Bitter King Vicious Wings

Chapter 1

one

My life would soon come crumbling down; the signs were written in stone.

As I bolted through wall’s great shadows, my fingers traced the cracks of mortar.

Spring rains had weakened the foundation enough that it disintegrated at the slightest touch, like a desiccated corpse.

I forced my eyes from the bricks to the distant stairs toward the castle and hastened until my soles bled.

The guards were hot on my heels, heavy sacks of coin weighed me down, and even a slight stumble would have my blood painting the Underquarter's cobblestones.

Run faster. Escape. Get to the stairs.

Yet my gaze kept returning to the flickering sapphire threads weaving through the brickwork. Each look stoked my heart more than the knights ever could. Death surrounded me on all sides, worsened by the dense crowd shouldering me further into the stone.

The monolithic barrier stood taller than a dragon, looming over the kingdom but it was the twisted magic climbing across it like ivy that kept us safe. Except instead of flourishing, they were dying. Disappearing.

Without these threads of impetus, the monsters of Eltide would climb the wall and slaughter us all. Only a bit of magic stood between us and annihilation. But the coronation neared and my brother’s sacrifice would save the kingdom.

And save me from taking the throne.

However, if I didn’t get out of the Underquarter, I’d be beaten bloody, and there’d be no throne to run from.

The heat of the day embraced me and my slick fingers nearly dropped the sacks of coin—the blood money Tennith had to swindle in a round of cards. Of course, after I'd helped my 'friend' escape certain death, I stole the evidence of his crimes—which I sought to dispose of rapidly.

That was proving a problem. Throw it into the gutter, and the peasants would swarm, trapping me with the guards. All I could do was lose myself in the thick crowd and contend with his mistakes.

Ovatar knows how many times I’d told him not to keep cards up his sleeves, not to cheat people who carried knives. That one day, he’d cheat the wrong person.

That dreadful day was today.

Rotting, flayed corpses hung just ahead. I'd arrived at the section of the Underquarter where they'd chained prisoners to the wall. I couldn't continue to keep to the shadows, not unless I wanted to brush shoulders with bodies.

Raucous screaming rose in the crowd as I left the safety of the wall and tried to lose myself in the horde, but the crack of metal footsteps quickening came along with sword-shaped shadows.

The peasants scattered like rats, weaving through the filthy street, even flooding into the refuse pits.

The fetid odor of piss assaulted my nostrils.

As I jumped across a sewage drain, a blade grazed my hair, slicing off a dark lock.

“Lorelana! By the king’s authority, I order you to stop!” The throng ate his scream, but didn’t mute the next.

“Hrothgir will have your head!”

Shit, shit, shit.

They're really going to kill me.

It wasn’t my fault I put the knife through the Knight’s hand! They’d already snapped his forearm. I couldn’t let him die.

Please Ovatar, let me make it out of the Underquarter and to the coronation.

The crowd rolled around me, packing against the towering shanties as it parted like a great sea. My boots clung to the ground, caked in sludge as I slid deeper into it. I’d never seen such chaos.

Its violence surged me into the chest of a cloaked man.

He wore a tattered hood—unassuming enough that the knights wouldn’t cave his head in, but from how ragged his robes were, likely hadn’t eaten in a week. Exactly the type of person who needed this.

I dumped the coin into his hands, trying to shove it beneath his robes. “Tell no one you have this. Go home, use it as you see fit. Eat. Be well,” But his pale fingers shot out and hooked tightly around my wrist.

I froze. Not because his touch hurt. But because I couldn’t feel his grasp, as if his fingers were a deathly breeze or a mist. My gaze snapped up, and I gasped.

He loomed above me, and my nape jumped to attention.

I should have been scared. I should have run, screamed—but I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.

His eyes were intense, a smoldering blue that seemed to swirl, but that wasn’t what drew me in. It was his inhuman, sculpted features. Hollow, carved cheeks set into his porcelain skin, and full, upturned lips that ran the color of blood.

No human should look like this—closer to the statue of Ovatar than whatever lurked in the tavern.

If Tennith was decent-looking, then this man was perfection.

Everything about him radiated power, confidence, and beauty.

Yet the only thing that terrified me was that I couldn’t feel his touch. As if he weren’t there at all.

Nothing but a ghost.

I ripped myself from his grasp and fell back a step as if I’d been burned. His lips moved, but no sound emanated from them.

Remember me, I thought he said.

