Page 35 of Jailer to the Death God
I want to hurt the person who injured her.
A quizzical frown pulls her brows together. She’s confused by my stare, and the look only makes her more beautiful.
“Don’t stay away long,” she says. “Please. We need you.”
“I am bound to return to you. I’ll be back by nightfall.”
She nods. “Then go.”
“Remember what you promised me when I return.”
“An easier schedule, so you can enjoy some pleasure.” She clears her throat nervously, her cheeks flushing a deeper rose. “I have not forgotten.”
“Good.” The smile rising in my heart finds my mouth, and for a brief second her lips twitch upward in response.
And then I’m spurring the horse onward, charging through the narrow gate at a gallop, streaking down the road between hard-packed snow broken by clumps of stubborn brown grass. Watery sunlight leaks through the gray clouds, and as the wind rushes over me, I feel briefly, brilliantly free.
Earlier this morning, I cut slits in the back of my thick woolen tunic. Once I’ve gone far past the outskirts of the city I send the horse back toward the gate, and I work my wings through the slits in the tunic. The people of Cerato know I have mysterious, dark magic, but they are still ignorant of my divine status. Best to keep it that way until the Queen is ready for the revelation.
My cloak falls right between the wing joints—a little irritating, but I need to keep it on. I’m not as impervious to temperature as I used to be.
A single glorious bound and a beat of wings, and I’m in the sky, soaring up toward the gray bellies of the clouds. Shafts of incandescent yellow sunlight lance from sky to earth, and I thread between them, darting and diving, swirling and gliding.
I haven’t flown in the mortal plane for an age. I forgot how invigorating it can be.
I’m much faster airborne than I am on land, so I reach the Pit swiftly, almost before I’m ready.
The entrance to my own realm has never held dread for me before. But what I read in the ritual tome has shaken me. I’m not sure what I’ll find when I enter Annwn.
Wings folded, I prowl the edge of the Pit, my boots crushing the coiled black vines. The smell of death wafts from the orifice. A familiar odor, borne on the cold breath of the tunnel.
“Fuck it,” I whisper, and I leap in.
Air races past me as I fall, my wings upswept by its current.
It’s a long, dark passage, and when I break out on the other side I catch myself with a swift wingbeat.
Annwn looks the same as it ever did—soft gray mist, lush dark-green foliage, motes of pale light drifting in the air, gray sky overhead. Farther away, in the hazy distance, there’s a warmer light—the glow of the pleasant areas of my realm, where good souls wander in eternal peace. Between there and here stands the great arch of my furnace, towering into the sky at a nearly infinite height, a translucent veil of flickering orange fire filling the space between its tall doorposts.
To my right, some distance away, are the black pillars of my palace, also impossibly, unnecessarily tall. My residence is roofless, doorless, open to my realm. Anyone could stride in and take a seat on my throne.
I hurry toward my palace, an echo of doom beating in my heart.
I might already be too late.
15
Rose’s funeral is today. I had almost forgotten.
Convenient that I sent Arawn away. I can mourn my friend alone this afternoon, without his presence looming over me, reminding me why she died.
I ride back to the palace and dismount swiftly, handing my horse over to a stable-boy. Before I’ve taken more than a few steps inside the palace, four royal guards close ranks around me.
“Apologies, Your Majesty,” one of them says. “But we have orders to bring you directly to the Council Chamber.”
Ah, the Council. I skipped our scheduled meeting and I haven’t answered any of their notices or summons. Probably foolish of me, given my precarious standing with them—but touring the city with Arawn seemed more vital.
“The Council does not give the Queen’s guardorders,” I say coolly. “However, I will accompany you.”
