Page 27 of The Bone King and the Starling

“Now, now, my lady,” Chief Olec laughs. “Let’s not be greedy. The king is our guest. He’s brought with him a bounty and is entitled to whatever comforts he likes.”

“The king has deflowered our ward. Now, we will not be able to collect a bride price for her or wed her off. The king could, with his unlimited wealth, at least pay a consolation for that,” Rosalind asserts.

But the king, in what is becoming a predictable fashion, says something else entirely. “Did you feed her before or after you beat her?”

“You think I am in the practice of feeding unruly thralls, my liege?” Rosalind balks. “I think not.”

“So if that is the practice of your little village then, Olaf, when do the thralls eat?” Olaf. He called him Olaf.

Olec scoffs, sounding flustered as Hilde and I walk very slowly toward the throne. My feet pause and I look back to see Olec gesturing wildly with his cup, wine spilling over its wooden edge. “You cannot possibly expect me to believe the thralls of your village eat like kings, my king?”

“You are right. You cannot, for my village has no thralls. We have those that serve and they are paid a wage as well as fed during celebrations. The god Lohr would be displeased with the care you’ve given his servants. They are responsible for the feasts that lead to much of the debauchery and lust he feeds on.” The king has yet to resume his seat. Rather, he sits his hip on thetable, his arms hanging casually down at his sides. His gaze no longer returns to me, but is focused on Olec and Rosalind.

Olec swallows, his voice growing shrill. “My wife and I have cared for that thrall as if she were our own, my liege. She’s been fed and clothed and protected, which is more than most orphans can claim. We’ve spent a good deal of our own coin on her. My wife is perhaps a bit bold, but not wrong in requesting fair compensation now that you’ve ruined her.”

“And fair compensation is what you shall receive. Eighteen silvers plus nine gold pieces, times three. Puhyo? Can you prepare this endowment for our Lady Rosalind?” His voice does not shake with them as it did with me. But it holds an edge.

Puhyo’s eyes flare before returning to their typical hawkish prudence. “Of course, King.”

“And please bring it to me. I’d like to provide the offering directly.”

“Of course.” Puhyo leaves. Rosalind and Olec are muttering still. Hilde, behind me says, “Come, my lady. I need to get that looked at and you need to get into a bath of healing salts, bring up that temperature right quick.”

I nod absently, this feeling of betrayal making me feel a little…raw. He plans to pay her after all?

“Don’t concern yourself with those others now. Come with me. We need to focus on your healing. I will have some choice words with our king once he’s finished with those disgusting pigs that run your village.”

My body reacts viscerally hearing her speak of Chief Olec in such a way. And I’m staring at her, shocked still as she leads me to a tub filled with noxious-smelling salts where I’m carefully scrubbed, oiled, slathered in salves and then, once dried off, stitched and treated before I’m put to bed by Hilde and two thralls I recognize — both of whom are rewarded with coins when they are finished. And I am ashamed by my enviousthoughts. I was promised rewards…but the thralls who care for me now have more coin than I have. And I owe Lady Rosalind so much…

I’m brought food by the same thralls and Hilde stands over me and ensures that I eat to her satisfaction and drink a thick tea that warms me from the inside. And as I fall asleep, I want to think over the strange, contradictory way the king presented himself today, but furs are draped over the bed now, weighing down my blankets and dragging me to sleep.

And as I sleep, I dream in the violent colors of terrible, terrible screams.

THE FORGER

Iwatch the skin peel away from her face, smell the scent it creates, a familiar one to me as her body is remade by greed, her head cocked back, her chest caved, her mouth open on a silent scream. Behind me, her male screams a blood-curdling shriek that will be heard by the gods.

As it would seem, I was a little angrier than I originally thought.

When I first saw the bruising on my female’s cheek and the lashes on her back, I couldn’t believe it. Never in my wildest dreams could I have envisioned that a female I had claimed would be brutalized in such a way. It would seem that I have failed in all ways to stake my claim over her. To provide her shelter. I am…unused to feeling like this.

As I struggle through my feelings, my concern, my relief that she isn’t more badly damaged, I watch Starling disappear behind the throne and, only when I’m certain she is out of the hall, in the chief’s room, do I turn to Rosalind and drop the mask I’d been wearing. Any veneer of control slips from my grasp. I feel the veins pop in my forehead. I feel my face grow hot.

“Before you receive your payment, Lady Rosalind, I’ll see the whip you used to flay my little bird’s back.”

Lady Rosalind is sitting up. She has hold of her fork and knife but her wrists are resting on the edge of the table. Her brow is furrowed, but there’s a hesitation in her expression that was not there before. She is not so quick this time with her retort.

“Is that necessary, King?” King. Not my king, but King.

I smile. “Yes.”

She extracts the tangle of wires from her skirts and I hold out my hand, taking them from her. I stand between her and Olec’s chairs now. “A crude thing.”

“It does the trick.”

“I’d like to try.”

“Excuse me, King Calai?”

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