Chapter 57
Will did not know how long he had been walking when he reached the first fork in the passage, both leading deeper into this strange hell.
Thousands of eyes watched him patiently.
The dim light seeping through the tissue made his candle unnecessary, but he kept it as a small weapon against his observers.
“Do you know which way I need to go?” he asked, but the eyes merely blinked.
He sighed. He was losing his mind—or perhaps the world itself was losing its mind. At last, he raised the candle to his lips and blew it out.
“See? I will not hurt you.”
Slowly, the eyes along one passage closed, while the others stared intently in a single direction.
“Thank you.”
As he looked down the passage, his mind struggled to catch up, and he remembered Elodie’s words—the innocent morning of milk and honey when they had spoken of nightmares.
A castle made of flesh and a body without skin.
Black night pulsing with red veins. Eyes watching me everywhere, like stars across the heavens.
Thousands of eyes now stared at him from the dark passage, waiting for him to continue.
Elodie had worn her nightmares as a costume to the ball.
He remembered the dress too well, embroidered with hundreds of eyes.
He smiled, and the chains around his heart tightened with longing and pulled him onward.
Slowly, he followed his guides deeper into the sweltering labyrinth. The hotter it became, the stranger the walls grew. Then the eyes’ attention abruptly shifted toward something else.
He heard voices ahead.
Now the walls to either side were made from entire human bodies, stripped of skin and bone, unfolded and fused with the red mass as though they were figures in an anatomical illustration.
A tongue twitched inside an empty mouth, and lidless eyes stared at him—these were different from his silent companions.
He saw pain and madness in the person’s green eyes and shuddered. Even the heart was still beating.
Quietly, he drew the revolver and pulled back the hammer.
“And what sacrifice do you bring me, my child?” asked a voice older than this hell itself.
Will shuddered and quickly retreated into the shadows. He could see only part of a vast red cavern, its walls made of even more living corpses.
“My husband.” Elodie’s voice was firm and unmistakable.
Elodie was alive. Will’s knees weakened, and he had to brace himself against the revolting wall. It was soft and yielding like muscle, though it left no blood on his fingers.
He did not care. Elodie was alive.
The voice laughed. “He is the love of your life?”
“Your Majesty!” Wilkinson cried, his voice far too soft and oily even here. “She is my wife—I offer her to you. We are married, so the right to become the Red Hand is mine by law!”
“Silence,” hissed the voice, which had to belong to the king.
Will swallowed and clung to the warm wall. Elodie had defeated the Red Hand and reached the king. Pride swelled inside his chest, and he needed to see her.
The King continued, his voice hard now, so different from the way he had addressed Elodie.
“You did not kill my servant. You have accomplished nothing worthy of my attention. Bleeding an angel dry to circumvent the curse was a clever trick, but hardly enough when you used it only to enrich yourself.”
Will heard Wilkinson stammer.
“My child,” the King began.
The voice was old, older than the sea.
No, not older than the sea. Not older than the north wind or the salt of the earth. Old as humanity. As the first birth. The winter sea was older. It had devoured life long before humans began drowning in it. The worm inside Will twisted through his entrails.
Will swallowed, his gaze catching on the fingernails embedded in the wall next to him, attached to a boneless body. He pressed the back of his hand over his mouth.
Meanwhile, the King continued. “Would you lie to me? Your warrior’s heart beats for this man, who will not sacrifice a single drop of his own blood? Who drains others to achieve his ambitions? Are you lying to me?”
“Who could be a greater sacrifice than the man I will love until the end of my days? The man for whom I preserved myself and at whose feet I lay everything I possess?”
“Love is damnation. You damned yourself with this man, but not out of love.”
“I have no one else left to sacrifice. My entire family is dead. I gave up everything in my struggle to become the Red Hand.”
The King laughed. “What of the moon child? What of the beast?”
“I do not know what you mean.”
“Liar!” the King thundered, and suddenly something seized Will.
