Chapter 8 Ashivire #2
It was as if the bargain recognized I shouldn’t have the ability to feel anything beyond anger, and I was being punished for doing so.
This was not the type of pain I found pleasure in.
An involuntary groan slipped past my lips, and I hinged at the waist, dropping my head between my legs as I tried to breathe through the agony curling inside me.
“You do not look fine. Tell me what is happening.” Landon’s voice pitched higher in concern as he rubbed my back with soothing circles.
Typically, I’d shove him off for offering such a comforting gesture, but it felt too good to consider doing so right now. I found my breathing evening out from his soft touch, enough that I could sit straight and lean my head against the padded wall.
“I don’t know what is going on with me.” I inhaled deeply, letting my eyes shut.
I felt braver expanding on my thoughts when I didn’t have to stare into my bodyguard’s worried eyes.
“Ever since dinner with my mother”—For Serpent’s Sake—“with Nedra, I’ve felt . . . different.”
“Different how?” Landon asked, his voice starting to even out into its normal comforting timber.
I gently rubbed my pounding temples while deciding how much I wanted to reveal about my past. Landon wasn’t alive when I made my bargain, so he only knows of the rumors my people spread through my lands, or what I choose to share with him—which wasn’t much.
So, I decided to offer him part of my truth.
“My emotions changed when I made the bargain with the Serpent King. I lost the ability to feel certain emotions, but the other night I felt things I haven’t since before my bargain.”
I cracked an eye open, only to see Landon rubbing his jaw.
“These emotions you lost . . . do you think they will all return to you?” He glanced at me with an odd expression I couldn’t decipher.
With a discreet inhale, I identified the floral scent with ease, my lip curling at the putrid scent.
Hope.
I forced my disgust down, donning my mask of indifference as I met Landon’s hopeful stare.
I stared at him without an ounce of remorse. “No, I don’t think my emotions will come back, and I don’t wish for them to return even if they could.”
His face drooped with disappointment, but he quickly shook the emotions away, turning his gaze to the rolling black dunes.
After Landon didn’t say anything else, I followed his lead and watched my homelands pass by.
The vast dunes began to fade into the distance as the capital city of Ashivire came into view, if one could even call Veranda a city—it looked more like a small town full of canvas tents and wooden carts, with not even one solid building still standing.
Only rubble remained of the once glorious city that stood here before my bargain.
The carriage came to a startling halt, and I was quickly blinded by a burst of light. With a hand shielding my eyes, my vision slowly swam back to me to see that one of my imbecile guards yanked open the carriage door without any warning.
I most definitely would be firing him the moment we got back to the Queendom of Phantamos.
The metal of the carriage creaked, signaling Landon was exiting first, as was customary. Smoothing the bodice of my gown and fluffing my hair, I prepared myself as best as I could for what I would face beyond this door.
I’ve only returned to Ashivire once since escaping seventy-five years prior, and I swore never to return again.
Unfortunately, I was a notorious liar.
My hand slightly trembled as I placed it in my bodyguard’s and stepped into the bright light.
Landon and Reena think I came back to Ashivire simply to stop the rebel group, but there was more to my plans than I had shared.
As the carriage rolled away, I glanced over my shoulder, toward the sole mountain towering high into the sky on the horizon.
It was carved out of pure obsidian stone, dark clouds rumbling around the peak, creating a stark contrast to the clear blue skies gathered along the base of the mountain.
My sharp eyesight lingered at the very tip of the peak, where I knew the opening of the caves was—Morotis, the caves of doom and death.
A chill raced down my spine at the thought of the Serpent King’s realm, but I forced myself to look away from my past and toward the city awaiting me.
The people staring back at me had weathered and wrinkled skin, proof the brutal sun in these lands was unforgiving.
They wore linen cloths tied around the bottom half of their faces to aid against the frequent sandstorms, and my lips pursed at how dirty they all looked while gawking at their queen’s arrival.
I threw a sharp smile at the residents of Veranda, and my snakes hissed ferociously as they assessed the peasants.
One man with a cane nearly jumped out of his skin as my snakes hissed, quickly hobbling behind a cart to seek refuge.
The crowd dispersed when they, too, realized their deadly mistake at blatantly staring at me.
“This way, my Queen.” Landon led me through the small town and toward the largest tent lying at the edge of the ruins.
He held the cream linen open for me, but another chill licked up my spine, prompting me to stop on the threshold.
It was almost as if there was a magnet between me and the place beckoning to me as I turned toward the mountain I could never forget.
My eyes cut back to the daunting summit looming in the distance.
By tomorrow, the rebel group would die by my hand, and I would walk through those caves once again. My jaw tightened at the thought, but I forced myself to remember how far I’ve come.
I was no longer the powerless, broken, mortal girl I was when I first stumbled through those caves on my twenty-fifth birthday.
I was a monster.
I was the Serpent Queen.