Chapter 4
ARLET
When the boat makes contact with the port near Shvathemar, my insides coil themselves so tight I feel both nauseous and lightheaded. Smoothing the fabric over my arms and belly, I wait for guards to come.
I know this means I will soon be face-to-face with Arion again.
Knowing that I was nothing more than a pack creature, bringing his magic across dangerous lands so that he might make a play for ultimate power, doesn’t give me high hopes that I will have any sort of sentimental sway over him.
He might as well be a weapon poised at my throat.
Attraction means nothing when it comes to him. He holds no tender feelings for me.
All that will be left in our relationship is for me to give him a half-human heir, like another type of pack mule. Just the thought makes me want to vomit. I ball my fists and return to my planning.
Once in the palace, surely there will be a maid assigned to me. I’ll feign sickness and pretend my courses have come. I’ll ask her to find a personal doctor under the guise of wanting to be especially fertile, and offer her something of great value.
That will have to work.
The acid pooling in my stomach doesn’t seem to agree with me. And my mind? It continues to spiral. What if I am caught? Even if I desire a child, am I capable of bringing one into this world in a situation where I will have no power to protect them from their father?
The thought of sleeping with a man I hate, when there is someone—the one I…truly care for—out there, makes me sick to my stomach.
I catch myself. Loved. I loved the Enduar, but those feelings have faded, much like my happiness.
I turn away from thoughts of him, instead landing on the thought of passing through gestation with a partner I hate, without the comfort and support of my friends, gives me full-body chills. My shoulders tighten, rising up to my ears.
What if my plan works, but I give him a daughter? Would I be able to get pregnant again? Or would he declare me a failure and kill us both?
I think of my interaction with Mrath when we went to the Sisterhood’s Enclave to ask for help.
She was hardened by her time growing up in the elf court.
She was the way she was because of tragedy, and her ability to lead now only speaks to her strength and resilience.
Her leadership is a testament to the work she put in to become someone rather than be eaten alive.
Yes, she is wise and fiercely protective of her sisters. Of all elven women, truly.
And yet…she is also cruel and consumed by revenge.
A part of me worries that I am too passive, that I am allowing myself to be broken.
But perhaps that isn’t so bad? When I boarded this boat, my only thought was of others. After the betrayal on the island, it was all I had left.
I knew that my agreement to marry the king, to abandon the life I thought I wanted for myself, would give me nothing, but the number of people it would protect would mean doing more with my life than I ever had the capacity for. I was working for good.
I am a good person, and that is something no one can take away from me.
At least, telling myself so is what helps me wait for the guards to knock on my door.
As soon as they arrive, I still jump. I am not a fearless, unfeeling being. I am still bound by the limitations of my character and soul. Perhaps unfortunately, perhaps not.
I take a deep breath, rising from the bed that has been my refuge for so long, and walk to the door. My ankle is still sore due to the unhealed wound, but I am well enough to avoid limping.
On the other side of the frame, I see two elven soldiers.
They wear a similar armor to what I have seen from the others: chain mail over long sleeveless tunics embroidered with silver threads in King Arion’s insignia.
Curved and polished pale wooden bows are strung at their backs, with an array of throwing knives tucked into their belts.
They avert their gazes, and I take a deep breath.
“Good morning,” I say softly, knowing from the small port window on the side of the boat that the day is still young.
“The leaves rustle softly in the forest, milady,” one of them responds.
I’m used to this phrase—it’s the same one they’ve used each time I say “good morning.”
I hum a simple response, and a gust of wind blows into the room. I breathe deeply.
The smell of the ocean has changed again.
I can detect smoke from somewhere nearby, and there’s an earthiness I missed when we were sailing over the deep.
As I step out of my room, the men follow behind me, grabbing the trunk filled with the gowns and jewels I was gifted shortly after coming aboard.
We move through the narrow hallway and up the even narrower set of stairs that will take us to the deck.
Once the hatch is opened, my hand flies up to cover my eyes from the burning light.
After at least a week without direct sunlight, the unobstructed rays make my eyes burn and water.
