Page 12 of To Claim a King

Turning to her elder sister, eyes shining, she begged, “Don’t let him hurt anyone else. Watch him.” Aleria nodded, as the Guard seized her and shoved her towards the door.

Xandrie felt the same fury that had overcome her by the village walls, rise from the pit of her stomach. She needed to contain herself, save that energy for what came next. She knew, all too well, what the dungeons of Malec held. There would be pincers and fire and thumbscrews and a rack. Worse yet, they were staffed with the most brutal of all men.

She wasn’t wrong. The dungeons were stacked to the ceiling with well-oiled and highly-polished instruments of torture. The dungeon master took great pride in his work. Felons and villains folded under his hand.

Xandrie was lashed to a tilting table, the vicious tools of her torturer all around her. She didn’t know where it came from, but each time the vile brute approached her, she burned with the power of a thousand suns and neither he, nor any of his sniveling henchmen, could touch her. They had not managed to break her skin once.

Darsen hovered in the background, consulting with the counsellors and noblemen he and her parents were so close with.

Pfft, noble my ass. You’re no more a noble than I’m a vessel of the Demon.

A glint of gold said the Mayor was back there, in his ceremonial garb. He didn’t dare draw close. None of them did. They were all of one opinion: she was possessed. She had consorted with, and did the bidding of, none other than the Demon of Bhashtar. There was only one sentence.

That sentence was “Death.”

Demon

The gold felt good. No, better than good: it felt like perfection. No wonder alchemists had studied it through all time. Its heft, its luster, the way it sang in his brain was more calming to his nerves than all the draughts his physicians might prescribe. Though he knew it was a sickness – that he was obsessed and should find a way to curb his appetite for the metal – Rhey Vasili plunged his hands deep into his hoard and let the coins run through his fingers. He wanted to stop. He meant to. He’d tried to. He’d even managed to stay away for a day at a time. But he always returned to his chambers, to seek the solace precious metal afforded him. He feared he’d never rid himself of the hunger for gold.

The curse of his kind: the most powerful amongst them eventually grew sick. Feral. First, they were fascinated by gold, then, by the dark - last, came flesh and fire. This was how he had come to be crowned before his time - his father had left when his hunger for gold had devolved into a taste for flesh. He would suffer the same fate one day; there was no cure for it. He knew that was the reason why the Elders had called for the Claimings; they wanted the Kingdom to have a Queen, and an heir, when the time came. They were preparing for his fall.

Rhey hadn’t had the time to count and touch all his coins for weeks, but he was almost done, when the doors to his private chambers clanged open. He stood, ready to growl at whoever had dared invade his sanctum, but his scowl disappeared when he took in the unexpected visitor.

“I need your help; we don’t have a moment to lose. Please, Rhey, come with me.” Demelza already had him by the arm and was dragging him towards the door, babbling about someone who needed saving.

“Slow down,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on. Who’s in danger?”

Demelza sighed. “I have a friend…”

Rhey smiled. “You have a lot of friends, many of whom get in more trouble than you could shake a stick at. Who’s done what and what do I need to do to fix it?”

Demelza dropped her voice. “Her name is Xandrie.”

Rhey frowned. That was an unusual name, and he wasn’t familiar with it, which did confuse him as he absorbed every detail, forever branding them in his memory. Rhey never forgot anything.

Demelza dropped her voice. “She’s human.”

“Human?” He tried not to sound alarmed, but if Demelza was found to be consorting with a human, there’d be hell to pay. He fixed her with his most authoritative, steely gaze. It had no effect on her, whatsoever. She knew the penalties for fraternizing with a human, but here she was saying nothing was more important than saving this woman.

“Look, I can’t explain it, but it’s as if we’ve known each other through time. I have no idea how or why, but I feel like she’s in danger. She’ll get tortured, Iknowit. You have to help me, Rhey.”

“You feel it?” said Rhey. “You haven’t actually seen it?”

“That’s what I am a trying to tell you. I don’t need to see it. It’s in my blood, my bones, my everything. Xandrie is in danger and we need to help.”

Rhey threw his cloak over his shoulders. “The Elders will skin our hides when they find out, Elza.”

Demelza smiled briefly.

“Mine, perhaps. But you do happen to be their King.”

* * *

The sentence had been“Death” but they were making a pig’s ear out of executing her. In other circumstances, she might have found it entertaining.

First they’d come at her with long flaming torches, lit her clothes on fire, and lobbed bundles of kindling at her. Her tunic and trousers hissed and singed and fell to the floor, but she stood naked and unharmed. She could even feel her hair about shoulders. She should have been bald and eyebrow-less, but not a single hair on her body had been burned away.

Right, so that was weird as all hells, but she wasn’t exactly complaining. Whatever luck she had, she just hoped it carried on.

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