Chapter Four
Ayala
THE ICY DAMP IS UNBEARABLE. I thought the heat of the baking kitchen was punishing, but it’s nothing to the frigid hopelessness that clings to my shaking limbs.
They won’t allow me a sweater or blanket, and since the dungeon’s walls are lined with silver, I can’t even draw a small strand of warmth from the earth with the tiny amount of magick I possess.
Pacing the inky blackness of the small cell that’s lit only by a slice of light from the top corner where some enterprising prisoner has picked out the mortar between stones, I try to find courage.
And fail. I’m too young to die.
Another shiver wracks my body. I wrap my arms around my middle, trying to find a measure of warmth in my own skin. My jaw aches from grinding my teeth tight in an effort to stop them chattering. And my head feels like it’s on fire. My stomach, too.
I was beaten. Luckily, I don’t remember much after those first strikes to my temple and gut.
The seconds leading up to them, though—I’ll never forget those.
One moment, I watched the king shovel cake into his mouth, full of anticipation.
In the next, I watched in slow motion as he collapsed, fingers tearing at his throat.
On the third tick of the clock, the king’s First looked at the cake, and by use of some magick I can’t name, looked directly at me.
At the fourth, he shouted, and almost immediately, an army of burly guards set upon me.
Six or seven days. I may have lost time. Trying to judge it by the sliver of light is impossible.
Maybe I am ready to die.
My gaze catches the rim of the metal bucket in the corner.
Even at my first reawakening, crushed with a ubiquitous pain that made crawling through the muck to the metal in hopes of a drink nothing less than torturous, the water within was foul.
Undrinkable. Hunger held me with claws the first two days, but since then, thirst has been my enemy.
Once more, without quite knowing how it’s happened, I’m kneeling beside the bucket. Even in the dim, I can see the swampy texture that denotes squalidness. And the smell...
And yet, my lips part, greedy for liquid, any liquid, to eradicate the scratchy dryness turning my blood to dust inside my veins. Illness lies within. Death lies without. I’m at the edge of my strength now. Simple, really. I drink, or I die.
I die if I drink.
No, better to go to the Great Mother Cerfwynn untainted.
With a shove, I push the terrible temptation from me. The few inches of liquid within washes to the dirt floor, spreading like a portentous finger and pointing towards the heavy, iron-banded wooden door.
My gaze tracks it to find a pair of eyes regarding me through the small slit in the wood—green eyes, bright as jewels, haloed by the light from the lamp he holds.
When he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t admonish me for spilling the taint, I turn away. With my last hope gone, I sink into the corner, there to become a moldering pile of bones, an object lesson for future bakers who think too much of their talent. Who dare to dream small dreams.
To my surprise, metal grates on metal. The door creaks open. The man possessed of the watchful green eyes strides in. Earl MacAvern, the king’s First.
I glance behind him, but he doesn’t come with other guards. Guess he thinks a lowly doe without magick enough to shift in the best of circumstances isn’t much of a threat.
Shadow falls into the cell with him, along with a too-bright light. I can’t read his expression when he stops a foot from me. Studying me.
His nose twists as he breathes in my stench.
“You’d smell, too, after a week here.”
A smile breaks his face. He’s a handsome man, though usually overshadowed by the king. “Too bad you chose to poison His Majesty, slick-head.” He employs the pejorative term for a doe. “He’s always appreciative of a sharp tongue on his cock.”
There I go, proving him wrong. I’ve no idea how to respond.
Grasping my arm, he hauls me to my feet as if I weigh no more than a bag of feathers.
“It’s time to meet your fate, but you’ll have to be hosed down first. You’re like to send him back to Albios with your foulness.
We’ve only just got him back.” He pauses and releases my arm, but when I start to drift downward, he sighs and lifts me into his arms. “I hope your death is painful and slow. If he’s not up for it, I volunteer. ”
Charming. Despite his beautiful exterior, he’s so filled with hate for me that there’s nothing attractive about him.
He backs against a door down the hall and opens it onto the sunlit world beyond. I clench my eyes against the pain, even as I’m dropped onto the paving stones, only to be drenched with icy water before I can open them.
Hands scrub me all over with harsh lye soap that stings my nostrils.
My tattered shift rips, the sound like thunder in my ears.
Fingers touch me in places I’ve never been touched except by me.
And I don’t object, because their uninterested pokes will likely be the last I experience in this unimpressive life.
“Who’s got an extra undershift? She’s so tiny, it’ll hit her ankles.”
The earl’s voice. I already want to curl up under the weight of its contemptuous wrath.
I hurt his friend. I can’t blame him.
Another rush of water spills over me. Despite the icy chill, I manage to raise my head and open my mouth. Fresh water streams down my throat, and I drink as much as I’m able while the guards rinse me.
My belly cramps. I keep swallowing.
Too soon, the water’s shut off and I’m sloughed with rough towels.
A guardsman’s soft, unbleached undershift is thrown over my head.
The sleeves have to be cut off at my wrists, or they’d drape to my knees.
No one bothers brushing the tangles from my hair or making me look presentable. There’s no pretense about my fate.
I’m grabbed between two guards and marched back into the palace through another door, my feet barely skimming the ground. Up stairways, round and round, we travel. Beautiful appointments like paintings, sculptures, and walls of stained-glass brush by me, but I can’t enjoy any of them.
