Page 61 of King of Flesh and Bone

She swatted the air dismissively. “Aye, time makes yer own head yer best companion. Dinnae mind me chattering to meself like a goose.”

“But I—”

“Me Master has a surprise for ye, lass.” She stroked her palm down my arm. “But ye cannae go like this, letting the autumn winds howl across yer neck.”

Whatever suspicion my body held fell away, quickly replaced with a buzz of energy tingling my toes. “Enosh is taking me outside?”

“Aye, lass. Did ye eat the pudding I brought earlier?”

My pulse quickened at her question, then some more when I said, “I woke feeling a bit ill and had no appetite.”

The way her eyes dropped to my belly roused an expectant flutter around my heart I couldn’t afford. Probably nothing but an upset stomach. That, or the sad mind of a woman who’d always welcomed her monthly bleeding with tears. It was too early for me to have such signs of pregnancy, no matter how subtle.

“Wait here while I fetch ye a fur,” she said, then made her way toward my room.

My eyes wandered back to the corpses in the throne. Enosh had the terrible habit of restoring them some, only to let them rot away until their faces crumbled off in pieces. If they had mouths, what stories would they tell?

Hesitant steps brought me closer. One more, and my shins pressed against the throne until they ached. I leaned in close enough that I caught a whiff of their subdued stench, like soured milk mixed with the fumes of burnt incense.

Lord Tarnem’s eyes made a blood-curdling sound as they shifted to focus on me, like boots sinking into deep mud. Gray and woven with hairline cracks, his right jawbone shifted, and the brown skin across his mouth groaned as it stretched and—

“Hmmp… mhh.”

I shifted back on a gasp as my heart thundered like the boom of hooves in my chest. His mumbles continued with such urgency, a tendon slowly frayed at the motion. Heavens, I couldn’t make out a single word. What was he saying?

Back and forth, my eyes followed the movement of his tongue pressing against the skin from the other side. And if I cut into it, would I find a mouth behind it? Did I want to know what it had to say?

I clasped one of the fangs dangling from my bodice, pointed enough it might pierce the leathery skin. Seconds passed with nothing but the frantic rush of blood in my veins. What would this serve me, other than to feed this skin-itching curiosity?

It would gain me nothing. Trouble, perhaps. And still the fine thread of skin gave acrkas I ripped the fang off. I lifted it toward Lord Tarnem’s mouth.

He mumbled faster, louder.

Sweat broke on my forehead.

I pressed the fang against the skin.

I pushed down, and—

“What are ye doing, lass?”

Letting the fang retreat into my palm, I trailed my finger over the brittle skin, then turned to Orlaigh. “Just looking if he still has a mouth.”

“Aye, one full of lies.” Orlaigh’s heavy stare remained on me for another moment, the valleys beneath her cheekbones filling with patches of shadows. “Time has a way of twisting the truth.”

Apparently, in a way that put her at risk of gracing the throne. For that reason alone, there was no point in pushing her for it.

She came up the dais as I let the fang clank to the ground on a cough, put a light fur around my shoulders, then ushered me toward the Æfen Gate. “I prepared me Master a satchel with enough food and drink ye dinnae have to find a tavern. Aye, ye best have yer wits about ye when ye go home.”

“Home?” My steps echoed along the dark incline, toward where the first streaks of light appeared, which broke against the outline of Enosh beside a horse.

“Yer wife,” Orlaigh said, “as me Master requested.”

Enosh secured a burlap bag to the harness the brown horse carried, then turned and reached his hand out in invitation. “Come to me, little one.”

I let my fingers intertwine with his. “Where are you taking me?”

He guided me beside the horse and let his knuckles stroke along my cheek, his gunmetal eyes fixed on mine. “To Hemdale, so you may point out John’s grave and visit your father.Briefly.”

---