Page 12 of The Bone King and the Starling

THE FORGER

I watch the skin peel away from her face, smell the scent it creates, a familiar one to me as her body is remade by greed, her head cocked back, her chest caved, her mouth open on a silent scream. Behind me, her male screams a blood-curdling shriek that will be heard by the gods.

As it would seem, I was a little angrier than I originally thought.

When I first saw the bruising on my female’s cheek and the lashes on her back, I couldn’t believe it. Never in my wildest dreams could I have envisioned that a female I had claimed would be brutalized in such a way. It would seem that I have failed in all ways to stake my claim over her. To provide her shelter. I am…unused to feeling like this.

As I struggle through my feelings, my concern, my relief that she isn’t more badly damaged, I watch Starling disappear behind the throne and, only when I’m certain she is out of the hall, in the chief’s room, do I turn to Rosalind and drop the mask I’d been wearing. Any veneer of control slips from my grasp. I feel the veins pop in my forehead. I feel my face grow hot.

“Before you receive your payment, Lady Rosalind, I’ll see the whip you used to flay my little bird’s back.”

Lady Rosalind is sitting up. She has hold of her fork and knife but her wrists are resting on the edge of the table. Her brow is furrowed, but there’s a hesitation in her expression that was not there before. She is not so quick this time with her retort.

“Is that necessary, King?” King. Not my king, but King.

I smile. “Yes.”

She extracts the tangle of wires from her skirts and I hold out my hand, taking them from her. I stand between her and Olec’s chairs now. “A crude thing.”

“It does the trick.”

“I’d like to try.”

“Excuse me, King Calai?”

“Get up. Take off your dress.” I meet Rosalind’s stare at the same time that Olec starts to chuckle at my back.

“You have a dark sense of humor, my liege, but I think you have taken it far enough.”

“Rosalind,” I say. “Up.”

“Olec, are you really going to let him talk to me like this? You are a guest in my house, King…”

I grab her by the hair and wrench her from her seat. Olec shouts at my back, but he’s clumsy and when he unsheathes his blade, he drops it immediately. Not that it would have mattered. My men are standing, holding Olec back as I walk Rosalind around the end of the table. She is thrashing more than fighting as I take her to the center of the space near the fire and cut open the back of her dress.

“Torbun! Marek! Eli! Draw your arms!” Olec calls, but Torbun, the coward, stands from his position at the table, and points instead to his son at the end of the table.

“Viccra! You are our best warrior, son. Challenge the king now. Honor your chief!” Torbun shouts.

Viccra, a talented young fighter, is seated at the opposite end of the table from his father. I recognize the boy — trained him — and watch him stand, curious to see what he will do. He steps forward, sword drawn, and then takes a knee a few feet from me, laying his sword across it.

“My allegiance was sworn on the training yards of Ithanuir to King Calai. My king, how may I do your bidding on this day?” And thus, this boy proves my theory right. The games were not only established as a means of helping the outer villages of Wrath defend themselves, but also served another purpose. Obedience. Allegiance. Loyalty. To me. I grin.

“Traitor! Kill him!” Olec shouts to his guards, and they engage. I am impressed when Viccra manages to kill one and wound the other with only a few swift cuts of his blade. Meanwhile, my grip on Rosalind’s hair has not strayed.

“Come, Viccra. Hold the lady Rosalind for me.” He grabs her arms. The great hall is flooded with people now, most of whom are crowded near the entrance, not daring to enter, but for my men and Daneera, who push through and secure the space. I am easy. Relaxed in my rage. It is a place I know well.

“I call any who has ever been maimed by this female to step forward now. Thralls,” I say to those gathered at the entrance. “Come forth. The time of your servitude ends now.”

It takes some time for the thralls to come forward. A dark-haired, pale-skinned female is first — she served at my table the night before. After handing the whip over to the thrall, I move to help Viccra keep Rosalind upright, taking her other arm.

