Page 19 of The Bone King and the Starling

THE WARRIOR

I t took me all afternoon to reach the woods. A risky path, I know, but I have no doubt I’d be caught on the road by Calai’s men…or worse. I took none of the riches I found in Calai’s chamber with me, opting instead to only bring Calai’s dagger to defend myself with, and my mother’s dress to trade. I didn’t want to steal from him…at least, more than I had to. And I know neither dagger nor dress will get me very far, but my hope is that I might be able to reach the inn outside of Winterbren and barter passage beyond Wrath.

I don’t know what I’ll find. Ebanora told me stories of stone cities built like staircases to reach the gods, but that seems too unbelievable. I suppose I’ll have to see them with my own eyes. I do not feel as excited as I thought I would, though. Instead, I feel only frightened.

As the woods close in around me and I step through thick patches of mud that soak my new boots up to the ankle, I wonder — not for the first time — if this was, perhaps, an impulsive choice. Too impulsive.

The king frightens me more than the unknown. But the unknown cannot be reasoned with. Could Calai have been brought to reason if I’d merely stayed and had the courage to try to talk to him? At least…told him the reason for my malcontent and hoped — prayed to the gods — that he didn’t carve my tongue out for it?

I shiver at the thought. I’m shivering in my boots, a gift from Calai. The cloak I stole from his chests along with the dagger. I am ashamed to have taken anything at all. I left his furs. That…fills me with sadness. The first furs I ever wore, given to me in one of my very first, unexpected kindnesses. The only kindness I ever saw before was from Ebanora and her family. But they are too fine to wear for a thrall on the run and would arouse suspicion. So I left them behind. I hoped they would serve as a message to the king, because I left him no note. Coward, that I am. Yet, what was my other choice? Live the rest of my life tongueless for daring to suggest that he stay the blade of his sword and deliver those who have wronged me more merciful punishments? I like my tongue where it is.

I trudge deep enough into the woods that I can still see the road, but cannot easily be seen from it. Mostly, I follow the sounds of horse hooves and horse carts. This road is well traveled. And as night descends and frightening sounds start to make themselves known in the forest surrounding me, the gods finally see fit to show me mercy. Mercy. The word curls my toes and makes me think of the easy way he smiled at me, the soft way he stuttered when he said I want you to consider coming with me, Calai. But is it Calai that is Davral’s incarnate, or the king?

Lights flicker in the trees ahead. My mud-soaked hem is weighing me down, as is the pack on my back. I took very few possessions, but as much food and water as I could carry, unsure if I’d be able to barter the few coins I’ve amassed over the years for a roof and food or just one or the other. It’s cold tonight. Not a night to sleep in the stables, if I can help it.

As if to press that point home, the wind whips through my cloak, flinging my hood back from my face as I step out of the woods, finally emerging onto the packed dirt road. The bank is still muddy and I hear the slap of my hem against my boots with every step I take to the front doors of the tavern. I’m halfway across the road when two women burst through them.

“Can you believe it?” The one slurs, drunkenly falling over the other. Both women have bright blonde hair piled high on their heads and very low necklines revealing large breasts.

The other answers, bringing a wine pitcher to her lips. “The king of Wrath — here at this place?”

I stop walking and hold my breath. The lights reveal my face fully and I rapidly pull back up my hood as I watch the two women who don’t even notice I’m there.

“You think he’ll take me to bed if I’m real sweet on him?” The women are walking around the tavern now, crossing the short square between the tavern and the inn. Three sides of a square, the horse stalls making up the third side that connects the inn and the tavern together. Their boots make clacking sounds on the cobblestones.

“Maybe, both of us. A male like that would have a ravenous appetite.” They make lascivious sounds that honestly make me smile a little — would have, had the female not immediately followed by adding, “Have you heard the rumors?”

“About him taking a wife?”

“Yes. But I don’t see a woman with him now.”

“I think we should fix that…” They both devolve to laughter as they push open the inn doors and disappear inside the large, squat two-story structure, their keys and coin pouches jangling at their hips.

