Page 22 of The Maleficent Faerie
She sighs. “What matters is Eonnula’s will. If she allows the Edge to consume something, there must be a reason for it. A greater purpose.”
“A greater purpose in pointless deaths?”
“Pointless deaths like those caused by your Endlings?”
It’s a fair accusation. At times, in my desperation to save the whole realm, I convinced myself that certain attacks were necessary, certain losses justified.
“I cannot undo what I’ve done,” I say quietly. “Nor can your people reverse the harm they have wrought.”
“What harm?” Her voice shrills, incredulous and defiant. “All we have ever done is worship, rejoice, and live our lives in the light of Eonnula’s grace.”
Her ignorance, her willful blindness to the truth, stuns me for a moment.
She’s intelligent, yet she will not allow herself to see the real nature of the Caennith system and its rulers. She speaks with a sturdy, innocent faith that silences me as I debate how to answer.
Perhaps I should not answer at all. The Priests, the Royals, and her own mothers have twisted their thorny vines so deeply into her consciousness that removing the invading ideology will cause her extreme pain, no matter how gentle I am.
Maybe I should let her drift in her delusion. After all, she will soon be gone, sent back to her mothers, another pawn in this unending game.
Aura gives a satisfied nod, as if she believes she has won the argument.
I dislike losing any fight, whether the battle is fought with words or weapons. Usually I would keep pressing my opponent until they had no choice but to yield.
But with her, I don’t want a forced surrender. I want to watch her mind open, her heart swell, and her eyes brighten with the realization of the truth—that she, and all her people, are servants to a fool’s hope, in bondage to those whose only purpose is control, and whose only goddess is power.
9
I did not think my enemy could be more beautiful. But when he flies, he takes my breath away.
And when he’s in the saddle behind me, with his thighs pressed against mine and his heat warming my back, I can’t help the trickles of arousal that circle through my lower belly.
He doesn’t keep arguing with me. We ride in silence for a while, until we reach a valley shaded by willows. Violets grow thickly over the valley floor, carpeting it with their velvety purple blossoms and their broad, fresh leaves. Their delicate fragrance suffuses the air.
The Void King inhales deeply through his nose, then releases a satisfied sigh. “I love early summer. So much beauty.”
His comment, like so many things he has said and done, clashes with the stories I’ve heard of him. In those tales, and in my nightmares, he was a thing of darkness and grace—a haunting, malevolent presence. He’s recognizable from those dreams, as a person is recognizable by their shadow; but the reality of him, up close and personal, is vivid and compelling, terrifying and startling by turns.
Minutes ago, he threatened to punish me painfully. And now he is telling me about his favorite season.
In our scrap of a realm, the three suns hang in the sky all the time. When they are bright and near to us, we call it summer. But there is a period in which two of the suns recede far away from our lands, appearing as mere dots in the sky, and leaving Midunnel much colder and darker than usual. We call that period “winter”—though judging from our ancient history books, the seasons of Faienna and Temerra were somewhat different. Night in Midunnel is different from the old realms, too—it occurs when the rhythmic surge of the Void’s darkness flows between us and the suns, temporarily cutting off their light. The number of stars we see at night depends on the thickness and distance of the Void’s shadows on any given evening.
Night and day, winter and summer—it was all set in motion by the goddess, ages ago.
How can the Daenalla believe in the goddess and worship her while rejecting the prophecy of the savior?
“The chapel we’re going to,” I say. “What kind of worship do you perform there?”
“Can it be that you’re curious about our heretical habits?” asks the Void King dryly.
“Just gathering information so I can plan my next escape attempt,” I respond in an equally dry tone.
He laughs, a rich, dark sound, like the glimmer of starlight on a raven’s wing. “Then I think I shall keep you in suspense, viper.”
His hand shifts from my hip, until his thumb grazes the bare skin at the small of my back, below my wings, right above the edge of the backless gown. It seems like a casual adjustment on his part, but then he strokes that thumb across my skin, once, twice, and again.
The gentle touch sends tingling pleasure snaking down my spine to my tailbone, where it spreads over my sex in a warm flush of sensation. I fight the urge to roll my hips and rub myself against the saddle.
My elbow jabs backward, slamming into the King’s ribs. He huffs out a startled grunt, and his hand disappears from my back.
