Page 473 of Kingdoms of Night

“Is this something required of you?” I asked, attempting to make sense of all he’d told me so far. “You seem quite reluctant to be plucking helpless human girls and doing the stars know what with them. Why keep doing that unless what you’re attempting is failing—”

Terror harpooned through me, heartbeat like a stampede.

“Sacrifices. That’s what we are.” My voice trembled harder than I did, childlike with crushing dread. “You are going to feed me to the moon-goddess, aren’t you?”

A breathy, rusty laugh rumbled out of him, like his own response had not just taken him aback, but felt foreign to his insides. A feeling I knew too well lately. “Now, wouldn’t that be an interesting sight? Certainly more creative than the terrible truth that brought us here.”

I glanced behind him, where a stepped stage held a multifaceted throne and carved on its back was a crescent in a circle, the waning moon within the full moon. “What?”

In a burst of shadows and a rush of wind that played at my clothes, he was close, breathing into my ear. “Did you really think I’d go through the trouble of finding a wife just so I could spill her blood?”

“What else am I supposed to think?” I hissed, not daring to face him. “Six girls were chosen from neighboring nations, and not one became your consort. Otherwise you wouldn’t keep returning for one.”

“Have you considered that I keep returning because they’re not the right one?”

“For what?” I licked my dry lips, keeping my eyes ahead. “What do you need us for?”

I felt him retreat then caught him heading down to an arched doorway. “I’ve yet to understand it myself, otherwise I would have stopped with the first.”

Beyond confused, I followed him, entering a balcony-floor that overlooked a grand space with a fountain pouring a frothing, pale cyan liquid. From its base to the walls, the area was coated in a beautiful, highly detailed pattern, not quite floral and not quite abstract, all in shades of sea-blue, ivory and moss.

The doorways were all arched and bordered with opalescent ceramic, each holding a platinum door engraved with exhausting, mirrored detail with a ring-handle.

He stopped by the third door and faced me with a swift twist that had my knees and waist aching in sympathy. “What reason did they send you here with?”

I bit my tongue to avoid blurting the nerve-wracking truth. That I was sent to bury this holy dagger in his heart and bring back our guide through the darkest hours. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what did they say to convince you to become my bride?”

“Convince me?” I laughed. “You think any of your brides were convinced? We had our arms twisted, some were probably dragged by their hair.”

Shock stiffened his edges. But how was this a surprise?

“That is not what I asked of your leaders when I first descended to the Earth,” he hissed, tense with anger. “I told them I needed a specific kind of woman to come forward and claim her place by my side. One who would not fear the dark or the divine, and least of all, myself.”

The human leaders he’d dropped that order on had clearly not abided by it.

“And none of the six before me were such a thing?” I asked. “You didn’t find the unsuitable selection suspicious?”

“I am unfamiliar with modern humanity, but I know they were fragile compared to the lunars I live among,” he said. “I gave each one time, and none showed signs of being what I needed.”

“And what is it that you need from us?” I was choked up, growing more overwhelmed by the minute. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing more than what any man wants from his wife.” I felt his outline shift, becoming a more precise shape, a cloaked man with something growing out of his back. “To be seen and loved in spite of it.”

Feeling bold, I pressed my back against the door, ready to duck in should obliging me go awry. “Then shirk your shadows, show me who you are.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

How beastly was he beneath his shapeless disguise? Was he one of those terrifying snake-haired creatures from the west that turned whoever gazed upon them into stone?

“Are you going to give me a reason why?”

“None beyond the terms of my curse.”

All my thoughts came to a crashing halt, piling up like a row of carriages at the base of a slope.

“Curse?”I goggled at him. “Aren’t you a god?”

---