I remain frozen on the walkway, unsure of what to do. I need to go into the tavern to make payment for a room from Moira the innkeep, but if what the women were giggling about is true, then Calai is already here. Of course he is. And I’m the fool. I can’t risk being seen by him.

The doors open and three men with deep hoods step outside. I quickly avert my gaze to my feet, tug my own hood lower, and start walking around to the shadowy back side of the tavern.

Along the flat wall of the back of the structure, several doors hang open. They lead to the kitchens, workers — paid workers — moving through them rapidly. I recognize one of them — an orphan girl who was once a thrall in Winterbren until Moira purchased her freedom from Rosalind — and quickly rush forward to grab her arm before she can go back inside.

“Dimitra,” I whisper, pushing my hood back so she can see my face. “It’s Starling of Winterbren. Do you remember me?”

The girl’s panic dissolves and a smile comes to cover her pale, freckled face. “Starling! Of course I remember you. You were always so kind. It’s lovely to see you, but what…what are you…” And then her voice gives out. Her hand moves to cover her mouth, diffusing the visible clouds of her warm breath. “Are you… You are the king’s woman now. That is what everyone at the inn tonight is saying. The king made a large pronouncement when he arrived an hour ago that anyone who has information as to your whereabouts should come forward and receive a reward…”

I wince, my lower lip quivering. After making it all this way, I’m already found out. I was a fool. A stupid, silly little girl who thought she could outrun shadows on foot in the dark. “I…”

She frowns and leans in very close to me. Two men move behind her carrying a large tun of ale and she quickly pulls me further around the building until we stand at the corner of the tavern and the stables beneath a low hanging eave where light cannot touch us.

“You do not wish to be discovered?” she hisses.

I wince, then nod. It feels like a confession.

“Has the king been cruel with you?” she asks, sounding so sincere, her eyebrows pulling together.

I shake my head. “Just cruel. I’m very afraid of him and I don’t…don’t…” Don’t know how to say what I mean to say next.

Dimitra nods, her face setting. “Wait right here. I will fetch Moira. She will help you, don’t worry. She has helped many women in your position before.”

Dimitra leaves in a flurry but does not keep me waiting long before returning with Moira. She was the first person I’d ever seen as a young child with a skin color to match mine and my mother’s. She’d been kind to us, the few times we’d had occasion to cross her path, and had always gone out of her way to speak to me when she traveled to Winterbren.

She frowns down her straight nose at me now and pushes her waist-length curly braid over her shoulder. Then she takes my hands in both of hers.

“Your hands are cold, Starling.” And when her frown clears she looks like an entirely different woman. “I had hoped to see you again.” She wraps me in a warm hug that I don’t understand until she says into my hair, “I don’t know if your mother ever told you, but she and I are from the same land. I tried to help her flee with you, but she was too afraid to leave your father. When I heard of their passing, I sought to purchase you from Rosalind but she would not sell you for a fair price.”

She pulls away from me, holding me out to look at me with straight arms and a brilliant smile that lights up the darkness. “You are a beautiful woman now. It is no wonder.”

“She fears the king, Moira,” Dimitra says just behind her. “We should provide her shelter.”

I’m surprised by Dimitra’s boldness, and by Moira’s ease. Moira simply nods. “Of course. I’ll sneak you in the back. There is a spare room on the ground floor on the opposite end of the building. The king is on the second floor. You should avoid notice. Come. Dimitra, can you go ahead and prepare the room?” She nods and runs off towards the inn while Moira takes my hand and guides me around to the back of the stables.

There, under the shadow of the building where moonlight does not reach, she pushes me down onto my knees so that we sit below the half wall of the horse stalls. Inside, I can hear them happily braying. “Wait here and stay out of sight. I will come get you when the coast is clear and I’m certain none of the king’s men are roaming about.”

I nod. She turns. Before she can gather her skirts and leave, I tell her, “Thank you. I do not know what I’ve done to deserve such kindness.”

Moira smiles and crouches down in front of me. She takes my face between her hands and says, “We women have to stick together. It’s a cold world out there. Even colder alone.” She hesitates, but doesn’t leave and when she drops her hands to catch mine, she clutches them firmly. “Are you certain?”

