Page 15 of The Bone King and the Starling

THE KING OF BONES

T he king of bones is tremendously sweet. I giggle as he finishes removing his leather armor and flings it against the chests in the corner. “Fuck! Finally, I can be with my wife. At peace, in our room.” He crawls over the foot of the bed to completely cover me on all fours. He kisses me.

It’s dinnertime and he’s come with a small feast to dine privately with me as he promised. And as he vowed, he doesn’t touch me once all night. He kisses me passionately and offers me scandalously titillating touches any chance he gets, but he never moves to strip off my clothing and mount me, even though…the slickness between my thighs wishes he would.

My back still stings and I’m grateful when the healer returns with more milk of the poppy and salve. The king insists on applying it himself and actually obeys the shrewd, blonde healer when she instructs him on how to handle me properly.

“It’s healing well. The minor scratches should be better by tomorrow, the rest by next week. It’ll be important we keep you dry and warm on the road — you will be joining us, won’t you, my lady?” Hilde asks me.

I know I’m blushing as I nod. “I will.”

The king beams. Hilde just grunts and nods. “You will enjoy the road. It is beautiful this time of year. The leaves of the forest of Dorn are changing,” she says, speaking of the lush forests known to surround Ithanuir’s northern border. “And you will enjoy Ithanuir, I’m sure of it. It has something to offer everyone.”

I nod, smiling and feeling so light as Hilde finally leaves and the king turns to me, eats with me, converses with me all through the evening and well into the night. He speaks to me of his mother, strong woman that she is, and his fallen father. He tells me a little about what it was like to become king at such a young age and, before that, how hard it had been to live in exile. How he owes his mother so much and, interestingly, how he sees some strengths in me that he believes she will admire.

And in turn, I tell him a little of my sordid history… My abusive father, my cowed mother… How the village did nothing to help her, short of Ebanora’s mother who occasionally helped heal her wounds for free, as she now does for me. The king asks me about Ebanora and her family, her brother in particular. I tell him that he’s a farmer, but has been pushed to enter the games though he would rather not. I tell him about the other villagers, warriors and anyone he seems curious about, until my voice gives out.

He’s so curious about everything, everyone. It surprises me. He’s king. I would have thought that our mundane little lives would be beneath him, and yet, he asks me about things that even I find trivial. How far the walk is from the silos where we store grain, why the kitchens are set so far off from the hall, how often we have out-of-town visitors and how they’re treated, where they come from…why so few move to Winterbren and why so few born here leave. He seems to value my opinions on so many things…

I’m satisfied, a little tipsy on wine, and smiling as he blows out the torchlights and slides beneath the sheets and into the bed beside me. I sleep on my belly now that Hilde has removed some of my bandages to let the shallower wounds air. I keep my face turned towards the king and fall asleep to the feel of his hand tracing patterns across my hair.

Waking is just as pleasant.

I wake before the king and see that his eyes are still closed and his lips are parted in sleep. He has no lines in his forehead, but his beard is disheveled and his hair is in knots. It makes me giggle.

“I’m not sure whether to be pleased or offended that I’ve woken to the sound of my wife laughing at me,” he grumbles, which only makes me laugh harder.

Getting out of bed, I procure a basin, oils, water and a comb. He has several. One of them is made of bone and perfect for detangling the kinds of knots I often get in my thick, tightly coiled hair. It looks newly made and I feel a tightening in my chest at the sight of it, knowing that, among all the other things he has to do, he prioritized this.

I use the finer comb now and apply oils to his beard before combing it out while he continues to lie on his back. He smiles as I work and sits up when I get to work on his long hair. I unbraid it, comb and oil it, then apply a few braids in a Winterbren fashion. They sit tight to his scalp on the sides and fall behind his ears. I add a few larger braids to keep the rest of his hair from falling over his forehead, still allowing for the length while not using half so many ties as he had the first time.

