🏆 SHORTLIST - OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST 2024 🏆
A witch has to pretend to be the wife of the Prince of the Dead in exchange for resurrecting her lover.
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Mavyn of Krauss has...
Mavyn kissed her teeth. "Say that to the mud I left on your floor."
A look of confusion passed across Valen's near-perfect features. "What mud?"
She clawed the air, frustration welling up in her gut. If there was anything she hated, it was attention she didn't want but still given. "The mud—" She looked down. "Oh."
Not only was she not in her mourning clothes, a tight ball gown whose skirts resembled the Queen's formal wear hugged her body. Tight. She had only seen one on a person during a seasonal parade, but never did she imagine she would be in it. But compared to the Queen's, this one didn't choke her to death with cloth tied to her neck. Instead, it slid down, down to her breasts, showing her something she didn't want to acknowledge. Her plum locks, previously flat and uninteresting, watered her shoulders in luscious curls, bringing out the magenta streaks more. When did he...?
"I cannot have you facing my family wearing rags," Valen answered a half-formed question in her mind. For an immortal who saw through every soul's life and death in mere seconds, he had the gall to look bashful.
She forced her jaw to stay together. It has been dangling far too long. "What do you mean by 'continue'?" she demanded instead.
Valen strode towards her, closing the distance between them in two steps. He reached out as if to claim Mavyn's soul, red eyes flashing in urgency. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for pain. Only silence and a smooth whish of air kissed her skin. Slowly, she cracked her eyes open. He was back to where he was, leaning against a shorter pillar and regarding her with a passive look.
"What did you do?" Mavyn asked. One foolish question after another, it seemed. Nothing like the sage witch she prided herself as.
The Kathari blinked. He took his sweet time doing it too. "I masked your energy by shrouding you with Death Matter," he explained as if it was the end of reasoning. "You shall be able to walk around without causing alarm."
"Because the dead feed off the energy of the living?" Mavyn prodded.
Valen raised an eyebrow. "Not quite." He pushed off the pillar and started pacing to a bejeweled pedestal in the middle of the room. Another skylight smaller than the one in the atrium directed the same eerie light on a single stalk of silver flower stuck in an ornate glass vase. Without inhibition, he plucked the flower and turned it in his fingers. "The Monarch doesn't allow any Living in the realm because it is fatal. Life Matter is deadly to a Kathari."
Oh. "So, what now?" She spread her hands, steeling her nerves for whatever Valen required of her as part of their deal.
"Now..." Valen closed his hand with a flourish, and when he splayed his fingers out once more, nothing but smoke curled from his palm. "We go out there."
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When the Kathari entered the room, Mavyn could've sworn she heard fanfare even though all that rang in the huge hall was a faint droll of static—like wind howling deep in her ears. The first to appear was a woman who had her silver hair bobbed to her chin, curling only in rigid spikes behind her ears. Instead of a ball gown or even a semblance of a dress, she wore loose trousers, partnered with steel-tipped stick-heeled boots. A white undershirt peeked past the crossed lapels on her chest, decorated with a loosely-looped scarf.