“Certain?”

“I am assuming you mean to leave Winterbren, maybe even Wrath, entirely. I can help you secure passage almost anywhere you like, and I still have family back in the old land that could harbor you, but I will tell you it isn’t an easy life. No life is easy for a young woman, or woman of any age. You could stay here, as an alternative, work for me. I would pay you a living wage…”

“No. No no no no no, Moira, I couldn’t. The king… He would find me eventually and you would be… He would kill you for harboring me. I didn’t even say goodbye to my friends in Winterbren for fear of what he’d do to them if he ever discovered they knew of my plans.” I shiver and shake my head again, emphatically. “No. He is a violent man.”

Moira’s mouth falls open and her eyebrows crease. She touches my cheek. “Violent towards you or violent for you? There is a difference.”

“I…” I shake my head, confused by her words. Rattled. “I just…can’t stomach it.”

She nods in understanding. “You are a grown woman of sound mind. If you’ve made yours up, I will not question it. The king will never know that you were here tonight, though I will tell you that he does not seem like a male who’s come with the intent to punish. He seems more like a male who’s come with the intent to plead…”

“The king’s men are everywhere,” Dimitra says, huffing as she rounds the corner at a sprint. “We won’t be able to sneak her inside, even through the back entrance.”

Moira curses and stands up. “Let me see if I can’t give them some motivation to leave the inn. Wait here, Starling. I’ll return for you when it is clear.”

Quick as the wind, they turn and flee leaving me alone with my thoughts, with my concerns…maybe even, my regrets. He looks like a male who’s come with the intent to plead. What does she mean by that? Does she think him not as violent a male as I do? Is he only acting in his capacity as king? Or does he enjoy the blood and the agony? Will he direct it towards me should I fail or upset him…as I’ve already done by running? Or, is his violence only an act of the care he seems to feel towards me?

I shiver. There is no chance he wouldn’t have my back flayed far worse than anything Rosalind could have ever dreamed up. Though to know now that I had a chance at a free life years ago and Rosalind denied me makes me feel a little less charitable towards her. Not that charity will save her. I’m not sure King Calai left enough of her soul intact for even the gods to salvage.

As I sit huddled against the wooden wall of the stables, my nervousness mounts. Time passes. Moira and Dimitra don’t return. The temperature has dropped and I’m even colder now as all this insecurity brings the temperature of my blood down. I want to scream. I want to weep. I want to ask the gods if they can allow me a small glimpse into the future so that I can know the king’s mind and be sure that the violence of his hand does not affect his heart.

And then a voice as familiar to me as my father’s and just as mean tears my thoughts out from under me like a rug. “He’s in there now,” Tori says, voice sounding ragged and enraged. His voice is clear, frighteningly so. I clap my hand over my mouth and glance at the wooden half wall. He’s in the stables. There is only this flimsy wood separating us. I don’t breathe. I don’t move. “Let’s go. I’m not waiting anymore. He needs to pay!”

“That disgrace of a king destroyed Winterbren.” The second male’s voice comes to me as an even greater shock. It’s Torbun. Torbun may be many things, but a devout loyalist to Tori or even Olec, he is not. Torbun’s character was never easy to puzzle out. He is devoted only to power. I’d have thought his allegiance would fall easily to the king now.

Torbun prattles on, “We will exact our revenge for what he has done to Olec and Rosalind. And to think, he will install my own son as chief in Olec’s absence, overlooking my claim entirely.” Ah. I understand now. Even though I understand, Torbun’s inability to be happy for his eldest son surprises me. Perhaps, I truly am not meant to be queen. I do not have the ambitions of these petty, jealous men. I yearn only for kindness, only for love.

“There you are. What did you find?” Tori says.

Another voice I don’t recognize answers. “It’s time. The king has ordered a bath and the servants have brought his water. He should be bathing now. We should go.”

“Are we enough?” a fourth voice says nervously.

