Chapter Three #4
Hands reached out and took mine, making me jump. I stiffened as Shadowsoul laced our fingers together. It was such a sudden, intimate gesture, I couldn’t hear for a full minute for the sudden roaring in my ears and blood rushing to my face.
“Meya, we ask your blessings for this union.” The officiant brushed an oil-covered thumb across my forehead, then made a gesture in Shadowsoul’s direction. He couldn’t summon the courage to touch him. “Princess Emiana, it is time,” he intoned. “Make your vows before the All Mother.
“Do you, Princess, vow to care, honor, and obey his Lord Shadowsoul?”
“I do not.”
“D-do— Excuse me?” He blinked at me, trembling harder. He wasn’t expecting that. “I said, do you, Princess, vow to care, honor, and obey his Lord Shadowsoul?”
“Not a chance in hell.”
He choked, whipping around to King Salman while cries and gasps filled the room.
I didn’t know Shadowsoul’s reaction. I couldn’t seem to lift my gaze higher than the firm, muscled chest barely concealed by his ceremonial wedding uniform.
“Continue,” Salman barked, striking fear that didn’t belong to me in my chest.
Emiana was afraid of her father. I hated that I would eventually know why.
“Do you, Lord Shadowsoul, vow to care, honor, and obey Her Eminence, Princess Emiana?”
“I do solemnly vow,” he said easily.
“Do you, Princess, vow to give your title, your love, and your life to the king of Wind and Wild and his people, forsaking your claim to successor of Lyrica with hope it will pass to your son and heir?” He leaned in.
“Repeat after me. I do solemnly vow to give my title, love, and life to the king of Wind and Wild and his people.”
“I don’t vow any such thing,” I said, lifting my head and looking Shadowsoul straight in the eyes. “I’ll be keeping my title, my life, and my love, thank you very much. You can fuck off back where you came from.”
The officiant swayed on his feet. I thought he might faint.
“What is she doing?” my side of the ballroom cried.
“She’s going to ruin everything.”
“We were finally going to see an end to the war.”
Lamentations sounded behind me, but behind Shadowsoul, was nothing.
The faeriken didn’t twitch, speak, or acknowledge in any way that something out of the ordinary was happening.
They were as silent as their ruler—staring at me like I was an uninteresting bug that would soon enough be caught in his web.
“And—and do you, Lord Shadowsoul, solemnly vow to give your life and love to the princess of Lyrica?”
“I do solemnly vow.”
“Do you, Princess, vow to take this man as your lawfully wedded husband, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?” The loose-jowled, shaking old man turned on me with a hard set to his weak chin. “Princess, you will repeat after me: I do vow—”
I slapped the book of vows out of his hands, sending him flying after it with a cry. “I’ll take over from here,” I dropped. “I vow to be nothing but a nightmare, a festering sore, a gnawing ache, a splitting headache for the rest of our short union.
“I vow to spend every day and night running from you—fighting to get back to my true home and freedom.” Visions of my family spun in my mind. “I vow that I will never love you, want you, or delight in a single peaceful, pleasant moment with you.
“I vow that I will make this enduring Thousand-Year War seem like child’s play,” I said, loud and clear. “Every day with me will be a battle to the end. I will gray your hairs, wrinkle your eyes, hunch your back, and grind away your will.
“I vow, Lord Shadowsoul, High King of Blood and Evil, to kill you.”
You could hear a mouse scurry across the floor of a room on the other side of the castle, it was so deathly quiet.
This is it. The moment he takes his court of half-beasts, gets into his carriage, and rolls away for good.
Emiana thought her only way out of this marriage was to flee with my face, but there was always another way, I thought, smile tugging to my lips.
Make Shadowsoul dump me at the altar. Let him be the one doing the fleeing.
Shadowsoul’s expression suddenly changed, and I reeled back—heart jumping in my throat.
He smirked.
“A festering sore, you say? A splitting headache. An enemy to my peace, youth, will, and eventually, my life. You claim these as your vows?”
I didn’t break. I didn’t look away. “I do.”
“Well.” He released my hands, knocking me off-balance. “I won’t stand for my wife to break her first vow to me, so...” Shadowsoul unsheathed his sword and presented it to me—hilt first.
My mind spun in the split second it took his and Salman’s guards to move. I’d never killed anyone before. I’d never even seen anyone be killed. It was a hard life in Gutter Galley, but a peaceful one. Everyone was too tired and hungry to stir up trouble.
What life in Gutter Galley is... is mine. It’s my life, and Emiana sought to steal it from me to save herself. If I let this monster marry and whisk me away, she’ll have succeeded.
I had to get back to my family. I just had to. This was one promise I would not break.
I snatched the sword. Without pausing for breath, thought, or regret, I plunged it in his chest.
“Ahhh!”
Screams rang out in the ballroom. Shadowsoul folded over like a puppet with cut strings—his mountainous, head-scrambling presence disappearing in a blink. The faeriken ended their silent vigil—snapping, snarling, and barking as they madly climbed and stampeded over each other, surging toward me.
“Guards,” Salman bellowed. “Guards! Take her away!”
A noise sounded high above the calamity, striking fear the likes of which neither me nor Princess Emiana had ever known.
Alisdair Shadowsoul laughed.
Shoulders shaking, chest rumbling, breath catching—he laughed out loud, striking a dong for stunned silence over fae, faeriken, and me.
Straightening, he pulled the sword out of his chest—unharmed. “You, little bird.” My breath caught when he cupped my cheek—a smile as beatific as it was terrifying stretching his full lips. “I must have you.”
