Page 467 of Kingdoms of Night

TO WED A SHADOW GOD

LUCY TEMPEST

CHAPTERONE

Desperation was unflattering on the powerful, none more so than my father.

The longer the moonless nights lasted, the greater the doubt was cast on the High Priest of Mahala. Once second only to the king, his success and reverence had dimmed as our dusks had. Why couldn’t Eleil, prized for his contact with the Moon, give us an answer for her disappearance?

It turned out he did know. The bastard had withheld the truth for months, all to frame himself as the beacon in the crisis. Except that stellar plot depended on the darkness being temporary. That once it passed, he could accredit the triumphant return of normalcy to his ‘interference’, become the savior of the empire, if not the world.

Instead, he was tortured into revealing the chaotic truth. A god from Beyond the Void had burned out one of our heavenly lights, and decreed our nights could only reignite through appeasing him.

It has been seven years since the Dying of the Moon, and in its wake, the world grew stranger and scarier. Demons claimed cities from sundown, trade and travel became harder than sailing in a sea storm, crime reigned under the cover of night, and the world as we knew it hung by a thread.

Keeping track of time grew harder, yet each winter, when the longest night of the year fell upon us, a maiden was chosen from a different land. A bride to appease the Shadow King, in hope that his satisfaction would spare us. This year the order fell onto my homeland of Beinahrein.

On the verge of our eighth year in this arrangement, it was safe to say those we looked to for guidance hadn’t the faintest idea what that monster wanted. No one knew what happened to each bride, just that they were never seen again.

It didn’t matter how much of an honor it was to be chosen, whether it was by divine hands or the hope of millions. Maia was not going to be the one meeting the proxy among the cedars tonight.

As far as the escort of guards and priestesses knew, the woman in the blue veil was my sister. It would remain that way until sunrise revealed the truth—and someone let Maia out of her quarters.

It was for her own good, and I refused to feel guilty. The king had had the nerve to accuse me of coveting my sister’s opportunity, but what good was being honored if you weren’t alive to experience it?

Nevertheless, the difference hardly mattered. Considering how little use he had for us, and how much he despised me, it had taken a while for my father to offer up a daughter as a sacrificial bride. Though, when King Nabonassar shoved a rippled-steel dagger into my hands and told me to end this or else, I knew this was a request Eleil couldn’t refuse.

Here I was, atop a black mare, being taken to the forest altar with one thing in mind. If I reignited the Moon, I’d be granted any wish in the combined power of all kings. The first would be to defy the gods that ignored us and hold their clergy accountable, starting with my father.

No post would be safe from the rage of a hero, not even those with divine blessings and blood.

It sounded far simpler than it was, as the further we went the dimmer the starlight became, and the lanterns hanging from each saddle could only show so much.

My mother, may the gods rest her soul, favored a vibrant outlook. One that extended into delusion as our home-life grew harsher. When Eleil brought his frustrations back to us, the only beings fully under his might, she would argue there was always something good to be found.

With his handprint on her face, she’d hold Maia and I to her sides, and say the night may have been darker, but that allowed us to see the stars like we never had before. That was how I knew she was lying to herself. The stars had dulled in the absence of the Moon, as it hadn’t been interfering with their shine, but amplifying it. A fact I would have been fascinated by in wholly different circumstances, in the fantasy future where I could live my dream of being a royal astronomer.

Glittering patches showed through the tops of the trees, plentiful and beautiful in canvases spanning the shades of the bruises I still had around my forearms. Eleil didn’t appreciate me daring to argue against giving his own daughter to that dark deity. Inebriation may have dulled effort, but all his strength had gone to pulling my arms off my head, spraying outrage as he fought to reach my face.

Maia had tried to snuff out the fire by claiming she was happy to do this, tears of stress shimmering in her cow-eyes. Life had always gone easier on her, leaving her naivety and hopefulness intact.

She didn’t suffer, not like I did, and I needed her to remain that way.

I gripped the reins tighter and faced ahead, the biting chill of equinox air adding to my shivers of dread. Demons and animals lurked in such places, coming here on the longest night had long left ‘risky’ behind and run headfirst into ‘reckless’.

“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” I asked the guard to my left, Germelik, pitching my voice up to suit my sister’s. “We’re primed for an ambush this way, be it bandits or beasts.”

“What do you care? You’re going to die either way tonight,” he groused.

I flinched as if he had made a swipe for my head. Being used to harshness didn’t mean I had grown immune to its effects. “I care about the unavoidable. There’s no need for any of us to die due to stupidity tonight.”

He laughed bitterly. “The unavoidable is your fate. The only difference is we will be missed.”

Hurt branded itself between my clavicles, a stifling itch spreading up to my throat and chasing out a tear. Our relatives had long been put off by my father, friendships burned in the fallout of his ambitions, and…life could get easier for Maia in my absence. Now that the antagonistic older daughter was gone from their path, plenty of years-long suitors could whisk her away to a happier home. Goodwill might even rise for her now as the beautiful sister of a Shadow Bride.

“If I matter that little, how about I just go back and save you the rest of the trip?”

Germelik jerked his horse at mine, startling her and giving me a false start when he stopped inches away. “Shut up. No one wants to hear you, least of all what hides between the trees.”

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