Tori is quick to respond. “We’re seven.” Seven? Seven against one? The king is said to be a formidable warrior, but seven seems far too many. I cannot fathom who else would have joined this crusade, but I suddenly feel fear for the king. Despite his violent hand, I can say that the changes he proposed to me in private would make Winterbren better. Already, releasing the thralls was a wonderful gift. I can’t let them kill the king. My feelings towards Calai aside, I can’t let them take these new freedoms away from so many people. I must warn someone. The consequences to me be damned.

Careful not to make any sound, I shuffle along the edge of the wooden wall until I round the end of the building. Here, the wooden stable walls turn to the stone walls of the inn and I burst into a sprint. My hem and pack weigh me down, but I fight the strain in my shoulders and neck as I pass by startled employees who try to stop me from entering the squat, two-story structure.

“What…what are you doing?” Dimitra says, rushing out of the lit building and grabbing my shoulders. “You shouldn’t be here. You’ll be seen! Moira has just convinced all of the king’s men to come to the tavern for free ale. Only the king remains in the building and she’s plying him with wine while he bathes.”

“He’s alone?” What have I done? They will surely kill him now.

She nods, expression confused and concerned. “That’s what you wanted…”

“It is, but I believe someone may be going to try to kill the king! Go get his men! Urgently!” I push past her, unsure if she’s listening to me at all. I remember Moira saying he was on the second floor, but I don’t know which room. “Where is he?” I shout over my shoulder.

“In the room just at the top of these stairs!” she shouts after me. “Are you not worried about him punishing you for running from him?”

Of course I am, but I cannot let Tori, of all people, be the one to slay the king, ambushing him when he is weak. A male who’s come to plead. I will have to take my chances with Tori first, the king second if I am successful. And if I’m not…then we are all doomed.

It only occurs to me as my feet hit the narrow, weathered stairs that Tori is still living. I thought the king would have killed him during the second bloody round of the games. I wonder what stayed his hand and a momentary ache fills my chest at the thought that perhaps…the king might have been willing to see reason.

Fear has been my only constant these long years. But perhaps, I should find a new ally. One called courage.

The inn is a simple construct. Two floors with a single hall running the length of each, rooms on either side of the hall. There are two staircases. One for use by guests, the other a narrower staircase for the inn’s employees. I take the latter and it brings me up to the second story at one end of the hall. The other, wider staircase brings guests up in the center of the room-lined corridor. I reach the second floor at the same time Tori does.

He is turned away from me at first and I can hear my heart in my throat, even louder than my voice as I shout, “Calai! Tori is here to kill you!” My hand fumbles in my skirts. I slide the straps of my pack down my arms and it hits the floor behind me with a heavy thud.

Tori turns towards me while Torbun and five other males crowd the space behind him. They are all brandishing swords except for Tori, who has an axe. He has bandages over both ears and his face looks like it’s been bashed many times, but he isn’t missing any other appendages, as I expected him to be. He meets my gaze before dropping his own to the ornamental dagger clutched in my fist, and then he does the most terrifying thing he’s ever done. He smiles at me and raises his axe to point it at my nose.

“The things I’m going to do to you in front of your precious king.”

There are two rooms at the end of the hall, the one behind me and the one before me. The one before me is utterly silent but I hear a thud from within the one behind me and place my body before it. I hold my knife aloft and all of the men laugh.

“A disgrace,” Torbun hisses.

“Let’s go. Tonight is the night for killing kings — but not whores. Leave this one for me,” Tori says.

“Calai!” I shout — no, I don’t. My voice abandons me. I barely whisper his name as I fall back against the door. I rap on it frantically with the knuckles of my free hand, hoping, praying he’ll come out and somehow get his army up here to defend him in time. But then I consider that he might be inside, drunk on the wine Moira plied him with — at my behest — and asleep in the bath as Olec would have been. Then again, Olec would never have gotten off of his behind to chase down anything — let alone a woman. I’m such a fool. And now, I’ll die as one. But at least I won’t die a coward.

Tori charges down the hall and is on me in a flash, despite his multitude of injuries. “Stay back,” I gasp. But he only comes closer until we’re toe to toe. He reeks of blood and hate.