Olec is screaming obscenities and threats, but the female thrall meets my gaze and must be soothed by it. She acts before I can give the order, swinging the wire flail towards the exposed skin of Rosalind’s back and drawing blood.

Rosalind writhes as she screams curses and threats. The female, now pink-cheeked, returns the whip to me and as she does, I rip the fat ruby off of Rosalind’s finger, simultaneously breaking the digit. Rosalind screams. I hand the ruby over. The former thrall’s eyes go wide.

“I… Thank you, my king.”

“No. It is I who owes you an apology for leaving you at the mercy of these useless, cruel beings all this time. But their time is over now. Go. And tell the others.”

A steady stream of thralls enters the hall after that, all too happy to take gold, gems and pearls from Rosalind’s throat and hair and pocket and return the wounds she’s delivered them. Perhaps even some she did not. One of the thralls — a beautiful pale-faced, red-haired female with large breasts on a slender frame — beats at Rosalind for some time. She uses her full body, all the violence she has within her, and when she’s finished, I offer her gold coins, but she turns from them and points at Olec with her whip.

“Can I?”

I smile. “Of course.”

She whips Olec in the face while Daneera and Fuzier expend what looks like very little energy to hold him steady. Even if the male weren’t drunk constantly, he’s so out of shape that any young farm boy in Ithanuir could best him with a blade. He is not suited to lead. That his wife harmed Starling simply makes my decision to remove him easy.

The red-haired thrall is smiling as she skips out of the hall. She never did collect her gold pieces.

This goes on for some time. Long enough for Puhyo to return with the village forger. The forger stands now near the fire, his blackened gloves on, his pocked face expressionless. He does not heed Olec’s shouted curses.

Viccra and I hold Rosalind’s weight. Her legs have given out. Her cries of rage, however, are ceaseless. “If you think I won’t tear every thrall in this village into pieces the moment you are gone, starting with yours, you are as stupid a king as you are a violent one!”

“You raise a good point, Lady Rosalind.” I drag her to the fire, Viccra moving when I move. “Are you ready for your payment for Starling, Lady Rosalind?” I ask, shoving her to her knees and ripping her head back by her hair. Blood perfumes the air, the flayed skin on her back weeping to saturate her dress.

I beckon the forger forth and watch as slow understanding trickles across Rosalind’s expression. Her hatred melts into despair. The forger’s mask covers most of his face, but he lifts it when she looks at him. He doesn’t look smug, but he holds a frost in his gaze that tells me two things: that he is not sorry for Rosalind’s fate, and is he not sorry to be the one delivering it.

“Is it ready?” I ask him.

He nods. “It will not remain hot for long, Your Highness.”

I wait. Watch Rosalind’s face. Listen to her pleas. “You…you can’t do this… You can’t…”

“Are your children here?” She is babbling, unresponsive to my question, so I continue, “I see that they are. I will ensure that, after, they are cared for with the same compassion you showed my thrall,” I lie. I do not intend for anyone anywhere in Wrath to be treated as Starling was. But I enjoy the panic that flits across her face. “Now, I believe it’s time.” I gesture for the forger and watch as Rosalind screams and thrashes with all of her flagging might.

When I had Starling on my lap earlier, I went through the repertoire of punishments available to me given that I am here in this little village, not back in Ithanuir where I have my dungeons. However, I struggled to arrive at the correct punishment that would bring me just the right level of satisfaction. Fortunately, the clever Rosalind took the occasion to speak up about her payment. I could have kissed her on the mouth for the suggestion she provided had I not other uses for it.

Now, her mouth is opened. I stand over it, the forger holding metal tongs clasped tight around the iron cup, in which Rosalind’s fee and Tori’s payment swirl together.

“Tip her head back,” I order Puhyo while Viccra and I hold her down.

“No! No, don’t!” she screams. She is thrashing, scratching wildly at anything she can. She clamps her lips shut and I know I only have a limited time before the liquid inside my cup cools and I have to refire it.

