Page 16 of Cruelest Kiss and Fairest Blood
“Princess, are you hurt?” The prince breeches the gap between them. Lenore turns toward the sound of his voice. He holds out a hand to her.
Lenore stares at the offered hand, glances over her shoulder, and then backs up a step. “I’m not hurt.”
A raven caws beside me. I’m needed back home, no doubt. The amulet ’round my neck is pulsing with heat. How long have I been ignoring its signals? The raven caws again.Just a few moments longer.
“What was that?” The prince looks more shaken than Lenore.
Hyper-focused, training every muscle to remain perfectly still, I wait. Will she tell him the truth? Will she speak of me to this unworthy prince? Lenore pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. For a moment, I imagine my own lip tugged between those teeth. Envisioning the feel of our mouths anchoring together each time I thrust into her. I can almost taste the blood as she bites down on my lip, tethering herself to me while I fuck her hard enough to shake her soul loose from her corporeal form.
“Strange things tend to happen when you live this close to the dark forest.” Her answer satisfies me in the way knowingyou share a secret always satisfies. We’re locked together, now. Our story growing amongst her lies. This surely won’t be her last mistruth now that the web has been spun.
Again, she peers behind her, seeking me out. Three more ravens drop to the ground around me. Their cawing grows more incessant. Lenore’s face still gazes my way. I’ve masked my presence from sight, which means those strange blue eyes are landing on nothing more than the shadow of a ghost. I could stare at her angelic face for centuries and never tire of the soft lines and indescribably beautiful features. She’s a lone rose, surrounded by thorns and bones, gleaming in the sunlight, too pure for this filthy, wretched world.
The amulet that rests on my breastbone grows hotter, sending a fiery ache through my chest. The dead demand more attention than the living. A raven, Mytha, swoops before me, hovering in front of my face and obscuring my view of Lenore. If my right-hand has come up to persuade me to return home, then I must have been gone longer than I realized.
Craning my neck, I peer around Mytha’s form in time to see Lenore wandering back inside with the prince at a safe distance beside her. My amulet heats, the intensity making me shake. “Fine,” I concede to a squawking Mytha.
My shadowy cape flows behind me as I turn on my heel, heading away from the castle. A black pit appears in the ground several feet before me. My reprieve from death is over. It’s time to return home. I dive headfirst into the abyss, allowing the void to swallow me whole. Pure night envelops me as I plunge, dropping through the darkness until I break through the starry, soul-filledskyline of the Underworld. I can see my entire kingdom from this height.
Smoke rises from the hottest parts of my land. Blue flame licks along the cracks in the earth, illuminating the barren soil around them. Small patches of silver glint across the landscapes, gardens of light, sanctuary for those souls worthy of eternal peace.
Splitting the land is the tumultuous seam of the river. It churns, violent and glistening. The damned fill those waters, always fighting to break free from their eternal hell.
I plummet, farther and farther, eyes to the ashen ground below. The water level has fallen dangerously low. Twisted limbs of souls stained with atrocities too terrible to speak of claw at the exposed rocky banks. I was gone for too long. A particularly nasty soul has reached high enough to hook his clawed fingertips into the topsoil on the lip of the river’s edge.This will not do.
My wings snap open, righting my body and slowing my descent before I can slam into the rocky ground. I glide mere inches above the top of the water, spewing shadows in every direction. They lash out, lassoing any who have climbed too high, slamming them back into the murky depths of their prison. Many have risen. They wail as I pass above, crying out to their unfeeling god.
My wings pump once, twice, shooting me ever faster and farther. Wind bites across my face as I pick up speed. It whips past me, tangling the strands of my pale hair until they’re wrapped up in the spires of my dark crown. Ravens fill the sky above, carrying the dead in their great talons. I dodge the rain of bodies that fall down around me. My feathery servants ferry the souls to their respective resting places. Though, for those of immoral character, no rest will be found here. The water continues underfoot. The serpentine river path leads me straight to the edge of the mountain.
The mountain itself is as black as the sky but the green veins that run deep within it give it an emerald glow that cannot be missed. Vivianite. The necro-crystal. It’s one of the only crystals that has been found growing on decomposing human remains. Here in the Underworld, with such a bounty of bones and bodies, it thrives.
My palace glistens where it’s been carved into the side of the mountain itself. The largest deposit of Vivianite forms the archways, columns, and rooms of my refuge. The only other décor to my verdant palace? Bones. I quite enjoy ripping the skeletons from those who have wronged me. Frederic Bellingham’s skeleton now ornaments my throne room. His skull is one of many that fashion the pedestal that I prop my blood-splatted boots upon.
I bank hard to the left before shooting skyward. The castle turns temporarily blue. Dichroism. The phenomenon gives Vivianite its unique color-changing properties. Depending on the angle and lighting, the slender tube-like crystals shift from a jaded green to a deep ocean blue.
My reflection follows me all the way up the mountain, its glassy obsidian surface revealing my truest form. I reach the balcony overhang that leads to my throne room, landing on the precipice with ease. Energy hums from the crystals surrounding me.
Dropping onto my throne, I note the shallow pool in the center of the chamber. The moment my power begins to flow into the room, the water rises. It leads to a waterfall that flows down the mountainside, feeding into the river. The constant flow mixed with my power keeps the souls locked away in the ever-churning waves. They tumble, tossed about, never gaining their bearings. The dark murky water clogs their noses and mouths, silencing their screams of pain and outrage. I enjoy watching them flail about, suffering the sensation ofhelplessness for eternity. Many of their victims were helpless at the hands of those wicked souls. It is a just punishment.
Having the water level tied to my power does lead to some complications. The longer I’m gone, the lower the level drops. If the damned should climb free, they threaten the sanctity of those whose souls are still pure. The river needs me here, needs my power to keep the souls in check.
Which is one of the reasons my obsession with Lenore is quite dangerous.
Mytha swoops through the open balcony, seamlessly transitioning from a sleek raven into her Serpien form. She lands, bowing before me. The Serpien are born from within this very mountain and tasked with the retrieval and gathering of souls. They are masters of illusion, most often reaping in the skin of a raven. Today, she has chosen the skin of a young, human woman. In the mortal world, her feminine face, braided auburn hair, and milky skin would be quite alluring and even possibly convincing to the humans. But her Serpien features will always give her away for what she is.
The Serpien are something not exactly living, but not altogether dead. Born of death, perhaps. Given life in the land of the deceased. What happens beneath the mountain and how the Serpien come to be is a mystery. Her twisted reptilian lower half is hidden beneath the silken black gown. Without looking, it could be assumed her flowing gait was produced by long, graceful legs.
Her eyes are harder to conceal. They glow, the same brilliant green as the crystals in the mountain. That unusual coloring dominates her gaze, leaving her eyes pupilless and overly bright. Ovals of glowing green peer up at me.
“My lord. Ssso good to sssee you ssseated on the throne again.” A forked tongue flicks outward as she hisses the syllables. I don’t miss the irritation lacing each word.
“None escaped,” I address her unspoken concern.
“Thisss time. It was clossse.” She raises a dark brow at me. “The human isss a dissstraction. My lord hasss more important thingsss to attend to than ssstudying the living.”
I stride toward the swirling pool in the center of the room. Kneeling, I run my fingers through the water. It shimmers, a bioluminescent trail highlighting the path of my touch.
“Indeed.” My glance shifts to the vast crystal chamber. What would it be like to hear her smoky voice filling these halls? My bone-adorned throne rises up, an ugly, dark thing amidst this natural beauty. Visions of a matching throne next to mine swirl into focus. My bone queen on a throne of bones. Truly, she is meant to be mine.