His men move to flank him, all of them turned towards me, towering over me and crowding the hall while my back remains pressed against the door. I hold out the king’s dagger. My grip is tight, but shaky. I know realistically that I can’t stop all of them — maybe, any of them. But I won’t simply lie down. I’ve laid down too many times in my life to do it here. I lay down every time Rosalind told me to turn for her and drop my shift. I lay down every time my father raised his hand to me. I lay down every time my mother looked at me with hollow eyes full of apathy.

But…I stopped lying down when the king’s violence made me afraid. Against his sadism, I found strength. Ironic that it should be the king to make me strong enough to run, that it is for the king I return. I will be strong for him now. I will fight for the king and the promises he’s made to my village and people like me. But also, I will fight for Calai and the small mercies he’s shown me. And most of all, I will fight for me.

“Turn away, Tori,” I whisper, tears pricking the backs of my eyes. I’m afraid to die. I feel like…my life has only just begun. “You don’t have to do this.”

Tori simply reaches past me with the blade of his axe. He smashes the blunted top of his axe against the door, letting the blade lightly skim my shoulder — a threat as clear as the bloodlust glossing his gaze. “Open up, my lord,” he sneers. “I have your precious queen.”

“Tori, don’t make me…” I say, pressing the tip of my dagger against his abdomen.

He looks down at me with blue eyes ringed in purple. His bruises are pronounced and grotesque. His nose looks broken. Dried blood crusts his nostrils. The men at his back are clamoring to break down the door, to hurry, but Tori takes the extra moment to bend down and whisper with blood-stained breath against my cheek, “You will leave this inn alive, but with no arms, no legs, no eyes, no tongue. You’ll be a simple carcass I’ll keep with me like a chest, one I can fuck whenever I like. You’ll breed me bastard after bastard and I’ll tear them to pieces in front of you. You won’t be able to see, but you’ll be able to hear their screams. I’ll keep you alive like that forever. You’ll be my special…little…toy…”

The door swings open at my back. I exhale, both panicked and relieved at the same time. “Calai…” I turn but the door slams shut again on a squeal. One of the blonde women who I heard speaking about Calai in front of the tavern is who shut the door. And there was a man with her. I caught a glimpse of him and, though I couldn’t make out his features clearly, I could see well enough that he stood a foot shorter than Calai and had a round belly and brown hair.

I jolt as I stumble back against the door and turn to look at Tori. My eyes are strained against wide lids and in this moment, I manage to find it amusing that Tori and I share the same expression. The men behind Tori have started to turn, but they are too slow… Because the door across the hall is open and a bare chested Calai is filling up its breadth.

Two of the men hit the floor before the rest can turn. He holds no weapons and I don’t understand how he’s felled them. One of the men releases a battle cry, turns with his sword raised and stabs it towards Calai. I cry out, as if I might stop him. It is a senseless thought, for Calai is the bone king, used to the feeling of bathing in other mens’ blood.

Calai grabs the man’s arm at the wrist, not even blinking as his attacker’s sword stabs mere inches from his right eye. Calai outmuscles the man, twisting his arm back, and then drives his forehead into the man’s nose.

The man collapses and Calai raises his other arm, driving his fist into a fourth man’s nose. He takes his elbow to the man’s chin as he starts to fall and I hear a loud crack as the man falls back, collapsing into the servant’s stairwell. The man’s body makes terrible sounds as it falls down the stairs, hitting every one. Torbun, meanwhile, takes off down the hall, heading towards the guest stairs, but Calai rips a dagger from his next attacker’s hand and tosses it almost absently down the hall, hitting Torbun directly in the center of his back.

Calai has already moved on to his next attacker. The man punches Calai in the stomach four times, but Calai seems hardly affected. He doesn’t block. His muscles, shimmering with oils from his bath, simply contract as the man does his worst. And then Calai grabs the man by the head. He snaps his neck in one swift motion.