No—his body moved without his command. With stiff steps, he left his hiding place and entered the vast cavern. His fingers released the revolver, and it fell to the floor. Only his eyes remained under his control, searching frantically for an escape.
Albatross! But his lips remained sealed, unable to offer another word.
Then he saw Elodie standing in the center of the chamber. Her white wedding dress was saturated red up to the knees, while spatters of blood covered her arms and chest. No veil concealed her face. She had removed her headpiece and torn away the lace-covered sleeves.
A silent curse twisted her features when she saw Will, but there was no surprise in her expression. At the sight of her, the chains around his heart loosened, and for the first time, he could breathe, knowing she was unharmed.
Will’s body marched onward and dropped to the floor beside the kneeling Wilkinson. The man’s dark skin had gone ashen, and his pointed beard trembled with his quivering lip. But his gaze remained firm, as though he refused to submit to his fate.
Were Will not suffocating from claustrophobia within his own body, he might have laughed at the sight of Elodie binding her husband with the bloodstained remains of her veil.
Wilkinson tried to speak, but Will had already turned away. Whether it was meant to be a warning or merely another insult, he wanted to hear nothing more from the man. Even together in hell, Will would not forget what Wilkinson had done to Elodie.
Only now did he take in the chamber around them. Enormous ribs supported the ceiling as though they stood inside a vast chest. Diffuse light seeped through openings in the muscle and illuminated the delicate web of veins.
But what truly held his gaze was the figure embedded in the wall.
At first, Will thought it was only another living corpse, but the King was far larger. Four arms spread from him like wings, and ribs protruded from the fleshy wall. Unlike the others, he still possessed all his bones. Muscles covered his body and merged seamlessly with the flesh of the cavern.
“Why is our beast hiding?”
The king’s flayed head stretched forward, pulling taut the tendons and veins connecting him to the wall.
Eric entered through another passage not far from where Will had emerged.
He appeared unharmed as well, though his suit was filthy, as though he had fallen into the blood several times.
He had removed his senatorial robe and suit jacket, and his shirt clung to his chest. His brows were drawn darkly over his grave expression, but he bowed calmly before the King and clasped his hands behind his back.
Compared with the relief Will had felt at the sight of Elodie, Eric’s appearance came as a shock.
“Your Majesty,” Eric said calmly.
“What the hell?” Wilkinson cursed. “I knew there was something wrong with these men! Your Majesty, please listen to me!”
The King lowered an irritated gaze toward him.
“You expect me to believe, my daughter, that you chose this idiot over these two men? That your heart beats for him alone?”
“Yes.” Elodie did not hesitate for even a second.
Wilkinson melted.
From one moment to the next, his bones vanished, and his body sank into the floor. His widened eyes stared up at them as his scream died when his vocal cords disappeared beneath the sea of muscle. Slowly, his eyeballs drifted away to join the swarm of others.
“If you loved him so deeply, why did you not lie and claim to love one of the others, so that his life might be spared?”
It was strange to watch the King play games with Elodie, and Will could almost feel her fury radiating from her in waves.
“Eric. Come closer.”
Eric stepped forward, and to Will’s confusion, his movement was fluid, untouched by the king’s control.
“Your Majesty.”
“My servant, the Red Hand, always spoke highly of you. But you are not from Bloodgrove—and you have already pledged your service to another.”
“The Hunter does not claim me.”
The King nodded. His head had not entirely fused with the growths surrounding him.
“You have served me for many years. I value your chimeras greatly. And now you wish to become my Red Hand?”
Elodie drew breath to speak, but no sound emerged. Though Will could not turn his head toward her, he suspected the King had stolen her voice.
“I am ready,” Eric said, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“Do you have a sacrifice for me?”
“I have too many to choose only one.”
Will thought in horror of the Arcos family, of the laughing children and his happy parents. How could Eric endanger them for his ambitions? Or did he know Elodie would prevail over them all? Was he willing to sacrifice her so that he might perhaps save his family?
