Chapter 49
Anniliese had never been to the city on the crossroad, but she recognized it anyway.
Andburgh. A medium-sized town with an open central square, located in the center of Onita. It was a little out of the way for their journey from Khento to Verith, but this stop and detour didn’t surprise her.
After all, this was the birthplace and childhood home of Mariah Salis.
“Oh, it is so good to be home!”
Lord Donnet’s booming voice echoed off the square. The rotund man slid from his horse, scratching his graying beard. Anniliese huddled into her thin robes. The army flowed around them, spreading across the town, taking what they pleased and eager to enjoy a night off the roads.
A few locals wandered into the streets, faces awash with surprise. Soldiers barged past them into their homes, coming out with armfuls of food and bottles of liquor. Chaos filled the air, startled shouts and jeering calls.
What Anniliese noticed was how few locals there really were. As her gaze swept the square, she realized why.
Boards were nailed to half the shop windows. The pavement was overgrown. A general air of disrepair lingered over the town, as if those who normally cared for it were gone.
Had some of the people of Andburgh fled? If so, who had warned them to leave? And why had some decided to stay, anyway?
A dark shadow spread across the square. Heavy wings beat the air, blotting out the sun.
A great black and gold dragon landed in the square with a thunderous boom.
Shadows writhed around him, compressing in until the dragon was replaced by a man, tailored clothes more casual but still dark and fine.
A look Anniliese didn’t like—something hungry, something wild, something dangerous—glinted in Kol’s red-gold eyes as he strode across the square.
“Your Eminence!” Lord Donnet bowed deeply, nearly tripping over himself. “Welcome to Andburgh. I do hope you find it much to your liking—”
“Why is your town half-empty, Donnet? Where are all the people?” Kol’s words were clipped and impatient.
So, it wasn’t just Anniliese who’d noticed.
Donnet blubbered. “The…people?” He glanced around, as if seeing his town for the first time. A bead of perspiration formed on his temple. “I don’t-don’t know, Your Eminence.”
“Priam,” Kol growled under his breath, shadows swirling. “Always meddling in things he shouldn’t.” The god straightened, looking down at Donnet. “It doesn’t matter.”
Anniliese shrunk into herself, doing all she could to evade attention. The other priestesses surrounded her, a flock of silent lambs.
Of course, hiding never worked.
“Anniliese.” Kol’s summons was like a terrible caress down her back.
She wanted to ignore him. She wanted to have the strength to fight back, to refuse to obey. She wanted to be the person Mariah thought she could become. She wanted to be strong.
She wasn’t, though.
Anniliese left the priestesses, walking slowly to Kol and Donnet. She halted before the dark god, timidly meeting his burning stare.
He looked at her approvingly, the hint of a smile tugging at his full mouth. Kol gestured toward the Ivory Forest surrounding the city and its farmland.
“Show us the way, Lord Donnet.”
The overgrown path through the forest broke into a clearing dotted with trees.
It continued up to the doorstep of a small, quaint cottage, its rustic door hanging halfway off the hinges.
Ivy crawled up the walls, and no smoke drifted from the chimney.
A firepit, weeds sprouting up in its center, sat a short distance away, and a barn could just be seen through the smattering of trees.
Donnet pushed past Anniliese, sweat rolling down his temples as he propped his hands on his hips. “Here it is, Your Eminence,” he said, fighting to catch his breath. “The Salis residence. Nothing more than a hovel, really.”
Despite her hopelessness, Anniliese’s skin prickled. The Salis residence. Where Mariah—where a future queen—had grown up. Even in its overgrown state, there were signs of the family.
Laundry in the tall grass, still clipped to a line. Stacks of roughly chopped firewood stacked beside the door. A straw-stuffed dummy in the center of the clearing, rusted training swords discarded in the weeds.
She couldn’t help comparing it to her upbringing of tight corsets, fine silks, and rigidity. Anniliese had long considered herself privileged and superior. But had she ever known a drop of the love and freedom Mariah had found in this place?
The answer to that question caused her more pain than she was ready to confront.
Kol strode forward, grass crunching under his boots.
His shadows streamed behind him, tangling with and polluting the beams of sunlight.
His brow was furrowed, as if lost in thought, fingers drumming a rhythm on his chest. He stopped a few paces ahead, scanning the clearing before turning back.
Red-gold eyes landed on Anniliese, scorching and burning.
“Anniliese,” he said softly. “Come forward.”
She obeyed.
The god kept his gaze on her until she stopped at his side, trying and failing to keep her limbs from shaking.
“I will give you one more chance to prove yourself, Anniliese,” Kol murmured. “And this time, without my assistance.” She flinched as his fingers brushed across her temple, his skin hot. “One more chance to show that your loyalty lies with me and not the false queen.”
“And if I don’t?”
The world stilled. Anniliese wasn’t sure where the words had come from. Had it even been her to say them? It had sounded like her voice, but surely she valued her life more than to speak them into the warm forest air.
Kol chuckled, though it held little amusement. More shadows clouded around him. “You are bold. I can see why the little goddess and my son tried to sway you.” Shadows replaced his fingers on her face. Anniliese nearly whimpered as they squeezed around her skull.
A silent threat of what he could do—what he would do—if she chose wrong.
