My Beloved Queen

HIS PRIZE

(another special that does not follow the plot chronologically. just the wedding night chapter [ch 21] but from Orelus's POV. chosen by readers on Quotev as the special for 2,000+ hearts. feel free to skip.)

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iii. the triumphant

subjugator
// determination steadies his reaching grasp, and into his waiting palms, a glorious prize has been delivered. the songbird's gift rests now in his hands, and ne'er shall he let her go.

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Night had fallen. It slipped through windows and pooled just outside circles of warm candlelight, and as Orelus passed through it, it did not try to pull ferociously at his thoughts or move to grab him. This was not the darkness in which fear festered, the shadows of days where terror soured on his tongue. This was a night born of patience—a respite, soft and tender.

Yet, at the night's edges, menacing thoughts lurked. Molevri's concerns—Molevri's face, hollow and drained. The gods were still pulling at the boy, still badgering him with gory visions. Cruel, hateful futures, where the earth was red and fleshy, and the sky was black with ash, and clouds of fatty sulfur filled heaving lungs. Visions of a world without gods. A world where monsters paraded golden crowns, and heroes passed quietly in their mothers' wombs.

Fear-mongering. Disgusting and pitiful and the only tool still at the gods' disposal. They were without shame, but was that any surprise? Fear, the gods had always possessed in droves, and in the wake of terror, honor was but a thought—a fond but empty consideration.

A child was but another tool, another means to a dark and vile end. Another chance to succeed where men and women had failed.

A pity, then, that this baseless attempt would be just as fruitless as those that came before.

The woman with the silver-tongue was now in Orelus's possession, and through her vengeance—peace, so long denied—was a near certainty. Serenity was still just out of his reach, but vigilance would afford him its taste, and perseverance would provide him justice. Vengeance, for dead brothers and stolen mothers. Clarity, for a life shrouded in death.

Orelus stepped carefully through the quiet shadows and warm pools of light, and despite their soft, inviting shapes, he did not move to pause. He knew every twist and turn in his path—the stations of every guard, the placement of every door—and yet he still took care to watch, to pause before turning at corners. There was danger in familiarity, and though fatigue pulled at his eyelids and exhaustion grabbed for his hands and feet, he peered cautiously at the comfortable, kind shadows.

Joy was always quick to sour—death was, by nature, opportunistic, and it needn't hide in a shroud of terror if eyes grew too sluggish to spy it.

A short respite, however, was now upon him. The princess of Alaimore, now his queen—the silver-tongued woman, now his, now to whom he was dutifully bound. Another responsibility, another oath, sworn before a goddess whose power had little use besides, but was he not honest? Indeed, he'd had no business procuring her in such a manner, but now he had a husband's duty to her, and was he not deserving of such a responsibility? Did his suffering—all his hard-earned acquisitions and painful losses—not merit so kind and soft a respite?

Guards dipped their heads as he passed, and he nodded to them in turn before finally stopping. He'd arrived; the door to the bed-chamber was now before him, and the man who stood guard before it had already bowed his head.