“Shall I braid yours?” he asks me when I’ve finished and I’m shocked enough that I agree. “I used to braid my mother’s hair when it was just the two of us, and I still braid my own. Though, you are much better at it. I could get used to the feeling of your fingers on my scalp daily.”

I bite my tongue to cage my moan. The low pitch of his voice, that rumbling brogue, moves through me. “Likewise,” I respond.

He finishes my hair, leaving me with a crown of braids atop my head while the rest of my curls flow down my spine. “Are you ready, my queen?” he asks me. And I’m so surprised and touched by the style he’s given me, and the grace with which he gave it, that I have tears burning the backs of my eyes.

I nod and smile.

“I have a dress for you. It was difficult to find one suitable, but I believe this one is close to your size.” He goes to the outer room and what he returns with makes the breath in my lungs seize. The tears that I’d successfully stoppered well once more and several roll down my cheeks. He looks distraught as his gaze snaps between the dark green fabric and my face. “Starling…”

“That was my mother’s.”

He stills. “Why is it not in your possession if it belonged to her?”

“Rosalind took everything of value from my parents’ house when they…died.” When my father killed my mother and himself on the same night. “I thought Rosalind would have sold these off. I didn’t know she still had them.” I approach the dress and drag my fingers over the intricate darker green embroidery stitched onto the front bodice. I stifle my tears and glance up at the king, happy. “Thank you.”

The king’s lips, however, are hard. His eye tics. There are muscles standing out in his neck. He mumbles something under his breath as he helps me dress, first in the softest shift I’ve ever worn, and then in my mother’s dress. It was one I last saw her wear the day Viccra and the other warriors returned from their year in Ithanuir.

Three warriors had gone that time and only two returned. The third, the spice-maker’s son, had stayed and married a merchant’s daughter he met there. They were with child last time they came to visit. And I remember hating myself a little at the sight of her rounded belly and happy husband. I’d been so envious. Not only because of her family, but also because after she came to Winterbren for a few days, she’d gotten onto the back of a wagon and left. She’d been able to leave, to go back to a better life than this.

The king’s mood still does not improve as we take first meal in private, and then leave for the great hall. Most who took their meals here have already left their tables, likely vying to get a good spot to witness the games, which will be held on the barren wheat fields, freshly harvested, just south of Winterbren. The king surprises me by declining to ride a horse, but asks if I’m well enough to walk there.

In my new fur-lined boots, I’ve never felt more up for walking in my life. And my good mood will not be anchored by his displeasure, not when walking through Winterbren now, today, with the king holding my hand, everything feels so different. I see the world so differently — I’m able to see the world so differently unburdened by status or station.

People wave at me when they see me now — the same people who may have wanted to wave at me before, but couldn’t. The thralls are smiling at the king as they pass him and I notice that not one of them walks with their face pointed at the ground. They walk with their chins tipped up. They aren’t scrambling to serve and to clean.

I peek into the open curtains of the kitchens and see that it’s, surprisingly, in perfect order, even without the threats of punishments guiding the cooks within. Instead, cooks and helpers and workers of all kinds are crowded in the streets around us as we all walk together to the impromptu practice field south of Winterbren, where the hopeful warriors — a dozen this time — await the king and his verdict on whether or not they are fit to fight alongside him.

My good mood is improved by the weather. It’s beautiful today and I’m the perfect temperature in my mother’s dress, swaddled by the king’s fur. The sun is shining. The raised platform where the king and I will sit is already erected and, from this distance, I can already see the silhouettes of Olec and Rosalind occupying their places upon it.

My mood is elated even though I’m nervous to see Lady Rosalind, in particular, as I know her anger with me will be of catastrophic proportions. Still, I refuse to bow my head as King Calai grips my hand tight and leads me up the platform. He has to help boost me onto the ledge before he follows me onto it with a single sweeping leap of his own. I take my seat and it’s only as he takes his place between Olec and me that I finally look up and boldly meet Lady Rosalind’s eyes.