“Your safety has been relatively guaranteed, Lady Hareth. Your father asked, and I granted his request. But only on the condition that you did as you were commanded.” Kol tsked.
“I would hate to see what would happen to you if that protection went away. You’ve seen how the other priestesses are treated.
Armies are ravenous, after all, and not just for food and drink. ”
Molten, sickly fear ignited in the pit of Anniliese’s gut. He was right; she had seen it. She saw it every night. How drunken soldiers would find their helpless little flock and drag the priestesses away, returning them often with tear-filled, haunted eyes and torn, stained robes.
They never chose Anniliese. Never seemed to even notice her. It had struck her as odd, but she realized now that perhaps it was only due to the protection of a god she’d never wanted to be indebted to.
“So, what will it be, Anniliese?” Kol pressed. “Obedience or pain?”
If she were stronger, perhaps it would’ve been a harder choice.
But she was not. She was weak and tired and selfish.
“Obedience,” she finally whispered, and she swore the shadows purred.
“Very good choice,” Kol said with a hum of approval. He stepped away, shadows leaving her skin.
“Now.” His gaze fixed on the quiet, abandoned cottage in the woods, a tomb for a family of outlaws and ghosts. “Burn it down.”
“What?” Another blurted outburst, one that slipped past lips she could never control.
Kol’s gaze burned. “Your flames, Lady Hareth. Use them, and burn this house to the ground.”
Anniliese trembled. Swallowed past a pit lodged in her throat. It hurt—ached—but she reached tentatively into that hollow in her chest, where a core of flickering embers sat waiting.
She tried to grab hold of them, the way Kol and his power had gripped them in Khento.
Tried to coax them out, hoping they would burst and flow from her like that night in the gardens.
She closed her eyes, focusing on stoking the embers into flames, on pulling them from her chest and into her waiting palm.
Warmth flooded her hand, and she felt a quiet bleat of victory. But when she opened her eyes, there was no more than a small bead of fire fizzling in her palm.
Tears pricked behind her eyes. “I can’t—”
“Consider your next words carefully,” Kol murmured, and she didn’t think she imagined the tinge of sympathy in his voice. “If I have to do it for you, you will lose my protection.”
Fear dripped through her like hot metal.
“You are afraid,” Kol continued. “That’s good. Use that fear. A cornered animal will eventually lash out. You are cornered now; so, strike.”
He was right; she was cornered. She might be standing in an open clearing, the fresh scent of rain and sandalwood from the woods sweeping around her, but she was trapped. A doe caught in a snare, bleating and shaking and scared.
She imagined what those men in that camp would do to her without Kol’s protection.
She may have fallen, but she was still of Royal blood, and they would know that.
They would know that because of her station, her life had been sheltered.
She’d kissed boys, but never been with a man, and gods, she’d heard the whispers of what men do to girls like her—
As her thoughts descended into terrified madness, her flames finally burst to life. They jumped from her chest, hot and angry, burning and blistering her from the inside out.
With a tear-choked sob, Anniliese extended her hands and pushed those punishing flames toward the little house in the woods.
It was nearly the peak of summer, and any rain had been nothing more than a soft, short drizzle.
The wood was dry, the stone flaking, and it only took a lick of her fire before the entire structure exploded into flames.
They roared into the sky, crackling and popping and devouring, dark smoke twisting toward the sun like its god’s cursed shadows.
Anniliese Hareth released a cry of fearful rage as her flames consumed the home of Mariah Salis.
She didn’t know how long it took. How long it lasted.
Soon the wood collapsed in on itself, the roof surrendering, rubble falling into smoking cinders.
Anniliese fell to her knees, her flames dying to sparks, retreating to the burned and raw place in her chest. Blisters were already forming on her hands, pain pulsing around her skin.
Her flames had never burned her before. Even when wielded by Kol, they’d never caused her harm.
But she hated them now. Despised them.
As she tipped her head up to Kol’s red stare, chest heaving through broken sobs, she gave him a silent plea.
Please. Never again. Please.
The dark god smiled down at her, pride flickering in his expression. “You did well, Lady Anniliese. You can keep your safety. And I won’t make you do that again; not unless the need is high.” He turned, the charred grass crunching beneath his feet.
“Stand up,” he commanded. “Let’s go back to camp.”
Anniliese nearly cried out again in pain as she forced herself to her feet, clutching her burned hands to her chest. She stared at the smoldering ruins, sucking in lungfuls of smoke-ridden air.
“Why?” she asked hoarsely. A simple question. One she didn’t think he’d answer, but one she couldn’t hold back. Not when she was so raw and broken.
A presence shadowed her shoulder. Darkness coiled down her arms, wrapping around her burned skin. She hissed as it pulled and stung, more tears springing to her eyes.
When the shadows left, her skin was unmarred and unblemished. Virtually untouched.
But the pain… The pain still lingered.
“A little trick I picked up from my lovely Consort,” Kol growled. “Hiding pain with beauty. That was what she was good for.”
Anniliese met the dark god’s burning stare.
“You want to know why I had you do this?” Kol’s gaze shifted to the ruined house. “I did it because I can, Anniliese. Because I have power. Mariah Salis and her moon goddesses will return what they stole from me. But until they do, I will take everything from them.”