Chapter 7 #2
I strode behind her as she left the stage outside the Palace of Solace, still smiling serenely at the horrified faces about me. An old man, confusion etched into his weathered face, cried out.
‘Heretic!’
She turned to face him, twisting that blood red ruby within her pale fingers, eyes wide with curiosity.
‘You’re no vessel. You don’t—’
His words died as one of her guards grabbed him, slamming a dagger up through his neck and into his mouth. My boot almost slipped in his freshly spilt blood as I strode past, still with that smile on my face. The gasps and sobs of the people I’d been born to protect pierced my heart.
I had to stop the usurper. But how?
As the guards of Carush closed my palace doors behind me, she kicked off her shoes and spun around.
‘You know, boys’ – she grabbed Ifan’s hands, spinning them both around the entrance hall – ‘I thought that was rather successful.’
The empress let go of Ifan’s hands and he stumbled before straightening. Evellum cuffs were slapped on my wrists and finally, the smile slid from my face as the empress’s control ebbed.
‘You killed him,’ I cried as two guards pointed their swords at my thundering heart. ‘He was harmless. He’d never hurt anyone—’
‘But his words could.’ The empress stood below a portrait of my parents.
The one they’d commissioned to commemorate their wedding, scratching flakes of pink skin from the back of her neck.
I swallowed past my rage. I’d wanted to commission a portrait for my wife.
I’d dreamt of how she’d select the artist. The arguments we’d have over whether or not the bloody wolf would feature.
Another dream I’d allowed to wilt. Another failure.
‘If I let him speak to me like a spoilt brat, the rebellion would spread.’
She walked up to the portrait, one hand tugging the ruby, the other swishing her pale pink skirts.
She tilted her head as she stared at my father’s green eyes.
It was hard to remember him that way. His brown hair smoothed back, a wide grin on his lips and a sparkle in his eyes.
I couldn’t recall a time when my mother had gazed at him as she had in the painting.
The way her dark eyes were locked on him, as though he were a god brought to Eusis.
She wore her long, straight, dark hair loose to her hips, unblemished with grey as when she’d crossed the seas to visit her family in the Southern lands all those months ago.
Gods, my heart twisted at the thought of her learning of my many failings.
She always said I was far too much like Father.
‘It spreads,’ the empress repeated as my eyes slipped back to her.
A leering guard raised his sword, as though he’d read my murderous thoughts.
‘If I let the peasants speak that way. It spreads like’ – she turned around, looking for inspiration, her nose wrinkled – ‘like blood on a clean white marble floor.’ She spread her arms wide, spinning again.
‘And if I let it spread, I could slip. I might fall and get hurt and if there’s one thing I don’t like, Asmar, it’s getting hurt.
You’ve no idea the lengths I’m prepared to go, the sins I’ll commit to gain my safe haven. ’
A sneer crossed her thin lips as she turned her childlike gaze to the painted ceilings.
Scenes unfolded above us: Evella standing before Eusis, her hands spread out as Vyrus’s meteor shattered against her protection for us; Vyrus’s face filled with rage as flames burned across him; the seven other Gods born of Vyrus in the background, waiting for a sliver of weakness from their vengeful creator.
I closed my eyes. Sorrow hadn’t been able to see the mural above her whenever she’d crossed the entrance hall.
I breathed deeply and forced my eyes back open.
The empress spun once more, swaying and peering at my parents again.
A bitter stone lodged within my throat. It was one of the few portraits she hadn’t defaced.
I stood in the ruins of centuries’ worth of history and priceless art.
She’d taken our flags and banners, dancing in their ashes with her arms swaying above her head.
It was as though she wanted to rewrite the past. Eradicate Asmar from existence.
She cast a coy glance over her shoulder.
I stood straight, fought the urge to swallow.
Anything to prevent her understanding how the destruction of that particular portrait would crush the king she’d already decimated.