“You purchased a ticket for this young man with a blood toll—so that I would spare him?” the King asked, and Will shuddered.
He had learned that gods—at least those walking the earth—were not omniscient. But it would have been easier to face this one if he had sounded mad, if he had huffed like the Red Hand or spoken in the singsong voice of the Albatross.
“Yes.” Eric did not lie.
The King nodded slowly and tilted his head.
“Rarely have I been offered two candidates of such quality. One murdered my servant. The other has served me for fifteen years.” Then the King focused on Will and raised a hairless eyebrow.
“Would you also like to become my servant?” he asked with a trace of humor.
Suddenly, Will felt his muscles relax, and control of his body returned. But he merely sank back upon his heels and brushed a trembling strand of hair from his face. “Thank you, but no. I want to return to the Capitol.”
Yet another thought gnawed at him.
Eric had said Elodie had no ticket for him.
Had everything gone according to her plan, Will would have been at the townhouse during the battle against the Red Hand.
Eric would have remained at home. What if Wilkinson had been her first choice, but she had always known there was a risk?
That she might be required to sacrifice her true love?
What if she had charmed and courted Will from the beginning because she needed a sacrifice?
Who greeted a newly hired interior designer wearing nothing but a whisper of silk?
Why had she allowed herself to appear vulnerable before him?
She had wanted him present during her examination, knowing he would suffer with her and wish to protect her.
When she invited him to Bloodgrove, she couldn’t have known that he was not interested in women.
It had merely been her good fortune that she awakened this new part of him.
And she had allowed herself to fall in love with him as well. She would have smothered those feelings the moment they interfered with her plan.
Will blinked back tears. But why? Because she had no one else to sacrifice? Her family was dead, and her friendships were shallow. Who knew what her father had revealed to her?
Then he understood. She had done all of it to protect Eric. Eric would survive, and she would free the city from the curse.
It was cruel and beautiful at once, like an avalanche, a lightning strike, a forest fire.
“I’m here to be sacrificed,” Will said.
“You said he was na?ve,” the King said mildly.
“I am sorry,” Eric whispered.
Will only gave a low hum, incapable of words while tears ran down his burning cheeks. Shame and humiliation burned inside him, mingling with the crushing weight of a broken heart.
“You may still withdraw your offer,” said the king.
Eric shook his head. “No.”
The King laughed, and fluid gurgled inside his lungs. “This is the first time two candidates wish to sacrifice the same person.”
“I do not want to sacrifice him,” Eric interjected.
With his half-fused fingers, the King made an almost human gesture of dismissal. “Let us end this game. I know that all three of you love one another. The thought is very familiar to me. I, too, once loved two beings, but it was doomed to fail.”
His gaze settled upon Elodie. “Elodie, you will become my servant.”
“No!” Eric stepped forward, but Elodie was already approaching the king.
She stopped before him and looked up with awe in her eyes. “I am ready.”
“I know. Your uncle brought you to me as an infant, still wet with your mother’s blood, your umbilical cord still attached.” The King smiled. “I ate it.”
Elodie swallowed. “I have dreamed of this place, but I never understood…”
“You have become powerful, just as your uncle promised me. You will make a worthy servant.”
With a muffled grunt of pain, the King tore one arm free from the wall and reached for his abdomen. Long, sharp fingernails dug into the flesh, and he ripped out a piece of muscle. “Eat, and become mine.”
“Elodie!” Will was on his feet now, but the god held him back.
“My child, you will eat my flesh every day until the end of your life. Until another servant awakens and takes your place.”
“Yes, I swear.” Elodie accepted the bleeding flesh and raised it to her lips.
She was beautiful, even now. Once more, she was the bride speaking a vow for life, surrendering body and soul to her new groom.
The King would take possession of her. She would become nothing more than an extension of him.
With grim resolve, she bit down.