Puhyo has his hands on her jaw, attempting to pry it open, but her thrashing is violent enough to keep him from it. So, I step down on the back of her left calf, bone crunching beneath the ball of my foot. She screams. Puhyo yanks her head back and the forger hands me his tongs. I take them, tip the cup gripped at the end of the tongs straight to Rosalind’s teeth, and pour all of the liquid coin she’s owed inside of her body.

She convulses as the liquid metal touches her tongue and then slides down her gullet into her lungs and stomach. I pour the cup empty and her body spasms inhumanly. Puhyo releases her when my cup is dry. Viccra and I follow suit. She tips to the side, her body struggling through its final transformation. Her face turns bright red and then purple and I crouch down and place the burning hot cup in my pincers to her cheek, marking her where she marked my Starling.

Her eyes bulge out of her head, red and veiny. Puhyo reaches to close them but I hold up my hand, wanting them open. I watch closely as she burns from the inside out, wondering what exactly it is that has killed her. From her cursed golden lips, steam wafts into the cooler air. I imagine her body will be a good deal heavier now, when we lift it. She’s finally stopped moving, her bare fingers gnarled and twisted, no longer covered in precious gems.

Olec’s screams are even more pitiable than those of his female’s. There will be no welcome for her in the land of the strong that exists after, of that I am sure. For either of them. His screams of despair for his wife’s fate turn quickly to begging for his own life. He pleads with me, offers me riches that he could not possibly pay. I ignore him, knowing that his time is coming soon to an end. But not today.

“Return the king to his current chambers,” I bid my men. “Bind him to the bed and place his wife in a chair beside him, so that she may watch over him as he rests.” My orders are carried out, Rosalind is carried away, too. I return the forger his tools along with a fair payment, both of which he takes with no complaint, no sign of contrition, before turning to Puhyo and Viccra and giving them orders to secure the village armory and gather any warriors and fighting-age men in the great hall so that I may speak to them directly and discourage any mutiny.

“That is all for now,” I tell the hall, those that are gathered, before I return to my chambers, Puhyo at my side, and find Hilde administering to my prize.

Starling is sitting up in the bed, buried deep beneath the bedding, my furs draped across her thighs. The symbol of it makes my breath catch. I am her first defense. I am her last defense. I am her shield against the cold. I am her shield.

And the bruising on her cheek so visible to me now that she’s clean, her hair combed back away from her face, the ointment shining on her skin, makes me wish that I had devised a different punishment for Rosalind. One that lasted much, much longer.

My sweet little bird looks like she’s just rousing from sleep. She has sleep in her expression, but perks when Hilde slides a heavy tray onto her lap. She reaches for food, which pleases me, but on seeing Puhyo and me, she stops. Her face flushes red for reasons I’m not sure I like because her gaze is concentrated on my chest, but passes occasionally to Puhyo, too. I block sight of him with my body and he grunts — a laugh — and I hear him trudge off.

“I will be outside on guard, my lord,” he says.

Hilde grunts something about despicable men under her breath. I ignore her and move to the bed, my gaze tracking Starling through each of my steps, each breath.

“How are you, Starling?” I ask her. My tone is hard. Yes, I am a little angrier than I thought I was. Even with Rosalind’s death, that anger’s edge has barely dulled. But…there will be time for more punishment, and now is not that.

I place my hand atop my furs, finding her calf through the blanket and giving it a gentle squeeze. Gentle. I exhale through flared nostrils, barely able to hear Hilde as she dismisses herself and leaves.

“Starling,” I say in my most placating tone. “Breathe.”

She inhales sharply and lowers her hands to her lap. I made sure that the thralls placed an entire loaf of sweet bread on her tray and that she was reaching for it pleases me. I feel myself relaxing. I thought I’d been on my way to relaxing before, but now I actually feel my muscles sagging slightly, my shoulders easing down my back.

“I thought you’d be asleep by now.”