Shadowsoul snapped his fingers. The book of vows flew off the ground and dropped on his outstretched palm. “I do vow to take this woman as my lawfully wedded wife—”
“No,” I rasped, scream trapped between my teeth. What was he doing? He couldn’t do this!
“—forsaking all others, for as long as we both shall live.” He snapped the book shut, smiling wider if possible.
“This I vow to you, little bird. Not peace, or happiness, or love, or friendship, but I do vow you will never be bored... and you will always be mine. This I promise for the rest of my days—may they be many or few.” He swooped down and kissed my lips so fast, he was already pulling back when I squawked and jumped away. “I leave that up to you.”
“No, y-you can’t do this.” My lips were numb. Did I speak out loud? Because I couldn’t feel them move.
A weight settled on my wrist. My head wrenched down to see a silver bracelet clutching a sparkling black stone. The first gift bestowed to his bride.
That meant there was only one thing left to do. “I don’t accept this.” I threw myself at the wall of guards, my hands straining and flailing through the gaps of their bodies. “I will not marry y—!”
“By the power granted to me by the All Mother, Meya,” the officiant cried, scrambling up. “I name you husband and wife.” He sliced his hand down between us—a coudarian crystal clutched in his hand.
“No!”
It was much too late. Magic washed over me, searing into my skin. I cried out as a black symbol etched into my pores—burning the rune for married deep into my forearm where it would always be, denoting me as the very thing Shadowsoul named me—his.
I lost it.
Screaming, I rammed my head into their armor—opening a dozen cuts on my forehead and cheeks. I pounded every hand that tried to grab me. I kicked and flailed as I was lifted into the air, catching two guards across the face.
Shadowsoul couldn’t take me away or Meliora and my family would lose the only thing they had left to lose—freedom from Kirwan’s iron fist.
“I won’t go!” Running at Shadowsoul, I fell on him, and gripped his sword.
I turned on my attackers, weapon held high.
I wouldn’t let the last thought my family had of me be that, in the end, I was nothing but a liar.
“I promised,” I screamed, slicing the air and sending my chargers scattering.
I darted through the space they stupidly provided me, racing for the doors.
“Olene, Meliora, Gisela, Jaclan, and Savia!”
The guards stumbled over themselves chasing after me—torn between stopping me and blocking the cursed faeriken from the royal and noble fae.
I seized the door handle. “Olene, Meliora, Gisel—!” An unseen force hooked me around the middle, lifting me off my feet. I flew back and slammed against a hard chest—the wind whooshing out of me.
“Little bunny might be a more apt name for you.” His deep tremble sent a chill up my spine. “Dangerous little thing, aren’t you?”
My face hardened. “You have no idea.”
Spinning around, my stolen sword fell in an arc, swinging straight for his neck. The bastard may not have a heart to stab, but cutting the head off a snake always worked.
Alisdair was the slaughterer of millions.
His selfish and greedy bid for power warped innocent fae into feral beasts, and the curse spreads farther still—dragging us all into his hatred.
Every kingdom of the fae would rejoice and honor me for getting rid of our greatest threat, and even so. .. I wasn’t doing it for them.
Kingdoms had warriors and soldiers to fight their battles. My family only had me. I would not be Shadowsoul’s queen of the beasts. This was always going to end one way—either he left this palace a widower, or I left a widow.
Shadowsoul lazily threw up his palm, and the bronze blade halted just short of it—hanging still and obedient in the air. I tugged, wrenched, and pulled with all my strength. It didn’t budge.
“That is enough!”
Rough hands hauled me around. I had time to see Salman’s furious, purpling face, and the shadow of his backhand falling across it, before it fell.
Movement flashed out of the corner of my eye.
Shadowsoul’s claws shredded Salman’s sleeve and pierced his skin, staining the fine fabric with pinpricks of blood.
“That is the last time you attempt to lay a hand on my wife.” Alisdair struck his chest with an open palm, and Salman blasted off his feet and crashed through the wall.
Someone screamed. I think it was me.
No— It was everyone.
Through the man-sized hole, the palace harem wives bolted from their beds and lounges, running screaming for the door. Their cries were the only sounds coming from the room. The floating mound of silk, blood, and plaster in their bathing pool didn’t speak or move.
“And for your sake and the sake of that worthless parchment the treaty is written on,” Alisdair finished, “it’d better have been the first time.”
“Argh!” Guards, nobles, and Lyricans roared to life.
Coudarian crystals on their clothes, weapons, and staffs blazed with power, and the world lit on fire.
I stood stock-still as explosions burst and danced all over me, greedily headed for us, then forced away—streaming around an invisible barrier.
“Ah,” I cried when the world spun.
Shadowsoul tossed me over his shoulder. “Let us away, little bird. We’ve overstayed our welcome.”
“Put me down!” I clasped my fists and smashed them against his spine—kicking and fighting with all my might. “I’m not going anywhere with you! Let me go. Let me go!”
“No.”
He spoke so calmly and with such finality, my protests clogged in my throat. I could not make this man do a single thing he did not wish to do. I knew that as surely as the explosions crashing over our heads, repelled by an invisible barrier.
Alisdair Shadowsoul could not be touched. He could not be stopped. I was a dandelion before a storm. My only hope was for the soil to remember me after I was washed away.
A wave of exhaustion bowled me over. My lids drew heavy over my eyes, begging to close. This was no one else’s doing but his.
“And to think,” he said as black crept into my vision. “I had every intention of leaving you at the altar...”
I flopped against his back—gone.