Two men lie grunting on the floor now, three more lie dead, the one in the stairwell I assume is either dead or sure to follow. That leaves only Tori — Tori, who lifts his axe. Calai’s arms are down. He has blood spatter on his face. I gasp.

And then my arms jerk. Tori grunts. He looks away from the king, twisting to slowly look at my face. He blinks at me, anger and rage swirling in his gaze, but sprinkled with surprise, too. It’s an honest sort of surprise that makes him look, for the first time I’ve ever known him to, quite boyish.

I imagine that this is the man he could have been, and for a moment, I feel deep sorrow…and anger…not only at his poisoned character, but at the fact that he’s been poisoned from his childhood, as we all have been, by Winterbren and the terrible way the people have been treated within it. The select few very wealthy taking all the spoils and stepping on or over the backs of those with so little. I didn’t realize there could be another way, that there was another way all along. That people could be treated with basic dignities. That the weak could be protected, rather than beaten, by the strong.

“It didn’t have to be like this,” I whisper, the burning in my eyes abating. I will not cry, not for Tori, though my entire body shakes beneath the magnitude of what I’ve done.

Tori looks down. I drop my gaze, and then drop my hand from the hilt of the beautifully ornamented blade. It doesn’t move. The blade remains embedded in Tori’s side, between two of his ribs. I don’t think it will kill him, but it’s enough to stop him. He drops his axe.

It lands hard on the ground between us, embedding itself in the wooden floor. I jolt at the shocking sound it makes and, when I step back, hit the back of my head on the door. “You should have been mine,” Tori hisses, his hands lightly closing around my throat. But King Calai grabs Tori by the back of his hair and rips him off of me easily, tossing him down the hall as if he weighs nothing more than the dagger I stabbed him with.

“She was always mine. As I was hers,” Calai says simply, following Tori down the hall and dropping to one knee. “Before you were born. Before time.”

I hear a horrible gurgling sound and then silence, before Calai rises. He turns and I notice his fingers look like they’ve been dipped in blood. We stare at one another, unmoving, for what feels like a dozen lifetimes. My gaze scours his massive frame, his unbraided hair falling free around his shoulders, the blood on his face, the oils gleaming on his skin accentuating the lines of his muscles and the hard planes and ridges of his body made for killing.

And for loving, when the mood strikes him.

He watches me in return, his gaze lingering over the top of my head, my hair, my chin and throat. His gaze drops lower, to my hand — my blood-stained hand. I follow his gaze down and, seeing the bloody pads of my fingers, I quickly twist my hands in my skirt.

His gaze returns to mine and his mouth opens, but he doesn’t say a word. Instead, I watch in fascination as his cheeks flush the brightest pink. He comes forward, towards me, and I don’t back away. Not even as he stands less than half a pace away from me and brings two of his blood-coated fingers to my right cheek. He makes a single downward stroke from my temple to my jawline before repeating the motion on the other side of my face.

I know the mark and its meaning. It’s a warrior’s mark. I’ve only seen it delivered once, when Winterbren was raided when I was young and a then-young Viccra killed one of the raiders. He hadn’t been to Ithanuir then, but he still managed to best a male. It was his first kill and Olec had given him this mark. Viccra had been celebrated that night. To receive a similar mark now makes me feel a little horrified but also…so seen.

I’ve never… A warrior? Me?

I begin to stutter, but stop when I feel something hard touch my hand. I look down to see that he’s returned my dagger — his dagger — to my fingertips. I take it.

The king’s hands then move to my face and mold around my ears. He grips me tightly and moves our foreheads to touch. His breath caresses my nose and mouth and chin, smelling of the wine Moira gave him, yet it did not seem to impede his fighting abilities at all.

I wonder if it’s me or if it’s him that shakes.

“Calai,” I say in a rush.

He sucks in a breath as if he’d been holding his, waiting for me to speak. “You ran from me.”

“Yes,” I say, starting to shake. I cobble together a thousand apologies in my mind, but I can get none of them past the gate of my teeth. “I know you…”

He cuts me off, his voice a deep and loud boom that acts as a hook in my stomach, pulling everything up. “And then you came back,” he whispers.

