Page 32 of Jailer to the Death God
“Have you given up then?” Arawn growls at me, his eyes snapping. “Will you not quell this foolishness?”
I look up at him, bleeding and tired and empty.
I am at the end of myself.
Shock and pity flare in his eyes, and he cups my chin, turning my face so he can see the wound.
“They hurt you.” His words vibrate with dark intent. “It should have been me. You were foolish to get in the way. But never mind that now. I will handle this.”
He breaks out of the knot of guards, lifts both arms, and roars, in the voice of the death god, “Silence!”
The tenement houses along the street seem to tremble at his voice, and the very cobbles rumble with the force of that single word.
A hollow silence falls in the wake of his roar.
Even in human aspect, Arawn is taller than them all—physically dominant, his eyes flashing green, power emanating from his broad-shouldered form as he stalks among the frozen crowd.
“You call me a killer.” His voice rings, crisp and loud, along the street, reaching every ear. “I am.”
A few people gasp or whimper, but they don’t move. They are his captives now, all of them.
“You believe I have dark magic.” Arawn laughs, cold and cruel. “I do.”
Shadows flood out of him, crawling across the ground, over the frightened crowd, up the buildings along the street.
“You see it now.” Arawn’s tone is menacing, exultant. “It is only by the grace of your queen that I am sparing most of your pitiful lives. And you would disrespect her? You would harm her? For gifting you your last chance of survival? Look at her!”
He shoves aside my guards, draws me forward swiftly to face the crowd. “Look at her, you pack of thankless wretches! She could be in the palace, warm by a fire. Yet here she is, enduring the darkness and the cold with you. Here she has been every day, walking this city with me, showing you kindness while I visit your sick. And this is what you’ve done to her, this compassionate queen who wants nothing for herself. She craves nothing more than the good of her people, and this is how you thank her? Look upon your good work!”
He turns my face aside, showing the blood running down my cheek. A few of the women in the crowd begin to weep.
“No one else will help you!” shouts Arawn. “No one else cares, but she—” he jabs a finger toward me— “she does. You will never understand what she has given up to bring me here, to save you. She wants me to save you. SoI will.”
His great chest is heaving under his cloak, and his jaw is hard and tight, teeth clenched. He looks at me, furious, hungry, and demanding, and my heart tugs compulsively toward him, captive to the voiceless command in those fierce eyes.
Then he turns back to his audience.
“Children infected with this plague usually die within a day or two,” he says. “But it has been three days since I began my work in your city. Have your children died since I touched them? No. That one fact alone makes you better off since my arrival. So rejoice, you ungrateful worms—rejoice in the survival of the next generation, and do not begrudge the lives of the unworthy few whom I condemn.”
His shadows dissolve into nothing, and it seems as if they carry the people’s anger with them.
The crowd is softened, subdued. Shaken.
Arawn stopped them. Rebuked them. It’s exactly what they needed in the moment, and now they need something else. They need comfort and reassurance from their Queen.
Suddenly, I know what to say.
I grip Arawn’s sleeve. “That barrel, there. Help me onto it.”
He grasps my waist immediately and lifts me to the perch I indicated. His tall frame, rigid at my side, gives me courage. If I start to fall, he’ll catch me.
“I have been raised with privilege,” I say, through trembling lips, “so I won’t pretend to know how each one of you feels, how you’ve suffered. What I do understand is loss.” My voice is low, heavy, and raw, drenched in the pain of my torn heart. “My parents are dead. My brother is dead. My best friends are dead. So many people I knew and loved—gone.”
I have their attention now.
They’re listening.
My people. My strong, weary, anxious, broken people.
