers of prayers, and shouts of delusions. As they passed, dirty vagrants pressed themselves against vertical iron bars interspersed with embossed Robursium Medallions—amulets that made the wearer or bound impervious to physical harm. Valine wondered what they did for prisoners with magic—perhaps laced their food and drink with mage shade. A filthy, bearded man howled, spitting with yellow teeth. She couldn’t begin to debate the man’s age, but his clothing was once finery, the cerulean velvet crumbling and stained.
“You worthless fucks, you’ll be in here next, and we’ll see how fucking smug you are then!” The voice was gravel and spite. “I’ll piss in your stew and spit on your corpses.”
Malik paused and turned his head towards the prisoner. It was then the prisoner blanched and took in the man before him. Valine watched his eyes rove up and down, staring pointedly and fearfully at the treacherous crown, and Malik’s coolly burning eyes.
“Darling Valine,” Malik purred dangerously, and that sound embedded itself in Valine’s heart as he squeezed her fingers. “Would you care for a trial run with this cretin?”
Valine cocked her head, and the man caught sight of her, startling. “Oh, I’ll be much obliged, My King.”
“V—Valine?” the man stuttered, and confusion struck Valine.
“Do I know you?” she asked, stepping forward in front of the king. She pulled that hand from him and twisted her fingers. It was then, as the darkness crept from her fingertips, that the unkempt ginger hair and icy eyes registered. Recognition flooded her, and she smirked, her voice turning throaty. “Oh, Lord Bayliss, how the mighty fall.”
Lord Bayliss was a loud, gambling oaf, that Valine’s father had favored. He was rich, charming, and once handsome. It was a fa?ade. What crept beneath the surface was a slimy smile, a slick and untouchable attitude, and a sense of entitlement that rivaled a king’s throne. He was handsy with the barmaids and servants, and word warned that he preferred girls little older than his own adolescent daughters. Valine remembered those pale eyes because, too often, they had watched her with a hunger that struck fear into her soul.
“You do remember me!”
“That I do.”
“Please, dear girl, help me.”
Valine cocked her head, her fingers dancing by her brow, smoke she made material threading through them. “And why would I do that?”
“I was your father’s closest friend. I’ve known you since you were a babe. I sought justice when he was murdered.”
The listed reasons were not compelling.
She cackled. “That doesn’t put you in my good graces. My father was a disgusting disease of a man.”
Lord Bayliss blinked rapidly, disbelief lining his haggard features. “I don’t understand…you are his daughter.”
“Let me put this simply.” She approached the bars and let her monstrous side leap to the surface. “You, like my father, are a predatory beast that cannot be tamed nor trained. You both are rabid dogs that must be put down. You and he did not care a whit for anything but your own pursuits and gain.” She bared her teeth with a manic gleam. “Because you are so like him, I will show you everything I did before I severed his soul from his body.”
For a moment, Lord Bayliss did not comprehend, but when it did, true horror and terror poured from every tremor of his body. She saw the moment he caught sight of her magic when he realized it wasn’t natural shadows. It was the brightness in his eyes and the stiffening of his limbs. It was the rod in his spine and the piss that ran down his leg. It was the sour scent of body odor, adrenaline, sweat, and urine. It was the first notes of death.
Finally, Valine reached through the bars—just enough that, should she have wanted to, she could touch him. She did not want, though. Instead, she swirled her middle finger down, her littlest finger arced out to the side, twisting her wrist inward as her index finger directed her necromancy to Lord Bayliss’s throat. The black magic lunged out and coiled around the lord’s throat.
His tongue bulged as she sank the hooks of her necromancy into him, his fingers clawing at the non-corporeal magic, unable to pry the noose from his neck. As she pulled her pointer finger in, the smoke tightened. Lord Bayliss’s face turned purple, his eyes bloodshot. He began to choke, spittle leaking. It was quick when he collapsed to the soiled floor, and his life left him, but Valine still had her hooks in.
Valine felt Malik approach her, the heat from him burning her back, his tall frame towering over her shoulder, utterly enthralled. As she curled all her fingers inward, rotating her wrist with her palm down, she slowly released her fingers. The magic uncoiled from Lord Bayliss’s neck and poured down his throat. Immediately, he gasped.
Bayliss’s eyes widened, and he didn’t just see death before him, he saw a master over it.
Malik reached up and circled her waist with a hand, the heat thrilling her as it burned through the silk and leather. His fingers tightened; his thumb circled. “Do it again, you beautiful monster,” he whispered, the sound seductive.
She turned her head, and his face was right there, his eyes hungry, his luscious mouth parted. Valine looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, only breaths separating them.
“As you wish, My King.”