72
Mornon
At the same time as the elf nearly knocked down her sitting room door, I swung open the grand bronze doors of the throne room in Leukós’ royal palace with my mind.
As she headed to her bedroom, I advanced along the wide central nave, my dark silhouette sharply contrasting with the gray-veined white marble floor, the large fluted white columns, and the tall white sandstone walls.
A huddle of burly middle-aged men, draped in light fabrics, with cloaks placed over one shoulder and trailing to their sides, was gathered at the foot of the raised throne.
Like all the advisors I had managed over the centuries while ruling the Kingdom of Men, constantly shifting my appearance, they did nothing but yell at each other—especially in my absence, from what I saw.
Humans were such idiots, so insignificant, that I had long since decided to use them as simple food for my demons. I would keep only a few alive so they could breed, and my little ones would always have a succulent meal on hand.
“Oh! Your Majesty!” the stocky of the group exclaimed when, having told his peers to go suck an egg and having departed from the heated argument, he noticed my presence. “The king! The king is here!”
The others suddenly turned toward me, shutting up in shock.
“Your Majesty, thank the gods, you are unharmed!” continued the man, his hair and beard white like the entire city.
“I want you to know, Sire, that I was intent on sending what’s left of our army to save you from those murderous elves as soon as we learned they were holding you prisoner,” he stammered in haste, getting on my nerves somewhat.
“But the rest of the council strongly opposed it!”
“I’ve had enough of this farce,” I said to myself as I moved through the other humans, who promptly stepped aside with deep bows to clear my path to the throne.
“Farce, Sire?” the man countered as an equally confused mutter rose from his cronies. “What do you mean?”
This.
Climbing the first step of the throne, I twirled my wrist with an elegant movement of my black fingers.
With a growing rumble and a slight earthquake, the hall’s appearance started transforming.
Black onyx tiles replaced the original floor slabs.
Sandstone was swapped out for obsidian. The columns became smooth black marble.
The flat ceiling curved into several vaults.
The white marble throne turned opaque onyx, with shiny veins, assuming a more sinister, menacing form.
Stretching one corner of my lips, I sat on the cold seat and enjoyed the final adjustments of the fusion with the throne room of my fortress in the burned lands to the north.
Terrified beyond measure, huddled together to keep their balance, the men stared at me as if I were the embodiment of death, coming to claim their lives.
The only one who had had the guts to speak to me looked around and gasped. “What witchcraft is this?”
Mine.
Then I summoned them with my mind.
They emerged from the shadows of the columns stretching into the side aisles. The sticky membrane, bleeding a pitch-dark substance, that coated their lead-gray skin caught the light of the braziers’ flames as they dragged their long, sturdy, humanoid forms into the central nave.
The humans tried to merge with one another when they got surrounded, yelping like frightened cubs; some pissed themselves, and the hungry gurgles of the monsters, awaiting my command, grew louder.
“Your Majesty!” the stocky man screamed, waving his arms in an unsuccessful attempt to break free from the tight group. “Please wait! Wait!”
I gave a hint of a smirk. “Eat,” I ordered in the witches’ ancient language.
My creatures pounced on the men, dismembering them with the large, curved claws at the ends of the single, deformed, big finger of their enormous hands, shearing fresh flesh and pulpy organs with their saber teeth, spraying blood, guts, and fetid blackish drool all the way to the steps of the throne.
I enjoyed the noise of their chewing and the sound of their digging through bones and ligaments for a few moments. Then I leaned my head against the backrest, took a deep breath, and re-established my connection with the elf’s mind.
I found her standing before the cabinet with an oval mirror, paralyzed by the sight of her new reflection.
Almost in slow motion, she lifted her hand to touch beneath her eye. She froze, holding her breath.
The skin around her blue eyes had turned purple, so dark near her eyelashes that it looked almost black. A web of broken capillaries snaked from her lower eyelids to her cheeks and temples.
I had watched her take on that appearance little by little, day by day, glance by glance, touch by touch.
And finally, now that I had undone the cloaking spell I had cast on her when she first grasped my hand and hoisted me up that tree to save me, she, too, could admire her new form.
She could admire the darkness within her.
The darkness I gave her.
Spasmodic sobs began to attack her. One by one, tears streamed down her already damp cheeks. Her face crumpled into a mask of fury until a cry of despair burst from her chest, sounding like the most devastating sound I had ever heard.
I smiled with cruel satisfaction.
I watched her fall, and fall, and fall. Just as I wanted. I enjoyed watching her drag her nails over her eyes, almost as if she wanted to pull them from their sockets, then over her chest and arms, as if trying to scrape away the darkness she felt flowing through her tissues.
She couldn’t stop staring at herself in the mirror.
But while she saw only monstrosity, I saw incomparable beauty.
I saw my mark.
The Spirits thought they had somehow caged me by tying me to the elf, but I would be the one to screw them. Because Nauriel had become my puppet, and I would control her strings without mercy, just as I had done up to that moment, until she gave me that damned Crystal.
And she would, eventually.
For she couldn’t resist me.
Suddenly, her furious screams devolved into a searing weeping. A weeping that would have been melodious to my ears, if only she hadn’t started calling out that stupid name I’d given her, and remembering the moments we’d spent together and my fake smile.
I clenched my fists on the throne’s armrests.
With my jaw working ever more, I watched her grip the sheets soaked with our scent. Bury her face into the pillow I had slept on.
And call, call, call me.
Call the one who had only been a lie.
An impulse I didn’t like at all suddenly tingled throughout my body. I tensed up to the point of spasm to ignore it with every fiber of my being and ordered myself to interrupt the connection with the elf’s mind.
I couldn’t do it, damn it. The only thing I could think about was that I wanted to go to her.
Her, her, her.
I took an annoyed breath, my lips twisting in a grimace. Then I closed my eyes.