“Yes.”

“To save my life.” His hand moves down the side of my body, fingertips trailing over the outside of my arm until he reaches my hand. He squeezes my fist around the dagger and when he exhales, he sounds even shakier than I am. “Thank you, little bird.”

Thank you is not what I expected to hear from him now, and the terror it lifts from my bones is enough to make me fall to my feet. He catches me. His hand slides around my lower back and he pulls me up against his body, not seeming to care at all for the dagger I still hold in my fist. I release it, knowing that I would never — could never — use it against him. This man isn’t here to hurt me. How could I have ever thought he was?

“I couldn’t let him hurt you.”

He presses his mouth to the edge of mine, tasting me, but not enough. Not enough… “You were so brave.”

His beard brushes my much softer skin, almost too roughly as he seeks to be closer, ever closer. He’s pulling at my low back, at my face and neck, pressing his cheek to mine. I breathe him in and though I’m frightened, I feel a sudden…desperation. For him. For this. It may just be my crashing nerves or the battle lust the men speak of when they fell their opponents, but I need…everything.

“I was so scared…”

“But you were more afraid for me than of me.” Violent towards you or violent for you? There is a difference.

I nod, tears I didn’t know needed release crashing down now. “Yes. I’m sorry, Calai. I didn’t…”

“No, no, shh… Shh.” He gathers me to his chest, lifting my feet off of the ground and bringing me entirely into his heat and his shadows. He wraps his arms fully around my low back and shoulders, encasing me in his warmth as he is careful not to touch my center back. “It is I who am sorry, little bird. My queen. I should have taken better care. I exacted a revenge I wanted for acts committed against you. I revenged for me. It was wrong. I should have asked you what you wanted. I will not make that mistake again…”

“I just… When I saw your violence… You reminded me of my father, of Rosalind, of everyone who’s ever raised a hand to me. I feared you’d just become another… That if I ever displeased you, you’d cast me aside or worse. I have nothing, Calai. I cannot stop you.”

“You can. You always can. We come from two worlds, just as Raya and Ghabari do. But it is Raya who turns Ghabari’s head and stays his hand, just as you can mine. Do not allow me to displease you, little bird, and I vow that I will not ruin your tenderness with violence.”

I wrap my arms around his neck and squeeze him with all the force that I have. He squeezes me back to the point that I can scarcely take in more breath. He says to me gruffly, “You are strong, and you are powerful and I am yours to command, my queen.”

“I’m so sorry, Calai. I should have found courage earlier…”

“You found it when it counted.”

“I should have trusted you…”

“Shh.” He strokes my hair. “There will be time for that.” And then his voice breaks. “If you’ll still have me?”

I force distance between us and look up at him, our faces so very close together. I hold his cheeks between my hands and smile, choking on my next laugh. This is not at all how I expected this meeting to go, and I am so grateful to the insidious Tori for having ruined my earlier plans.

“I’ll have you, Calai, if you’ll still have me?”

He smiles and shocks me by betraying a gloss to his gaze that was not there before. “I will have you every day, for the tender, beautiful, strong, courageous, brilliant and bloodthirsty thing that you are. You are my queen and you have my heart.”

“I promise I will be careful with it from now on.”

“As I will be with yours.” His gaze flits between my eyes before briefly sobering. “And do not run from me again, my warrior. I cannot survive the pain of your loss again in this lifetime. I want death to be the only thing that separates us going forward.”

I nod, seeking strength, mining for courage and finding both. “I will not. I will speak to you and make my demands as a queen should.”

He grins. “And what are your demands, my lady?”

I glance around the hall, the desecration of so many bodies, and then at the small army of men and several women crowding the hallway, staring at us with one of two expressions — wearing smirks, or in utter shock.

“Take me away from this carnage, my king,” I say, circling my arms around his neck tighter and planting a kiss on the lobe of his ear.

The king shudders and hoists me up against his chest, his hands underneath my bottom. He takes three backward steps putting us inside his room, then kicks the door closed behind him, blocking all his violence out, and trapping only my tenderness within.