“I was woken, my king. I thought I heard screams.”

“Hm,” I say and leave it at that.

I reach out and gently, gently stroke my knuckles over her injured cheek. Her face flares with color. It rolls down her neck and is visible in the parted curtain of her tunic. She wears one of mine. I hope that it is all she wears and then curse my own thoughts. It will be some time before I can bed her properly. Days at best, at worst, weeks. My anger nips at me, but it is an anger that knows no violence. Because before I can bed her again, I need her to want to come with me.

“May I sit with you?” I ask.

“Oh, um…of course.” Starling, as I expected she would, panics and worries herself with making space for me in the bed. I grip her calf firmly, and slide onto the bed near her knees. I line her leg with mine.

I nudge the overfull tray on her lap. “Eat.” My fingers move over the tray as well. I gravitate to the meat, my hand hovering over the sweet bread and then quickly flitting past it. I want to eat it because it’s her favorite, but I don’t touch it for that same reason. Instead, I take a piece of pork marinated in something divine.

I grunt, “What seasoning do your cooks use on this?”

“I…” She’s flustered. I can feel her eyes on me, glancing up. She’s so small, her head only coming up to my shoulder height. I don’t look at her, but nod when she says, “It’s a salt rub, primarily.”

“What else is in it? What gives it this darker color?”

She lists a few spices, a simple combination, but surprising. “You add a little honey?”

“Yes.” Her voice betrays confusion. She glances up at me and our gazes lock. “Just a little.”

“Do you usually do the cooking?”

“I help when I’m required.”

Not needed. Required. “Are you often required in the kitchens?” I say, trying to keep my anger enchained.

She nods.

“Eat,” I encourage, taking another morsel of meat myself. Her calf lines my thigh and I make no move to separate us, even if I can feel her feet rotating around beneath the blankets, the clearest evidence of her discomfort. “Do you enjoy cooking?”

“En…enjoy cooking?” she asks me and the question makes me glance at the exit. Perhaps, I will go tonight to Olec after all.

“Yes. Enjoy,” I repeat, ceding no ground. She will tell me what she enjoys if I have to wrench it from her by force.

“I…suppose I don’t mind cooking, my king.”

I bite my own tongue. My king. I growl deep in the back of my throat, only once, briefly, before I catch myself. “What else do you enjoy?”

“Spending time with Ebanora and her family. Though I have not much occasion to do so, my king.”

“Ebanora. Who is she?”

“She’s…” She hesitates, chewing nervously on her bottom lip and whispers, “She’s just a girl. Poor, but they have always been kind to me when I needed kindness. It is my hope that when you…” But her voice fails her. Her courage collapses on itself like a burning thatch roof.

“Say it. I will not be angry with you.”

“It’s just…” She lowers the grapes in her hands back to the tray. She’s nervous. I hate her nerves. I want to scrape them out of her with a blade. “Apologies, my king, I simply am not certain what will happen to me when you leave our small village.”

I could laugh. “What are your concerns?” My gaze does not pass to hers. If I try to look at her, she will look away, and I rather like the way her bashful gaze feels moving over my face, assessingly, curiously, hopefully… I will not let her down. Not after I already have.

“I worry that you have punished the chief and his wife because of me, and I will be punished severely. I will probably be killed,” she says, voice the ghost of what it was before. “Tortured, first. Ebanora and her family may try to harbor me. I don’t know. But I don’t want to see them punished, too.”

I tense. Nod. This changes things a little. A very little. “You have concerns, sweet bird, but what do you enjoy?”

“I…” She falters, likely put off by my abrupt change. I want to reassure her and I will, but I need to know this. “I don’t…know, my king.”

“You don’t know?” I shake my head. “I understand that you may not have been given many occasions to feel true enjoyment, but I want to know. What do you want from this life, Starling?”

“What do I want?” She takes another small bite of honey bread. I smile down at her, looking at her with pure longing. “I want to be free to learn what I want.”

