Page 33 of Jailer to the Death God
“I passed through this plague,” I tell them. “There was no special magic or royal medicine to save or soothe me. People stronger than me have died from this sickness. I survived by chance, like the other survivors here. Spared, it would seem, by Death himself.”
I unpin my cloak and shuck it off, and I drag down the loose neck of my gown, showing the sharp corners of my shoulders and the bones of my upper chest, visible through the pale skin.
“I’m not feasting in the palace while you starve.” My tone is sharp as my bones, cutting through the silence. “I survived, but I am not thriving on the dregs of this kingdom’s wealth. I am suffering with you.Foryou, because I love you all. This man—” I gesture to Arawn, “his power is not a perfect solution, or a quick one. But it’ssomething. And all I ask is for you to hold on, just a little longer, while I dosomething.Something that might save us all.”
Murmurs of assent, of support, sift from the crowd. The naysayers drift away, while others bring the sick forward, all the more eager for Arawn’s touch.
The energy that suffused me during those moments of bold speech lasts through the next couple of hours, while Arawn and I finish with this sector. We push on a little farther into the next area—one of the last we have to cover—but finally Arawn turns and heads back toward the carriage, which has followed slowly with us. There are sick people still waiting in the next street, and I promise them we will return in the morning.
“Bring any sick children to the Fourth Quarter market square,” I tell them. “We’ll be there at dawn for the first healing.”
The people slowly return to their houses, and my guards escort me to the carriage. One of them placed a bit of plaster over my scraped cheek—a temporary solution to protect the area until it can be washed and bandaged properly.
In the days before the plague, a scrape like this would have been a moment’s work for one of the palace healers. Now I will have to heal in the slow, natural way.
Arawn sits across from me, throwing me glances of disapproval now and then. I’m not sure what I did to anger him. I thought my speech was rather good.
He maintains the dissatisfied glare when we arrive at the palace and head for the royal residence wing. He’s still wearing that expression when we reach the point in the hallway where we usually head for our separate rooms.
I dismiss the guards, and they promise to send up two fresh soldiers to guard my room overnight. As they tromp away, Arawn and I are left standing alone in the corridor. Only one lamp is lit, halfway along the hall, and its dim light casts strange shadows, making Arawn’s frown more dramatic.
I’m reaching for the handle of my bedroom door—but for some reason I can’t go to bed while he has that look on his face. I can’t.
So I pause, and turn back.
He’s still looming in the dark, a tower of stormy displeasure.
“What is wrong with you?” I take a step toward him.
“Withme?”
“Yes, with you. I suppose you’re twice as furious about being trapped in this kingdom now, is that it? I’m well aware that you hate me for bringing you here, that you’re going to punish me for eternity because of it—” I swallow against the lump rising in my throat. “But I thought, for a moment, when you were speaking to the people—I thought you understood why I summoned you. I thought maybe you hated me a little less now.”
He advances, a tempestuous rush that makes me recoil against the door. “I hate you for binding me this long,” he says. “You’ve done more harm than you realize, more damage than you know. The outworking of this bondage—I don’t yet know what it will be. But that’s not why I’m angry.”
“Are you angry because of the healing I scheduled at dawn, in the square? I know I promised you some time to relax, but I didn’t want to make sick children wait through a whole night and day—I thought you could do one early healing and then visit your realm briefly—”
“That’s not it,” he snarls. His skin alters, shifting to green, and forked antlers spring from his hair. With a growl of restless frustration he pulls off his cloak and his shirt, while I stare, wide-eyed. Immense black wings snap out, stretching along the hallway while he sighs with relief.
“By the dark, that feels good.” He cracks his neck—and then he moves closer, while his wings curl around, their edges feathering against the wall on either side of me, hemming me in.
“I am angry, little Queen, because you were foolish today. You put yourself in danger. You placed yourself between me and that paltry missile from the woman in the crowd. I would have healed from a scratch like that in seconds, but you—” His gaze drops to my cheek, and he lifts clawed fingertips, delicately prying away the bit of plaster covering the scrape. “You are vulnerable.”
“I know you think I’m weak—” I begin, but he shakes his head.
“Not weak. Vulnerable. There’s a difference.” He surveys me, his handsome face softening a little. “A person can be wonderfully strong of spirit and still vulnerable in certain moments—or certain places.”
My stomach swoops—a terrifying, giddy sensation—as he trails the back of his knuckle down the line of my throat. He plucks free the button of my cloak so it falls away, traces a claw tip along my collarbone, then along my neckline, dipping just beneath the fabric’s edge to glide over the upper swell of one breast.
He looks down at my chest, as if he can’t help it. My breasts are a bit smaller than they were before the plague and the deprivation—they’ve lost weight like the rest of me—but they are still impressive. An old servant once told me I inherited my large chest from my birth mother. I wouldn’t know—I don’t remember her at all.
Arawn’s eyes flash up to my face again. “Apologies,” he says hoarsely. “I’m not used to—sometimes I lose my—fuck.” He slams both clawed hands against the wall on either side of my head, his great shoulders bowed and his head bent until his profile is close to mine.
I can barely breathe.
The dot of light in my heart expands suddenly, a glow filling my ribcage, sinking low, lower until it pools between my legs, awakening parts of me I haven’t tended in weeks, maybe months.
I haven’t been myself in so long, I’ve forgotten who I am—who that other Vale was. I’ve become an assembly of schedules, worries, meetings, crises, dread, supply lists, and fifty-page reports. I am a mask of encouraging words and firm decisions. I am an endless chain of questions and answers. I am a throne and a crown, the caretaker of a kingdom.