Late springtime has effectively banished the snow that still littered parts of the land.
Snow was always a welcome sight, as it reminded me of the Enduar Mountains. But the sun banishes that now too, leaving behind a hollow ache that grips me fiercely.
Thorne comes into view wearing a deeper shade of green, one playing just along the line of grayish-black. His short white hair is combed back neatly, though it still bears quite a bit more volume than the long, perpetually perfect, and straight styles of the other elves.
His green eyes shine in the intense sunlight, glittering with a cold, calculating intelligence. There’s a tension bracketing his mouth that causes the corners of his lips to dip down ever so slightly.
I flinch away from him. I can remember what it was like when he grabbed me—when he shoved me onto a table and cut my leg open to release the magic he had infected me with.
I had always known him as distant but respectful when he worked as an emissary between the Sisterhood and the Enduares.
Perhaps a little sly, but not malicious.
I had been wrong.
“Take her over there and wait for us to dock,” he says solemnly, showing he feels no need to address me with any sort of fake pleasantries.
I don’t bother trying to catch his eye as I pass. Once, I could’ve prided myself on my ability to understand many different types of people. I viewed empathy as a strength, perhaps one of the greatest I could nurture.
Knowing that Thorne saw everything we had done and accomplished under the mountain and still felt justified to ruin all of that, to put so many people at risk—for what? For power? I couldn’t understand that.
Selling your soul for power will never be worth it to me. I will never concede that it might be “understandable.” It is a weak thing that weak men do to give themselves an imaginary foot up against all those he was meant to help.
When I was a slave in Zlosa, some of my fellow humans were content with being given a higher status. They turned a blind eye to the disgusting conditions in the slave pens because they had fine clothes and a meal every night.
I suppose that all races could be like that. They found contentment in knowing that someone else had it worse. But a wise person understands that slightly comfortable hell is still hell, and my eyes seek heaven.
I wasn’t completely sure what happened in the life to come, but I hoped Thorne would rot for eternity.
Something inside me stirs, and I freeze.
It’s the familiar and unfamiliar darkness that hasn’t touched me since I stopped running from the Elf King, the cursed presence that caused me to awaken, to cut, and slash, and demand blood.
A tremor ripples up my spine and my hands begin to sweat.
Will it demand blood? Am I to kill again?
I fucking thought that it would leave me alone now that I am doing what it wanted.
Despite bracing myself for a bloodthirsty demand, I hear, What good is the life to come if injustices are not healed in this one?
The unexpected challenging words slice through me, causing me to shiver more in the salty breeze, which blows harder as one of the men throws a rope over the side of the mid-sized boat to draw us close to the dock.
The bob and lurch of the ship is familiar to my legs, but I still reach out to steady myself.
The wound at my ankle throbs, as it still refuses to fully heal, but the pain is not so acute that I limp.
It’s not Arion’s voice I hear in my head.
Cursed One? I think. Immediately, it feels wrong. I’ve never spoken to the presence before. I have only ever feared it.
They remain silent.
The words float through my head, working a few notes through my soul that seem to strike a chord in my chest.
It was a good thought.
Why should I wait for another life for cruel people to be brought to justice?
For the first time, I glance back at Thorne, knowing one thing in the depths of my soul.
I will do what I can to make him pay for all of this.
The twisted bits of my heart, the ones that have already been put through the gruesome task of killing, shredding, and ripping apart, remind me that it isn’t easy to hurt another, but it isn’t impossible.
Thorne’s green eyes find mine, and I can’t quite read what I see there. It almost looks like…recognition.
Good.
Let him know the darkness in me. Let him see what he put inside of me, and perhaps he might fear me in the back of his mind.
But then the clatter of the wooden planks draws me away, and I am brought back to the reality that it’s time to leave this damned boat.
My stomach clenches up again, and the momentary strength that came from my dark thoughts starts to ebb away, replaced by the chilled, sun-bleached reality that my next destination will be the Elf King’s palace.
Then, I will be a bride.
And then…expected to produce a child.
My stomach lurches.