Her words are honey riddled with thorns. I can’t stand them, but at the same time, they fill me with warmth. I lean towards her and watch as her eyes widen. She looks up at me and I cannot help myself. I shift up onto my knees so that I may loom over her and kiss her temple, the press of my lips full against her skin. Gods, she tastes heavenly. Nights spent with her while she is injured will be excruciating. But I will shackle myself.

I whisper, “And you shall have that, little bird. I promise.” I retake my seat with a loud grunt and resume eating. As I do, I tell her, “I have decided to extend my time in your little village by several days. There are some matters that need sorting. I am displeased with the way Winterbren has been running. Your hall is the poorest I’ve seen in my travels across Wrath yet your Chief and his wife, among the most finely decorated. I intend to set it right.

“There is also the matter of the games. I have delayed their start by a day, but they will begin tomorrow. I had hoped to ask if you would do me the honor of sitting beside me at the games and at the feasts to follow. It is my hope to keep you close while I remain in Winterbren.” I clear my throat. “But I also understand if it…if my company… If you do not prefer my company, I will not be offended,” I lie, thoughts drifting to chains and shackles should she decline.

“I… You… I’m sorry, my liege,” she starts, and I tense, fear gripping me, “but I have many duties to attend to.”

“I have already spoken to Rosalind and Olec. They are pleased to dismiss you from your duties if you should have any interest in spending the coming days with me.” All of the days until the end of them.

Starling blinks at me brightly, looking so pretty wearing her swollen cheek like the mark of a warrior I could weep. “I… I’m not sure, my lord.”

My heart sinks. “I understand.” My voice is gruff and I struggle to hold her gaze, but force myself to anyways. “If I may be so bold as to ask what concerns you, I would be grateful for your response.”

“It’s just…I… My body is very tired and I worry that I won’t be able to give you what you want from me…”

A small rage floods my spine, causing me to sit up. “Ah,” I grunt. “I see. And I am sorry for not being more clear. I wish to sit with you, dine with you, speak with you, spend time with you…but I am fully aware that I will not have the privilege of bedding you again until you are well.”

“That may be longer than the time you spend in Winterbren, my lord. Lady Hilde had to stitch some of my back and cautioned me against any intense physical exertion.”

A slow smile creeps across my face. The warmth of the room coalesces around me and I get goosebumps. “Last night was intense, wasn’t it, little bird?”

Her cheeks flare with color. She nods, holding my gaze this time for once. “Yes.” Her voice is a little too breathless and my cock is behaving with poor conduct. Were it a trainee on the fields of Ithanuir, I’d beat it senseless. As it stands now, I still have need of it. “It was, my king.”

“I enjoyed myself greatly.”

And then it happens. The dawning of a small sun. She smiles at me for only the second time, the first being when I first met her. It’s a small, caged thing, unlike the first time when she gave me a little more. She didn’t call me by any honorific, and she didn’t look down at her feet, but sought my gaze. Yet, this is still a start. My heart beats harder in my chest. Slow, steady, loud. I lick my lips. My mouth has gone dry and I am thirsty.

Softly, she says, “You were very vocal in your pleasure, my lord.” Her grin stretches and is punctuated by a slight, breathy chuckle. Is she…teasing me?

I bark out a laugh so startling that she jumps, knocking grapes off of her tray. I shake my head slowly and gather them. “As were you, my lady. At least, I hope your screams were those of pleasure.”

“They were,” she breathes.

A growl picks up in my chest and I cannot help edging forward, closer to her an inch. “There are other males more experienced than I who could have taken your virginity. In any ways you like to be pleasured, I would like to learn.”

“You were very… It was…lovely, my king.”

I smirk. “Lovely?” Her breaths become more staggered and I see her gaze stray to my lap and the erection tenting my pants. “Ignore it. I want to hear more about what you liked, what you didn’t like… Eat, princess.”

I lean away from her and she exhales. “I liked all of it, my lord.”

