“I can hear the thoughts inside your head. You think me a monster,” Rayghast said with vicious pleasure. One glance at her desk, however, had Rayghast distracted from her paling face.
Papers were scattered across the polished mahogany. Rayghast recognized the strange foreign writing, coded messages amongst the clutter. Tattered and ripped parchment regurgitated rumors, the same ones heard amongst the citizens, copied dozens of times.
Rayghast’s mind went black with fury. “It was you. You created the false rumors.”
Emotions and thoughts flashed across Rhia’s face. She can’t talk her way out of this one.
“False? Hardly,” Rhia snapped back, gathering her courage. “You think I didn’t feel it the minute I first stepped foot in this castle? Darkness surrounds you. You breed evil.”
“And the coded messages?”
Rhia’s lips curved into a sinister smile. “Ancient Varanese, a language no longer practiced in our country, save for members of the royal line. Your alliance with my people stands on a razor’s edge. I’ve sowed enough discord and doubt that at the first sign of trouble, they’ll turn to Dul Tanen and sack this city instead.”
He could have been impressed with his wife. She was far smarter, far braver, than he ever gave women credit for.
But she was a traitor. Disloyal and dishonorable.
His teeth ground together. “You used your ladies and servants to distribute the messages.”
Rhia sneered. “Oh, yes, the women of this city were more than happy to assist me. Abused servants, mistreated wives . . . and you, with your obsession with Nevandia, never once suspected your network of traitors was run by women.”
Rayghast stepped closer to her, reaching out with his stained fingers.
Rhia leapt to the side; her legs collided with the bed. “Don’t touch me,” she snarled.
“Tell me where your sister is.”
“Gone. Away from you and Silex.” Rhia swallowed, but kept her composure, tossing her glossy hair from her painted face. Even in confinement, she chose to look her best. Rhia didn’t cower as she said, “Kill me and be done with it.”
The magic in his veins flared at the thought.
No, that’s too easy, too painless.
“You are a beautiful woman, Rhia. But that’s all you are. So let me take that from you as well.”
His fingers stroked the flesh of her soft cheek as she struggled and reared. Black smog encompassed her. It seared deep within the tissues and tendons and muscles of her face, eating away from the inside out. She bleated a cry, tried to wrench herself away, but magic had wrapped around her waist, tethering her to Rayghast. She screamed and screamed.
Then Rayghast stepped back to admire his handiwork.
Rhia put a hand to her blazing cheek and gagged at what came away in her hand. Black flakes of skin, like the ash on a burnt log. She swerved around to look in her mirror.
She screamed again.
And again.
From jaw to forehead on the right side was entirely charred. Dead flesh blistered away, peeling back to reveal bone and teeth.
Behind her, Rayghast burned with pleasure and black flames.
“You should be grateful that I didn’t take your head. Next time, I will. And when I find Eriu, you can be sure she will be similarly punished for running away.”
Rhia abandoned all fear and decorum, turning to him in a reckless frenzy. “You will never touch Eriu. I pray Nevandia wins. I pray to Laimoen that you and this entire country go up in flames. I curse you. I may not have the powers you do, but for this one act, I wish I did. I curse you to the fiery depths of the Underworld!”
Rayghast turned without another word, no flicker of emotion at all in response to her words, leaving her to rage. His last image of his wife was of Rhia smashing her beloved mirror to the floor, letting the image of her ruined face break into hundreds of shards.
He locked her room and left to kill a prince.
Chapter 24
Marai
Black, hazy tendrils brushed across the recesses of her mind. Tiny pinpricks, like a spider’s feet, crawled up her arms.
Marai . . . Marai . . . called a voice wan and haunting, gossamer as smoke.
Her magic rushed and spiraled, spinning and whirring, pulsating within the confines of her body. But there was another presence, magic that wasn’t her own. A dark shadow slunk up her legs. Filmy hands made of cobwebs inched over her hips, her torso . . .
Use me, it seemed to say.
The pull was so great, the tug on her magic so strong, it jolted Marai awake. She bolted upright, unsheathing the dagger at her waist.
But all she saw was Ruenen asleep at her side. No other presence lingered in the tent. Nothing sinister. Outside, she heard the low mumbles of guards and soldiers, the crackling of campfires, wuthering of wind through bushes, early-morning chirps of birds. Nothing out of the ordinary.
A nightmare, she told herself.
She’d imagined Slate’s vicious hands clawing at her before. She was used to these kinds of nightmares, but this one had been different. Never before had she heard that voice, seen hands like that. Nothing about them said human. Or even magic.
Her black fingertips tingled, almost needle-sharp.