My good mood dies like the leaves of a sunflower at winter’s first frost. My eyes may see, but my brain does not process. I can…cannot believe… What am…I seeing? What…

Lady Rosalind, pale of skin and fair of hair, is known to be one of the most beautifully adorned women in Winterbren. Always put together. Always composed. As smart as she is mean, as shrewd as she is vicious, she is untouchable. She is the chief’s wife. His favored woman. Any who’d dare cross her knew already that the consequences would be as long as they were terrible…

But now, under the puffy white clouds, drifting so lazily over a baby blue sky, Rosalind sits in a position of honor at the high platform overlooking the games, her gold-crusted lips hang open, just like her eyes. Rolled back, she stares unseeing at the gods.

Rosalind’s limbs are all twisted, caught in terrible positions, like she’s been frozen mid-seizure. What looks like gold and silver paint crusts her mouth, her chin… Droplets stain the front of her dress. Her throat is…it’s missing. Part of it has been…melted…and the hole merely sits there open to the wind.

Her immaculately coiffed updo has fallen to the side and her dress is tattered, stained in blood. Her collar is split open wide, like the back of her dress has been torn, and there is blood seeping through her seat, swirling around her hem, coating her hands, which are reaching for her neck like she died trying to stop whatever happened to her from happening.

The contents of my stomach pitch and I taste bile. A weak grunt and a shifting blur drag my attention to the seat beside Rosalind where I meet Olec’s gaze directly. I stutter something unintelligible. His normally bloodshot eyes are bright red and the bags beneath them are pink and puffy. He has blood on his cheeks, some smears that I don’t believe are his and other lash marks that certainly are.

Aside from those few marks — marks I recognize, as they match the wounds on my back — he looks otherwise uninjured. A surprise, considering I would have thought that, if Rosalind were truly under threat, he would have tried to fight. Then again, on closer inspection, I can see that his forearms and ankles are bound to the seat beneath him. Perhaps, he couldn’t.

Holding my gaze from the other side of King Calai’s seat, Olec starts to thrash against his bindings. “You stupid, evil whore!” He roars. “You brought doom upon us! You did this! You filthy, ungrateful little girl, spreading your legs for…”

But Puhyo bounds up onto the platform behind Olec and shoves something into his mouth. It isn’t a cloth, but appears hard and painful, judging by the way the chief wails when a tie affixes it between his teeth.

The king, all the while, stares forward. He doesn’t acknowledge Rosalind or Chief Olec in the slightest. He simply continues to hold my hand and, at Olec’s outburst, brings it to his mouth. He kisses the back of my hand, rolls his lips around on my skin in a way that, this morning, might have made me pant. Now, it makes my skin shrivel.

“Why, my dear Chief Olec, that isn’t any way to speak to your future queen, now is it?” He speaks calmly, but loudly enough for all nearby to hear. And they are listening. The field is quiet, I realize, and though many are pointing and staring, none are objecting to this. It makes me wonder…if this was not a surprise to them, as it was for me.

In between tender touches and words that were saccharine sweet, did King Calai torture and murder Lady Rosalind, mere feet from where I was sleeping?

The king of bones…is a madman.

Chief Olec starts to weep openly and the king makes a condescending, pitying sound that elicits laughter from many of his warriors standing near the base of the platform. The king pats Chief Olec on the cheek with the same hand he used to braid my hair so deftly and tenderly. Then he gives my hand a little squeeze. “Do not trouble yourself with Olgar, my queen. As I told you before, repercussions from the two of them won’t be delivered to you. They are simply paying their penance now for what they have done to you and the others in this village for decades. I am simply acting as the hand of the gods.”

King Calai’s mask is impenetrable. He is not the same male that he was in the privacy of our chambers. This is the king. Calai is nowhere to be found here.

I sit and am bone cold. The king’s fur I wear does nothing for me anymore as the crowd rushes with excitement and seemingly ignores Olec and his wife seated high above them, one dead, the other tortured. Olec moans while the king whistles loudly enough to command attention.

“Let the games begin!” he roars.