“You are lying. I can sense it.” I can see it in the way her eyes shift left and her smile falls and she returns to fiddling with her sweet cake. She picks up a piece of it and nibbles on the syrupy edge.

“I did like all of it. Too much. I worry that…” She shakes her head. “Sorry, it’s stupid, my king. I don’t mean to trouble you with childish imaginings.”

“Trouble me, little bird. I desire it.”

“It’s just…it was intense as you said and I doubt very much I will ever experience anything like that again. I wonder if it was not a curse, rather than a gift, to have experienced it at all.”

My lips purse. I debate, hesitating, wondering if I should just tell her…ask her… But if I ask, she could say no. “Was there anything else you didn’t like?”

She looks surprised for a moment before biting her lip and shifting her legs against the mattress.

“Tell me.”

“It’s not what you did, my king. You did… Everything you did was perfect. I’ve never experienced pleasure like it. It’s only the bruises. They are a little painful, but Hilde has given me a milk elixir and they already are feeling…” She’s rambling a little and my brows draw together. I reach for the tray in her lap and move it away for the moment.

“I’d like to see,” I say, but I hesitate, wondering if I should just strip her as I like, or if I should ask her permission. I’m not used to asking permission for anything, let alone something I really want. And I’ve never wanted anything like this before. Her heart. “May I?”

“C-certainly, my lord.” My lord again. Hm. I frown, but it does not stop the motion of my hands as I draw the blankets and furs down to her knees and then roll her knee-length tunic up to her hips.

Revealing the juncture of her thighs is a painful thing because my need roars in my ears, cut down only by the fury I feel towards myself. She has finger-shaped bruises covering the outsides of her hips and her inner thighs are red and chafed, covered in a salve undoubtedly applied by Hilde.

“Spread your legs,” I bark.

She doesn’t speak as she obeys. Her mound is dusted in curls and looks slightly swollen but otherwise unharmed. I reach down and try to spread her mons with my fingers so I can see her asshole, but she squirms. I let her go, drop her tunic and push the blankets back to cover her.

“Did I draw blood?”

“No, my lord.”

I nod once. “And Hilde, what did she say of the bruising?”

“Only that it would be uncomfortable for a few days’ time, likely less. I’m okay, my king.”

I look into her eyes. “Truly?”

She smiles again, but it is shaky this time in ways that make my fists clench. “Truly, my lord. Please, let it go. This is more painful.”

“What is?”

“The way you look so genuine. It is… That’s what I was talking about from last night. You said things with such passion. Things that couldn’t possibly be true.”

I surge forward, place my hand against her unblemished cheek. Lean over her and close my eyes, press our foreheads together. “They may not be true yet, but I want them to be, so long as you want them, too.” I kiss the tip of her nose then lean back so quickly she sways towards me. Rapidly, she blinks. “But we have time to talk about that over these next days.” I clear my throat. “Among many other things. I will not touch you again in Winterbren. Your body needs time to heal and I do not deserve your warmth after having savaged you like this.”

“You won’t touch me again in Winterbren?”

I shake my head. “But perhaps in Ithanuir…”

“In Ithanuir?” Her eyes widen. Her nostrils flare.

“I’d like for you to spend these next days with me, considering.”

“If…are you saying… Asking me to consider coming with you, my king?”

“No. I want you to consider coming with me, Calai.”

She gasps just a little bit and I feel it all the way down in my toes. I smile at her softly, reach forward and tuck her curls behind her ear. “Eat, little bird. You need to regain your strength.” I pluck a grape off of her tray and she watches me chew for several breaths. “You have all day to relax and tomorrow the games begin.”

She picks up a piece of meat and chews thoughtfully, her gaze never straying far from mine. We don’t speak, but the silence between us is comfortable up to the point that she breaks it with a whisper. “I would be honored to watch the games at your side, Calai.”

My heart slams against my rib cage and I smile. “The honor, Starling, is all mine.”