His gaze trailed and never left me as I stumbled back. I hoped to become just another phantom in the crowd, but in the chaos, I’d forgotten to pull my hood. I quickly yanked it up. Too late.

I scanned for any opening as my shield of people disintegrated. But my father’s brutal guard stood no more than five strides away, surrounded by knights.

Hrothgir.

A small man with too many swords. His gilt breastplate stole what little sun leaked through the ashen clouds. My father’s little lapdog didn’t deserve such a radiant entrance.

“Hrothgir, I can explain,” I started.

“Explain? Explain why you put a blade through that Knight’s hand.”

I took a timid step, hoping to weave myself into the crowd, but he shot out his longsword, nearly cleaving my arm.

“They were going to kill him!”

“He’s been caught multiple times! He was marked for death, and he’d earned it!”

“Men cheat all the time; it runs in their blood!”

“Something you should know nothing about, Princess Lorelana. Defying the King, coming down here to the Underquarter filth once again,” he roared. “To drink, gamble, and whore yourself out.”

I retreated too late. The Knights were already behind me, and one shoved me ahead. They didn’t understand. My mother had her guards follow me for weeks, whispering about my ascension to the throne. I only had to avoid her for a few more hours before the coronation.

I didn’t want to hurt the bastard! All I wanted was to drown at the bottom of a pint of mead. If the queen had left me alone, none of this would have happened!

The knights wouldn’t have followed me to Tennith.

The guard wouldn’t have had a stiletto through his hand.

And I wouldn't be on the wrong end of Hrothgir's longsword.

Hrothgir ripped my hood down and shoved me toward the wall.

“Please!” I cried, struggling.

The crowd parted for him, pitting unease deep in my gut. “The time for begging is over. That ended before you crippled a Knight. How is he meant to hold a sword?” He cracked me against the back of my skull. “There will be suffering.”

“My father won’t like this,” I yelled, hoping to veil the lie. “The King will have you hanged!”

“The King sent me here to punish you. You’re neither heir nor spare. No one will come to save you, especially not the crown.” He spat onto the cobbles.

Neither heir nor spare echoed in my mind. That’s not what the queen thinks.

“You can’t kill me. The coronation is coming. I need to go, to see my brother and—”

He forced me to my knees by my hair, ripping out a chunk. The crowd’s cries drowned out my screams. We knew each other well from the Gelded Eye, but none of them dared to stand against Hrothgir.

“Your brother wouldn’t disobey the King like this.” He pointed toward the melancholic sky. “The coronation isn’t until full sun, in one hour. I have one hour to make you regret maiming a Knight.” Even hidden beneath the churning gray clouds, the sun’s residual halo wasn’t quite at high noon.

I need to get out of here. I need to get back to the castle.

The line of onlookers parted, and another Knight emerged, with Tennith restrained. “We found the card cheat!”

He cried out as they forced him to his knees but a stone’s throw away from me. His sweat-soaked dark ringlets clung to his sunburnt skin, matching his staggered breaths.

“Let him go!” I screamed. But they didn’t care. My protests would be fruitless. They didn’t need a reason to kill. They preferred one, but it wasn’t necessary.

Hrothgir’s grip tightened. “He’ll suffer too. Take his skin.”

“Let him go; I’ll do anything!” They couldn’t take his goddamn skin over this.

“Anything won’t be enough to fix his hand. Someone must suffer, and I can’t take your skin, can I?” Hrothgir shoved me again by the shoulders, his metal gauntlets digging in. “But nothing’s stopping me from marring your perfect skin, is it?”

I glanced over my shoulder as he pulled a cat-o’-nine-tails from his side. I’d seen him with it before; he loved to take it out and whip the castle pillars, but I’d never seen it used on a person. Normally, they beat me. Not something like this.

He tore through the flimsy fabric with his gauntlet and ripped my bust and cloak away.

I rushed to cover myself. Could I run? I could see the stairs from where I kneeled.

Just out of reach, a brutal tease. But Tennith’s skin was already ghostly from the boot on his throat. I couldn’t just leave him here to die.

Friends don’t leave friends to be boiled alive.

But something darted in the crowd, catching my eye.

The hooded man. He hung among the gathered Underquartersmen, keeping to the edge, but those sapphire eyes were unmistakable.

The ones I’d sealed my fate for. I held his gaze as the whip met my skin, and I cried, shutting my lids to bear it.

When I reopened them, he was gone. I scanned the droves of peasants but couldn’t find him in the crowd.