Page 119 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

I saw one of those guards as I stepped into the chamber and bowed. He stood next to the throne with his hand on his sword hilt. A tall, sharp-looking creature with deep-blue skin and a tail that lashed angrily around his legs. He watched me, his eyes alert as I straightened.

Essin stood just behind me, hanging back a few steps as usual.

I knew it chafed her to be placed behind me as though she was in service to me, even if it was as a jailer of sorts.

She believed she was leagues ahead of me in terms of rank, yet I was treated like a noble while she was treated like a servant.

The king looked down at me, frowning. “Are you useless, girl?” he demanded.

My eyes shot up to him, surprised by the anger. He was never nice when he summoned me to his chamber, but he had never been cruel, either.

I opened my mouth to speak and felt Essin’s shadow slide inside me. My mouth was filled with a metallic taste as my jaw snapped closed. She was keeping me quiet, I realized.

Get out! I screamed in my mind.

Keep your mouth closed, cyungr! she snapped. Her words were in my mind, just as if they had been my own thoughts. But I knew they were not mine. I could feel her in there, taking up a corner of myself, her somehow slippery presence distasteful and terrible.

“I think I have treated you well,” the king continued, his voice deceptively sweet. “I have given you your old chambers, clothed you in the finest clothes, offered you my own son as consort, and yet, you do nothing to help yourself. You do nothing to help me!”

I stayed silent, unsure what exactly this insane king expected from me.

He went on, apparently not requiring a response at all. “You are beautiful. Your blood and breeding, as anyone can see, is impeccable. And yet!” he shouted, spittle flying from his strange, weak mouth. “And yet, he does not want you! And you do nothing to make him!”

I felt my cheeks heat with anger and embarrassment.

“Speak, girl! Explain yourself!”

I swallowed as Essin released her hold on me. “I…I do not know how to…”

He cut me off. “You must make him want you! You must make him think he will die if he does not get inside you!” He leaned forward, his dressing robe falling open to reveal his pale upper body.

It was as wrinkled and saggy as his face.

“Markus has assured me that you are a maiden, so I do not expect you to know how to seduce a man, but that is why Essin is here.”

He snapped his fingers in her direction, and she stepped up to my side, smiling shyly as she bowed.

I didn't even have time to contemplate the fact that Markus, of all people, would claim that I was a maiden.

“Essin knows how it is done," the king said, smiling proudly down at the girl. "She has been in my son’s bed half a hundred times.”

That explained her glee at his refusal to marry me, I thought. She was likely in love with the big, hulking creature herself.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Essin told the king, and I detected a note of reluctance in her tone.

I glanced over at her, sudden realization dawning. If my guess was right, the task being put before her would be a highly distasteful one; making the man she was enamored with want to marry me.

“If you do not convince my son to marry you,” the king went on, his loose-looking lips tightening into a line. “I will give you to one of my generals.” He said it as though I should be aware of what kind of threat that was.

I felt Essin’s presence again just before I heard feminine laughter in my head. It is said that General Graggin only likes it in the back, and that he has torn apart more than one maiden.

I tried to ignore her cruel words in my mind. I knew she was simply trying to scare me. But the truth was, I had seen the generals the king spoke of. They made the very large Prince Refaedon look like a child.

My breathing became ragged as my pulse picked up speed.

“I will use you to gain myself favor, no matter which way it is, girl,” Magnus said cruelly. “Whether it be with your blood in my line, or with the support I gain from the generals by gifting you to one of them like a prized mare.”

General Shrivk’s last wife died choking on his fist. I think I would enjoy seeing you wed to him.

“My son will be king someday. You would do well to heed my advice and make him want you. I know how you were treated in this kingdom, Tatana Nesbaan. I know you were little more than a slave. Would you not like to face your old masters across a field as their conquering queen?”

General Carrulk has buried more wives than I can count. The last was buried at sea on the journey here. She died with his handprints on her throat.

Shut up! I screamed to her inside my own mind. I flinched as she slid out of me, leaving a void that momentarily left me feeling dizzy and disoriented.

The king stepped down from his chair. He moved jerkily as he extended his arms out to his sides, fingers splayed. The image of him in front of me wavered, making my eyes water.

I blinked, trying to clear my vision just before his body split apart into pieces. A hundred black ravens came cawing and flapping as a mass of feathers, crossing the distance between us in the blink of an eye.

And then the king materialized in front of me again, so close I could smell his horrid breath. It was sickly-sweet and rotten.

“You will make him want you, Lady of Aracet. If you do not, I will let the necromancers bind your soul to one of my generals. You will be trapped inside your own body as you live and breathe at the will and whims of a monster, for the rest of your short, miserable life.”