Doors are thrown open. I’m tossed within like a drowned cat, only to land upon the softest rug I’ve ever felt. My legs buckle and I sprawl upon crimson, blue, gold, and green patterned motifs, as downy against my skin as the moss that grows on Calan Hill.
“This? This is what’s responsible?”
Not who. What. I’m a what now.
I don’t have the energy to care. I’m covered in the bites of fleas and other pests, made a bag of bones by my own doing. Hunger and thirst, unending days of misery and nights of torment, have left me too exhausted.
But I recognize the voice of the king. Slowly, my gaze travels up a strong pair of ankles and fine boned feet to muscled limbs that continue, invisible, past the hem of his crimson velvet robe.
Further up, I find that the crimson velvet is emblazoned with a motif of antlers picked out in gold thread.
His arms are crossed over his chest as he stands next to his desk.
A torc of gold hugs his neck, likely so heavy, I wouldn’t be able to pick it up.
I can’t meet his eyes. Not yet. I’m cowed by his size. Up close, his muscles ripple with his every breath, each one alive and strung in limber glory. He’s tall. He’s graceful. He’s so beautiful, he makes my heart ache.
Finally, I find the small courage it takes to slip my eyes over his squared, full lips, chiseled cheekbones, and swathe of bronzed skin, to nearly black hair and eyes dark as sin.
The pupils and irises blend, snapping with anger, boring into me and holding me immobile even as I feel him pull magick from the earth and up through several stories of rooms.
Power crackles—power that should be impossible at this height with the ley lines down.
It’s heady and terrifying. Invisible fingers of energy knife through me, sipping my blood, reading my spirit.
.. reading my mind. I shudder under the vicious invasion, a cry leaving my lips as his power tightens and pulses like a heartbeat.
No wonder he’s king.
With a snap, he draws back his force and turns away. While I collapse to the floor, wrung out and empty, he picks up a paper and begins to read. I’m an uninteresting ant, unworthy even of the time it would take to squash me. He’ll have his servants do it for him.
Even hollowed, my treacherous tongue works. “An ant can carry a thousand blades of grass.”
He turns back to me, his brow raised. “No ant can stand against the crushing hoof. Tell your tale, Ayala Treadborn. Explain to me why you decided to poison your king.”
His voice sends another shiver through me, this time one that winds inside my core. Deep. Imperious. Strong... so strong. Biology triumphs over sense. Every part of me wants to submit to a stag possessed of such power and control.
A guffaw of laughter escapes me as I realize I’m horny for the very stag that’s going to kill me. Great. An uninspired life with an uninspired and mortifying end.
“You think regicide is funny?”
“N-no.” I have to swallow again. The simple word catches. “I-I didn’t. Poison you.”
His arched brow rises higher, but the rest of his expression twists with contempt for what must sound like a ridiculous lie.
He’s been inside me. He knows everything about me. He should know I didn’t intend his death.
But does he? He’s rumored to be all-powerful, all-knowing, but that’s what we say of our gods and our kings who become like gods once they sit the Antler Throne. Yet if he knew the truth, he wouldn’t ask my reasons.
“Lies sticking in your craw, doe?”
I meet his gaze. Hold it. Demand it. “I didn’t poison you.”
He throws down the paper. “You deny adding juniper to the cake?”
My mouth falls open again. He waits as I catch my thoughts like flies upon a frog’s tongue. They’re slow to land. Too slow.
He turns away again. “You’ll be executed at sunrise. Hunter.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
“Arrange a public gathering. I don’t want another sad attempt like this made in the future.
Everyone in Cerf-Biche needs to understand what happens to those who seek to subvert my will, challenge me for the throne, or attempt to take my life in such a cowardly, low fashion.
” He gestures in my direction. “Take her from my sight.”
Guards swarm from somewhere and drag me to my feet, dragging me back out of the room and, no doubt, to the dungeon to await my death.
Desperation forces words from my throat. “Please! I only wished to please you!”
“Hold.”
The guards still at the soft-voiced command.
I look over my shoulder to find the king stalking towards me, each step a threat and a promise, either of reprieve or of death on his own points. I can’t tell from his expression which result he favors.
“Please me by killing me, doe?” His voice is a rumble of honey, a deception that again twists through my core.
I shake my head, my neck cricked at an unnatural angle, as I try to make him see the truth in my eyes. “I just wanted you to try something different.”
“Poison is different.”
“No! No, I... I added juniper and lemon, but only for a different flavor. All you like is vanilla, and I... I’ve got a basketful of recipes. I’m good at them, I know I am, if I could just be allowed to tempt your palate...”
“With poison.”
“No.” I shake my head. Why does he keep saying that? “Neither is poison. I don’t know what happened, but I swear to you, we used both flavorings at home with no ill effects.”
“Juniper berries? You weren’t told of their lethal quality?” he demands.
“No. Of course not. They’re not lethal.”
He tilts his head and studies me, tiny fingers of his power slipping through me again.
I hold steady, this time welcoming the uncomfortable reading since I need him to see the truth.
Finally, he straightens. “We’ll see, little doe.
May your goddess prove your words. Take her back. Bring the baker to me.”
I’m hauled away again like a sack of grain, back to my interment in the same cell as before. The spilled water has returned to dust, but I don’t need to worry over it. I’ll be dead by morning or granted a reprieve. Either way, I’ve no need to moisten my blood further.
Flowing blood hopes. I’m too close to disaster to risk optimism.