‘I think we could improve this one,’ she said, setting her vacant gaze on Ifan. ‘Old Mr Asmar should wear the Sigel of the rebels.’
No. My heart thundered painfully against my ribs. That portrait was all that remained of my father since she’d destroyed his palace.
She giggled, pressing her pale fingers to her even paler lips. ‘Ifan.’ The fucking traitor stood straighter. ‘I need you to—’
‘Imperial Highness.’ Abbot Eiriulf’s sandals slapped across the marble, a book clutched in his pasty hands. A gleeful grin lay on his pallid face. ‘I found this in Glesni’s room. It talks about the relics! The temple! Look. Look. It says—’
The empress flew across the space, pressing her fingers over the abbot’s thick lips. The head of the Brotherhood’s eyes widened and the book tumbled to the ground.
‘Glesni’s rooms?’ I hissed. The empress turned her contorted expression from the silenced abbot to me. Shit. Had Eiriulf been about to let a secret slip? ‘You.’ My voice broke and I tried to ignore Ifan’s snort. ‘You’re not worthy to go through her things.’
I straightened, locking my gaze firmly onto the abbot.
The empress smiled, exposing her yellowing teeth and strode up to me, grabbing the Evellum cuffs.
Two swords were thrust against my neck. Was it worth running the risk of dying just to get one good slap in?
She shook the cuffs, her bottom lip protruding in a way that begged me to take a swipe at it.
‘No wonder Ifan was such a walk-over, Asmar.’ She gave the chains a hard rattle as I twitched against the trickle of blood running down my neck, seeping into my filthy collar.
‘Has anyone told you, you’re insufferably boring.
All this, woe is me, I’m so righteous, but keep fucking up thing is grating my nerves.
’ She pulled me in closer, stretching up on her tiptoes.
‘I know how you got your hands on Sorrow. I despise men like you. The ones who buy themselves a wife as though she were little more than a soulless transaction. When my father tried it, I killed him. Look where the support you tried to win from Romero landed you!’ She shook her head.
‘Watch yourself, Asmar. I need that Deviant wife of yours and you’re only breathing, as I suspect you’re the pretty little key to acquiring her.
I’d hate to have to tell her you’re dead. ’
I stepped closer, my jaw clenching as I ignored the swords digging into my neck.
‘I didn’t buy her,’ I snarled, as a glint sparked in her eyes. ‘I saved her. She’d be—’
The tip of a sword dug into my throat, just below my chin, silencing my words.
A myriad of emotions swirled across her face before she wiped her nose, a smile cracking over her crumbling face.
‘The arrogance of your sex never fails to trouble me, Asmar.’ She stepped back as I grunted, the sword twisting and blood dripping down my throat.
She snorted. ‘And no matter what I say, you’ll walk away with the belief that you saved her.
Plucked a feeble woman from the claws of Vyrus after Evella failed to heed her pitiful prayers.
I imagine you think she’s grateful every time you force her thighs apart and fuck her. ’
I shook my head, hissing as the blade cut a touch deeper. It hadn’t been like that for us. It hadn’t. My body shook as I tried to close the gap between us, but her guards got in the way.
‘And I imagine that twisted ego of yours is still painting you as the hero in that teeny tiny little mind of yours.’ I wanted nothing more than to swipe that smirk from her face.
‘The King. The legend. The songs sung from the rafters in taverns. I bet you sit in that cell, plotting how you and you alone will end me.’ She giggled, her eyes glazing over once more.
‘But I can guarantee it won’t be you in the history books, Asmar.
It’ll be your wife who’ll bring in the new dawn. As soon as I get her anyway.’
She laughed as a guard gripped my hair and dragged me back.
I may not be able to save Asmar. I may fail to save the world, but I’d be damned if I allowed her anywhere near my Sorrow.
‘Ifan.’ She took the book from Eiriulf. ‘Pop that vexing brother of yours in his cell, would you?’