Page 42 of Of Skulls Of Shackles

“I fare as well as ever,” he replied, not looking up, nor managing to hide a wheeziness in his voice.

I sat on the other end of the bench and gazed out at the knee-high millet. “Sir, as I said in my letter, there is much we must speak of.”

“There is only one matter to speak of,” he wheezed. “The matter of union where you agree to uphold your word to a king, or I force you to do so.”

He was sick. That much was clear. His sickness was what had stressed his princes to crispiness. This was why King See celebrated control of his claiming behavior lately, and why he had little fear of me meeting another king. “Sir, are you well?”

“I am well,” he snapped. “Do you fare well, reeking of lust as you do? You have spent another night with King See, though you are mine. You are untrue! Another strike against you.”

His annoyance jiggled his hat, but I should not laugh.

If he wished to speak of a woman untrue, then I might recommend he point his finger toward a damp orchestra filling my queendom. Though Princess Bring owed her ex-king nothing, in my queenly opinion.

His hat jiggled again, and I inhaled sharply at the glimpse of that he wished to keep hidden. King See had seen this without the need to physically look at King Bring, of course.

Black lines extended through Bring’s face. Not just one side, as they had, butbothsides. His was an entire face of curse, not of both curseandcharm.

My lips curved as I gazed upon millet once more. “That is poetic.”

“Whatis poetic?” he asked, still furious.

That the curse he had intended to kill his princess with was now eating away at him. “I assume that the curse has affected you this way because Princess Bring did not drink her portion?”

The air crackled with his rage. I imagined his thatched kingdom was rattling and leaping.

“You are sick, King Bring. Tell me what ails you.”

The millet flattened away from his fury. “Naught ails me. I am well, and we meet to discuss union and nothing more!”

That was not quite the matter at hand. King Bring was sick from a curse meant to kill an immortal, and we were not really here to discuss the union at all—not in the way he wished. “Will you die then?”

His breaths were labored and audible. “I will not die. Not when everything is as it should be. Not when you are mine.”

Ah, bother and drat.He had pegged his dying hopes on me. I highly doubted that union with me would counter a curse, and even if it did, then my occasional intrigue for King Bring’s body had wholly evaporated amid his wheezes and ailment. Such was the superficial nature of infatuation.

King Bring drew a glass vial from his long coat. A charm trapped in corked vial that glittered with moonlight. “The antidote.” King Bring hacked a cough. “You will drink it at our union night, and I shall sample the last drops. Then all will be well.”

King Bring now viewed our union as a matter of life and death, and that was rather more than his previous deep belief of our saving fate. Now King Bringcouldnot let up because he believed that would result in his death.

He would push for a tribunal, and most kings would jump at the chance to tug me here and there in a ploy for power. King See would struggle with madness again, certainly. I did not wish for such annoyance from kings. “I fathom that you have two choices, sir. I will not join with you in union. That is not what we are for. That is what your magnificent princess that you already had and lost was for. But I do not like to see any monster suffer, and though we have disagreed in recent times, there might be a time where we agree, if we can find a compromise in this. Create a charm, sir, that I might consume as your friend to save you. Once my mother has checked the authenticity and safety of the charm, then I will do this for you without hesitation. Or you can enter into a lengthy tribunal that you may not survive to hear the verdict of. Which would you prefer?”

The game was up. He tilted his head to look at me. There was a yellowness to his eyes, and a soul weariness that no immortal should ail from. Black lines must cover him from crimson head to toothed feet.

“No, young queen,” he said on a sigh. “That will not do for me. I choose tribunal.”

Then that was that.

I tuned into my obsession that had been politely—and very unexpectedly—waiting during this conversation with a king. Part of me had feared becoming rabid upon the sight of King Bring, but no such thing. This obsession must behave differently from one of princesses.

But here was a chance… here was an opportunity. A weakened king, a wheezing king, and one self-poisoned.

He might soon die, but I would not waste time. Not if I were humble and driven to success.

A savage snarl ripped from me, and I heard the layers of it whine as they shoved at each other to leave my throat first. My clawed hand shot for the king’s throat.

Quite simply—my hand was stopped.

King Bring’s yellowed eyes widened, and if not for the back of the bench, he might have toppled heels over head.

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