Chapter 28
MARIK
Elle doesn’t wear a pillowcase to dinner tonight.
Well, not exactly. Instead, she’s wrapped a cream sheet around her slender figure, cinched at the waist by a curtain rope.
Her shoulders are exposed, and they’re somehow both smooth and sharp.
She shoves past me when I open the door, her stringy red hair bobbing against her shoulder blades as she descends the staircase.
I reach to pull out her chair, but she stops me with a glare. It feels like every nerve in my body lights up at the defiance in her stare, like something ancient within me stirs. She’s here. She came to play tonight.
I stride to my chair, the ornate legs dragging along the ancient wooden floors.
She sits opposite me, posture straight and gaze stony.
I don’t need to descend into the bond to know what she’s feeling.
The pointed glare of her amber eyes tells me all I need to know, the flame of the candles flickering in them like a living symbol of the hatred burning inside of her.
The first course is brought out, the waitstaff floating plates of salad behind them.
“Thank you.” Elle’s gratitude is warm, the upward tilt of her mouth offering me a glimpse of something I haven’t seen from her since before I was High King, but it disappears as the waitstaff turns from her without a word.
“Why do you do that?” I ask.
She snatches her fork from the table and stabs it into the bed of lettuce. “Do what?”
I tilt my head toward the exit. “Try to speak to the staff.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” she asks around a meager helping of the salad.
“They’re the help,” I explain. “Nobody. Nothing.”
She scoffs. “Says the High Prince who has never had to grovel at another person’s feet.”
I could correct her on the title. I’m High King now, after all, but I remain silent. She has no clue how wrong she is. I’ve been groveling all my life. The feet may have changed over the years, but it never stops. Once, it was Father’s snake-skinned boots, now it’s Cora’s black leather heels.
“What?” Elle asks. “Do I not speak the truth?” I shrug away the question and take another bite. “Is this how you won Mae over? Silence and brooding over all the things you had? Oh, poor High Prince. Born with everything but a soul.”
I can’t help the laugh that comes.
She quirks an eyebrow. “Funny?”
I shove my plate away, barely touched. “You’re right.”
She grunts something, then finishes her salad without another word. I signal to the waitstaff that hovers by the door, and he rushes toward me. Embarrassing. Why would anyone deign to speak to them?
“Wine.”
He returns moments later, reaching to pop the cork. I stop him and motion for the bottle. But before I wave him away, I force myself to say, “Thank you.” The words taste like dirt, but a peek down the bond reveals a new emotion from Elle—shock, tinged with curiosity.
The male skitters off. I rise, popping the cork, and walk to Elle’s side of the table. She watches me with fascination, the green flecks of her eyes, mixed with honey, now sparkling. It makes my skin feel too tight.
I pour the red wine into her glass, marveling at the way it fills as it sloshes. Father used to always call red wine blood wine. He used to joke that it was the blood of our enemies, then clink his glass with Mother’s. Then, when I got older, with Cora’s.
“Why does that make you so happy?” I ask as I return to my seat, my back turned to Elle.
“What?”
“Why did it make you happy when I thanked the waiter?” I clarify as I sit.
She gulps down her wine. “Because it’s a nice thing to do.”
“But why is it?”
She sets the glass on the table, stroking the base with her thumb. Again, my skin feels too tight. I adjust my jacket, but it doesn’t help. “You’ve never had to be anything less than, because you’ve always been on top. You have no idea what it’s like to be treated like dirt on someone’s shoe.”
But I know exactly what it feels like to be treated like that.
I know the feeling of being kicked when I’m down—of being stomped on when my face is caked with blood.
I know the bite of the whip, the kiss of the blade over thick scars, the sinking of a fist into black-and-blue skin, again, and again, and again.
I know exactly what cruelty is like.
I snort as I reach for my glass. “Being nice does no favors for anyone and gets you nowhere. I just don’t get the sentiment.”
“And do you like that about yourself?” she asks me.
No. I don’t like a single thing about myself. “It’s gotten me where I am,” I answer.
She raises an eyebrow. “You’re a murderer on a stolen throne,” she says drily.
Now it’s my turn to quirk an eyebrow. “Careful, Elle. You’re beginning to speak of murder with a nonchalance that resembles…well, me.”
“I will never be anything close to the person you are,” she hisses.
Funny. She’s exactly who I used to be—willing to fight everyone that punished me, willing to spit on anyone who wronged me. But eventually, you stop fighting for yourself. And instead, you become the one that swings the blade.
Oh, but you could, little fawn, I croon down the bond. Don’t forget that monsters are created.
“Nothing could turn me into the pitiful creature you’ve turned yourself into,” she sneers.
“Do you think I was born this way? A monster?”
She glares at me, her nostrils flaring and cheeks flushing pink.
I was made into what I am, carefully crafted and sculpted by others who wielded hammers and swords.
Although I’ve shoved every experience that’s helped make me who I am into a box, sometimes I pull them out.
To remember I wasn’t always this way. I send a memory down the bond, fighting a shudder as I’m forced to remember it, too.
