Page 22 of Jailer to the Death God
Silence falls, oppressive as death, over the room. I don’t want to fall asleep, not while I’m sharing a bed with the death god—but my body isn’t giving me a choice.
“Don’t touch me,” I murmur, as I drift away.
“No fear of that. Don’t let me wake to your wormy human limbs writhing all over me. I know my beauty is irresistible but really, you must try not to yield.”
“Ugh, shut up,” I groan, turning my back to him.
And then I’m sliding down a black slope, a sheet of angled rock so steep I can’t halt my terrifying speed. I’m flung off the edge into blackness, whirling through a void where bulging, diseased eyes wink out of the darkness at me and cracked lips yawn, shattering the silence with their choked screams, vomiting scabrous crawling things over me and I scream, flailing and lurching—
My hands contact firm flesh. Fingers grip my wrists, and a low voice says, “Hush. It’s a nightmare, you’re only dreaming.”
But I don’t know that voice. I’m blind, lost in the dark, scaly legs squirming over my body. I scream again, and when a hand presses over my mouth, I bite down, hard.
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The Queen’s small teeth punch through the skin between my forefinger and thumb, drawing blood.
She’s a savage little creature, her soft limbs gone rigid, galvanized into weapons. I jerk my hand away from her mouth and hold her down with my body. My weight seemed to settle her before; perhaps it will work again.
“It’s a nightmare,” I growl at her. “Calm down, human. You’re safe.”
A sudden pain shears between my shoulder blades, and I choke, my heart shuddering, damaged, my left lung slit and leaking.
Someone has plunged a sword into my back.
I turn, snarling, choking up blood. Then I’m being dragged off the queen by two overzealous bodyguards, flung onto the floor, stabbed again, this time in the chest—
The Queen roars, “Stop!”
The bodyguards freeze.
“Your Majesty,” one says. “Are you all right?”
“You idiots,” she seethes. “This is the foreign healer I’ve brought to help us. And you stabbed him!”
“He was on top of you, Majesty,” falters the guard. “You were screaming—we thought—”
“I appreciate your vigilance, but you may go now. Count yourselves fortunate that he can heal himself.”
“Our deepest apologies,” the guards stammer, retreating.
After a moment the door to the suite closes.
“Oh god,” groans the Queen. She flings herself out of the bed and fumbles around, managing to light a candle. “Now everyone will be talking about how you and I were in bed together. Shit, you’re a mess. You can heal yourself, I hope? You’re a little more human, you said, but still not mortal.”
I can already feel my body knitting its torn flesh back together. “Yes, I can heal,” I rasp. “Fuck, that hurt.”
“You got blood on my side of the bed. And on the carpet.”
“Such gratitude.” I heave myself up off the floor. “You drew the first blood. That’s the last time I try to calm you after a nightmare.”
I touch my chest, and my fingers come away coated in scarlet. The Queen shrinks from me a little.
“You’ve seen plenty of blood, and shed it too,” I tell her. “Surely it doesn’t scare you.”
“No,” she says. But as I reach out with my bloody fingers, she inhales sharply and dodges aside. “Go wash yourself.”
“Why don’tyouwash me?” I suggest, with a slanted smile. “It’s your fault the guards tried to kill me, after all. I suppose they thought I was murdering you.”
