My Beloved Queen

CHAPTER THIRY-FIVE

warning: language and (some) gore

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xxxv. the assassin

enemy
// fear has bred anger, and anger has wrought hate, but enmity is nothing more than a shell—a hard casing beneath which their hope sleeps, safe and sheltered by their sour loathing.

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Aelathai's ears were still ringing. It was a sharp, echoing sort of sound—a bell only he could hear, but if it were death which came for him, it was certainly taking its sweet time.

A pickaxe was digging at his skull, and when he tried to breathe, pain like fire erupted in his chest and nose. He was already dead, but the guards were cowards. They'd let him rot here. They'd keep him just on the verge of death, teetering over that jagged edge so carefully he could only just peer down into the shadowy depths, but they'd never kill him. The tyrant they called king wouldn't let them.

Bastard.

He'd almost killed the monster. He'd been so close, but that bitch of a queen had seen him, and she'd screamed louder than a whore. It had been a sharp sound—an alarm, cutting through his skull—and so sudden that he'd stumbled. She'd screamed as though he were killing her, as though perhaps it was her heart for whom his blade was meant.

"Are you awake?" She'd asked, and her voice had been so soft and sweet. So oddly kind and clear. How could she still stomach honey? How could she speak so softly when she was being bred by a beast? "I'm not here to cause you harm."

He could taste his own blood; it sat like coins in the back of his mouth, but every now and again it would pool on his tongue, and he'd hack it up like saliva. He was knocking on death's door, and all because she couldn't keep her pretty little mouth shut. Was she blind, or stupid? Or perhaps both. A foolish, blind queen. Gods. What had Ceorid come to? A monster of a king on the throne—a murderer who'd claimed innocence, and noblemen quick to believe his lies. Peace, they'd called it, but what peace—what justice—could a murderer bring?

King Seren had followed Velena into the afterlife, and the last of his brothers had been slaughtered by Orelus's hand, but there was hope. There had to be hope. The true king would win back his throne, and honest peace would be had for all.

Fullus would not go unavenged.

The air was cold with frost, and the ice prickled the back of his throat like a thousand pins. His blood was turning to jelly and clotting in his heart and brain, and when he shivered, his bones crunched like broken glass, but he was cold—so awfully, terribly cold. His flesh was ice, and yet his blood was warm.

There came a sound down the hall—footsteps, steady and firm, but not so heavy as a guard's. A servant? Perhaps he was only imagining the sound; the ringing muffled all other noise, even the beat of his own heart, but he could hear himself breathe just fine. It was an awful, rattling sound, wet and harsh, like the bones of his spine had been pushed into his windpipe, and pieces of bleeding flesh had caught upon his lungs.

His eyelids were heavy, and the edges of his vision blurred like dirty water. The world was stone and straw, and he was a fleshy sack of agony, slumped up against a wall that felt so cold it was hot. Where were his fingers? The guards had cut them off. He had no fingers. He'd eaten them. He was starving, but his stomach was full. Blood, blood in his mouth. Blood in his eyes and stomach and chest. The floor was made of it. The floor was pulsing to the beat of his own heart.

Where were his fingers? What had happened to his hands? He couldn't scream. His tongue was too dry. His mouth was too full, and he was choking. No air. No lungs. Just dirt and sand, and blood and flesh.