Page 20 of Jailer to the Death God
“It’s all right,” I soothe her. “Don’t go back to the kitchen, not in this state. Go to your quarters and get some sleep.”
Arawn looks at me quizzically, but he says nothing.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. The night cook says he’s sorry it isn’t very nice food,” says Hessie. “He made a big pot of soup for the sick and those watching over them, so there are two bowls of that, and some biscuits with jam. We’re running low on jam. And flour. And the broth had to be watered down, but—”
“It smells delicious.” In fact, the aroma of the soup is making my empty stomach cramp with need. “Run along. And say nothing of what you saw.”
Hessie runs from the room, pausing in the doorway for a frightened half-curtsy and a quavery, “My lord,” to Arawn.
He has set the tray on one of the low parlor tables, and he’s inspecting the food curiously.
“I thought you only killed those deserving of death,” I snap at him.
“All humans deserve death, and are hastening toward it. Some deserve it more than others. And sometimes a specific death is the best way to ensure a goal, or to gain respect. My role is not justice in this life, but in the Unlife.”
“A strange set of rules. One might say they’re excuses, so you can do anything you want. How like a god, to use immense power in such selfish, impetuous ways.”
“Careful, little Queen. I may be bound to your purpose, but I can still make your life miserable if you disrespect me. And I can make it a torturous existence beyond the grave.”
“So you’ve mentioned,” I say dryly.
He picks up a spoon and samples the broth from one bowl. “It’s good,” he says, in a tone of surprise.
“The palace cooks are the best in the kingdom. Even with fewer supplies than usual, they manage to create palatable food.”
My limbs are weak with hunger, so I slump down onto the rug beside the table and begin eating, not even bothering to sit properly and hold the bowl. I just leave it on the tray and transfer wobbly spoonfuls into my mouth while Arawn watches me.
“You should take your own advice,” he says. “You keep telling everyone to sleep, when it’s clear you require rest more than any of them.”
At first I think it’s rather kind of him to observe, but then he says, with a curl of his lip, “Humans, so frail and needy. Captive to their fleshy bodies and their base desires.” He takes a large bite of biscuit with jam and hums in delight, almost as if he can’t help the sound.
I feel like laughing again. A brief impulse, swiftly drowned in a fresh wave of pain as I remember Rose making me smile today.
I was already resigned to losing Leilani. I didn’t think I would lose Rose, too.
Over the past months, I’ve learned that pain is a many-colored thing. At times it is raw and red like an angry wound. Other times it curdles, yellow and bilious, in my stomach, or seethes green and poisonous through my teeth. It is sometimes hard and white as bone. Most often, it is an endless pool of inky sludge, gulping me down.
It feels like sludge now, thick and oily and oozing, sucking me into oblivion.
“What’s this?” Arawn plucks something off the tray and holds it up.
I snatch it from his hand. “A note from one of the palace managers. He must have sent it up with the food.”
Setting down my spoon, I open the note.
“Bad news, I take it,” says Arawn.
“I just met with the Council today about the food crisis,” I murmur. “They want to meet with me again tomorrow morning, about an urgent matter. What could they possibly want to discuss that can’t wait until our scheduled session two days from now?”
The wording of the Council’s note distresses me. There’s something faintly accusatory about it. Or perhaps I’m imagining that tone. But I didn’t imagine the hostile atmosphere during today’s council meeting, when I was bombarded with a myriad of questions to which I had few answers.
They knew I wouldn’t have answers. The council members know I depend onthemfor advice. Yet today they rallied for a verbal onslaught against which I had no defense. If I hadn’t been so distracted, mentally planning the summoning of a death god, their attack might have hurt worse.
I know I’m an ill-prepared monarch for this time of crisis. I’ve had no training for such events—only my own hasty research and my common sense. Not that any amount of training could have prepared even someone as skilled as my father for dealing with this plague. Despite the best efforts at management, the sickness has spread like a brush fire in the dry season. There’s little we can do but wait until it has run its course.
Now that Arawn is in my service, that has changed. But I cannot present him before the Council as proof of my competence. There would be too many questions, too many people wanting to use him for their own personal goals.
I can’t present him as “the death god.” Perhaps I can use the same false backstory I gave the servants—that he’s a foreign healer. But the council members will have more questions, like “How did he travel here? Where is his ship and its crew? What is his family name? What city in Terelaus does he come from?”
