Page 4 of Jailer to the Death God
I pull my gaze from the window and look over at her. The cold, pale afternoon light glimmers on her dark skin. Somewhere above the heavy blanket of gray clouds, the sun will be setting soon, fiery and orange.
My head knows what a sunset looks like, but I haven’t seen one in weeks. My heart no longer remembers such beauty—only putrid sores, and racking coughs in firelit rooms, and the sickening stench of death.
“You’ve done so well with this, Vale.” Rose’s voice is warm, gentle.
Tears spring to my eyes immediately. “No.”
“Yes, you have. You’ve done the best you could, given the horrible circumstances of your reign so far. I didn’t know you had it in you, honestly. You’ve always liked to skip out on the hard parts—swordplay lessons, sitting through high tea with our parents—dancing with Otin Venniroth on feast days.”
The corner of my mouth tilts in spite of everything. Of course Rose said that on purpose, to make me smile. “My right big toe still hurts when it rains, from when he stepped on it at the Evenfall dance last year.”
Rose snorts. “I still think he did that on purpose.”
“I know he grabbed a handful of my ass on purpose.”
“Bastard.” She shakes her head. “And yet he’s still here. Hasn’t even fallen ill yet, they say. Stays in an isolated suite at his father’s mansion. They have a million precautions in place to keep him from catching the plague.”
“Not everyone has that luxury.” Gingerly I pat my own pale, braided locks. “I don’t blame him for not wanting to get sick, though. Worst week of my life.”
“My heart still races when I climb stairs,” Rose confesses. “I don’t have the strength I used to.”
“When all this is over, we’ll train again,” I assure her. “We’ll build up our strength together.”
“And we’ll dance,” she muses, a dreamy expression floating over her face. “We’ll dance with handsome young nobles and fine hunky merchants with fleets of glorious ships. We’ll find you a cultured, well-toned prince, and I’ll take someone far more interesting—a pirate, maybe, or a highwayman.”
I know she’s trying to cheer me up, to give me hope, to distract me from what we’re about to do, so I smile. The expression feels threadbare and artificial against my mouth. I think I have forgotten how to smile and mean it. But I try, because she’s the one with two sick little sisters at home, yet she’s selfless enough to encourage me.
Precious Rose. I can complete this task, for her sake. I know her sisters—I’ll keep their faces in my mind as I do what must be done.
“We must be nearly there,” I say, and even as I speak, the coach jolts and I hear the skittish whinnies of the horses.
When I came here with my grandfather, the horses had a similar reaction. “They can smell death and magic,” he told me.
I slide back the little door that lets me speak to the driver. “Stop here, please, Farley. We’re close enough.”
The corruption of Arawn’s Pit has leaked into the forest itself, veining the trees with a black darker than any natural shade. Tendrils of inky, otherworldly void creep up trunks and along branches.
The veins lead inward, a serpentine tangle weaving along the ground until they coalesce into a violent, writhing mass in the center of the clearing. They intertwine and then plunge straight down, into the pit.
We’ve laid our nine people—I refuse to call them “sacrifices”—in a circle around the circumference of the pit, with their heads toward its edge and their feet pointing away. They’re all wrapped in thick blankets against the cold—the best I can do for their comfort in these last moments.
Between the bodies, Rose has placed clusters of tall candles and small metal tripods which hold the incense burners. There’s a specific blend of incense used for the worship of Arawn—black basil, white sage, frankincense, cedar chips, and myrrh resin. The resulting scent is dark, spicy, and unexpectedly pleasant. Breathing deeply of the smoke helps to quell my nausea a little.
I brought along my brother’s favorite dagger. There were so many other knives I could have brought from the palace, but doing this with Aspen’s weapon feels strangely right. Like a tribute to him.
He was much older than me, on the path to rule. Our paths diverged more than they crossed, yet somehow he crammed days’ worth of deep affection into the short hours when we did manage to get together. We took horseback rides in the forest outside the city, swam in the palace pools, raced each other through the garden maze. He always had a new book to recommend, or a new musician he’d brought to the palace for me to hear, or a new game to teach me.
Grief stings my eyes, so I swallow down the memories and focus on Rose, who is perusing the ancient ritual, making sure we have all the details correct.
She looks up, resignation and dread warring with the hope in her eyes. “It’s all here. We’re ready to begin.”
I must begin by ending a life. One, and then eight more.
I’m kneeling beside Leilani, my knees aching because of the ribbed black vines. No softness here. No moss grows on these roots—not even a powdering of snow clings to them.
Leilani is moving under her blanket—just barely. She’s nearly gone.
“Please,” she rasps. “End it.”
