Page 100 of The Beast King's Bride

26

ASH

After the bright, sparkling snow covering and smoothing out the edges of bridges and towns, the clean white expanses edged by trees, their boughs merrily dusted with snowflakes, reaching the parts where the Decay hit is a shock.

Numb, I look over the fields and meadows, the Decay lying over them like a black blanket, the trees twisted and dead, the houses abandoned. A stench of rot hovers over everything. Carcasses of animals are scattered on the blackened pastures, clouds of flies buzzing over them. A cart stands, tilted, horseless, outside a farmhouse we canter by, a scarecrow that’s melting into the field. An orchard mocks us with the blackened stumps of dead trees, like a graveyard.

And the decay spreads far and wide. We stop on a rise in the land and I look all around us, my throat closing. The Decay is everywhere.

“It hasn’t reached the city yet,” I whisper. “And the palace.”

“Not yet,” he replies and spurs Embar forward with a click of his tongue.

“Where are we going?”

“To the edge of the Decay.”

The guards whirl their horses about and wait until Talen looses a breath and turns Embar around as well to place us back at their center.

I’m not reassured when the guards lower their spears and hold them parallel to the ground, as if ready to attack.

“Expecting danger?” I ask as we spring forward, heading toward a line of hills flanking a river.

“There are always monsters at the edge of the Decay.”

“And why are there monsters only at the edge of the Decay and inside the palace?”

“I’m not sure. Both are edges of reality, where magic crashes against magic—mine against hers.”

“Her rules,” I whisper, working on figuring it out. “It’s as if she put the monsters where you work your magic, where you might find clues about the curse.”

“Let it go,” he says as we canter toward the white hills, so pristine against the darker background.

“How can you say that?” I whisper, saddened.

You may have lost hope, I think, but I haven’t. Maybe that’s why you were meant to find me, I was meant to find you. To find each other. So that I can hope for you.

The hills are steeper than they looked from the distance, the terrain echoing, marble-hard, grass growing in fissures, tall trees standing in groups, like sentinels. A town spreads around the hills, between them, gleaming white houses, round like the shells of snails, crowning the rocky rises.

The black of the Decay is encroaching from the river. The water runs dark, dead fish lining the shore, that sickly sweet stench of rot everywhere. People peek from half-open doors as we canter past, through the winding, cobbled streets, heading for the river.

The water lapping at the pebbles on the shore is thick like oil. Forms snake under its surface, sometimes breaking it, ridged backs of creatures sliding out and sinking back into its depths. A bridge rises over the sluggish waters, crumbling in places, covered in velvet black rot.

“Let us move downstream,” Talen says, “where we won’t have the townspeople staring at us.”

“On the contrary,” I say, “let them see. Don’t hide what you’re doing.”

He curses under his breath. “Ash… Even if you’re right about this, not everyone is willing to give me another chance.”

“Trust me,” I whisper.

“But—”

“I may be a servant but I know the power of tales and gossip. In fact, it’s because of my time in the kitchens and the palace bowels that I know that so well. You stand alone right now, apart from your few men. Get the land on your side and you will have allies.”

“Sire,” one of the guards says, “what she says—”

“What she says is your command,” he snaps, shifting on the saddle, his hand splaying over my front.

---