Small hands grasping for purchase on a concrete wall, fingernails clawing at the door, tiny fists banging on its unyielding surface.
Chubby cheeks crusted with dirt and tear tracks, a throat grown raw from screaming.
Impenetrable darkness surrounds me and steals my vision.
My other senses were always stronger than my brother’s. A blessing and a curse.
In this moment, a curse.
The vibrations along the floor as the undead creature lumbers toward me tells me I’m locked in a room with something massive.
A bear, likely. Or what used to be a bear.
The huff of its breath along the back of my neck sends me skittering to the other side of the locked room, and it lets loose a bellow that curdles my insides.
What would Asmo do? What does Father want?
I curl into a ball, knowing this is the incorrect answer. But I can’t think, I can’t breathe, I can’t I can’t I can’t.
My heart beats in my chest like a wild thing, pumping blood through my veins as Father’s instructions play on a loop in my head.
Give into the fear. Become its master, Marik.
I inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. I breathe through gritted teeth and force myself to my feet, stumbling to the center of the room and dropping to the floor as my knees give out. If this monster doesn’t kill me, my heart might.
I scream before I can change my mind and force myself to lie on the ground.
I squeeze my eyes shut as I wait for the bear to come.
Tears slip down my cheeks as its footsteps grow closer, as the stench of its rotting teeth grows stronger, as I remember what it feels like for those teeth to sink into me. Over and over again.
Even in the dark, I can see the bear’s outline. Its jaw opens and sinks into my chest.
I pull myself from the memory before Elle can see what comes next. Maybe it’s a mistake to shield her from it. Maybe I should let her see exactly how a monster is made.
I don’t have to look closely to feel what she’s feeling. The emotions are so strong they’re practically screaming at me down the bond. The icy crawl of horror. The soft glimmer of pity.
“How old were you?” she whispers.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, Marik. Of course it matters.”
“Six.” I lean back in my chair, summoning the bottle of wine. I don’t bother pouring it into my glass. I swig from the bottle.
Elle shakes her head. The candlelight shines on her glassy eyes.
“You feel sad for me,” I say. “Why?”
She studies me. My heartbeat quickens in my chest and my palms tingle. For fuck’s sake, Marik.
“Nobody deserves that.”
I roll my eyes and take another swig from the bottle. “It made me stronger.” I resist the urge to laugh at the irony of this conversation, so similar to one that I had with my dear wife.
“Was it one of the Cursed?” she asks. I nod in confirmation. “Who…”
“Who do you think?” My voice feels too rough, too thick with emotion.
The unfamiliarity of it makes me uncomfortable.
Her eyes turn soft again and I speak before she can voice the answer.
“Anyone can turn into a monster. Even you,” I warn.
Because I used to be just like her—full of rage—until one day I gave up and became something other. Something worse.
Her smile is full of pity, and I regret the decision to share this memory with her. This isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t expect her to feel this way toward me. I didn’t want pity. It was a warning. And maybe, a small part of me wanted to show her that I wasn’t always this way.
“But how? I had never even heard of them until the witches…” Her eyes widen as she puts it together. “How long have you been working with them, Marik? How long has this been going on?”
I shake my head. Too long. There was no stopping this.
If I hadn’t agreed to it, Cora would have found a way to use Asmo.
My brother is too good, too strong, too pure.
But that wouldn’t have stopped her. She would’ve done exactly to him what I’m doing to Elle.
Bile threatens to rise, but I tamp it down.
“You don’t…I’m sorry that happened to you,” Elle whispers across the table. “You know, you could use your strengths to do good. You didn’t have to…” She trails off, searching for the right words.
“Become the devil?” I ask with a snort. Because that’s what I am. To her, at least.
Her brow furrows. “No. That’s not what I was going to say. It’s a different kind of strength, isn’t it? To continue to live, even when the world seems unbearable?”
It’s my turn to look at her pointedly. “You tell me, Elle. And then tell me that if I subjected you to the same horrors, would you still be who you are today? Would you turn into a shred of the person you were supposed to be? Or would you be forced to become something entirely different to survive?”
She doesn’t have an answer. I float the bottle of wine to her. She snags it from the air and downs the rest, draining it in three gulps. She sits there, staring at the table until she finally whispers, “None of that changes anything you’ve done.”
I lean back in my chair. We sit in silence until the waitstaff returns with the next course.
I rise from the table and take the two plates from them.
I set mine on the table, then walk to Elle.
Her head snaps up as I send a breeze toward her, carrying the scent closer. Her face pales again, then flushes red.
I walk behind her and lean over her, catching a whiff of rosemary-scented shampoo. I set the ivory plate delicately in front of her, the gamey scent of venison wafting toward me. “No, it doesn’t change a thing. Dinner is served. Enjoy,” I whisper into her ear.
The moment I step away, she hurls the plate at my back. I figured that was coming. I let it slam into me, the plate shattering into pieces as it strikes me.
I stride from the room and don’t look back.
Don’t forget who I am, little fawn.