Page 21 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

She lifted her head, eyes wide and hopeful. “What condition?”

“You don’t say anything. Not one word. Nothing at all. No questions. I have no answers for whatever question you might have.”

“None that you want to tell me, you mean?”

This girl. “Thora.”

“It’s okay. I agree. You will tell me eventually anyway, like you’ve told me every other thing.”

Again, she was right.

I took her to the nightmare underneath the oldest temple there was in Amaris, at the catacomb tunnels disguised underneath. And as she had promised, she had not said a word. Occasionally, her grip on my sleeve tightened and loosened, sometimes she sighed and at others she let out a squeal of surprise when the spirits lingering the ground made themselves seen. Beneath the temple, the veil between life and death was thin, so thin you could sometimes see the gates of Keres and hear the bells of the next boat that took you through the river of Despairs to the Otherworld.

As we came to stop before a small cave with chains hanging from its walls, she tugged on my sleeve, forcing me to a stop, forcing me to look at her. Two round glassy emerald eyes looked up at me, full of knowing. Her lips pursed tightly as she struggled to hold to her promise not to say anything, not to acknowledge that she knew every sense in my body had been overwhelmed by death.

I’d told her the story, but I’d never shown her where it had taken place. This was the first time I’d come down here after my father had died.

“Five years old.” The first time that he had brought me down here. “He probably knew since then what I was, what gift I was given. He could see the spirits, too, but he did not feel them as if they lived under his skin like I did. Every day up until the day he found out about my magic, he brought me here. He‘d leave me by that corner,” I said, pointing to a small alcove painted with old Darsan letters. “Chained in case I left. Sometimes he’d forget me here, but then Kilian paid off a guard and had found out about this place, so he’d sneak me out after father would bring me here. Father found out two weeks later, beat Kilian and put us in two cells next to one another. He brought me water and food while Kilian’s wounds began festering, while he went through fever and thirst. My father let me feel my brother slowly die. I couldn’t become his Eldritch Commander if I feared and hid from death, if I loathed and avoided it. I couldn’t become his commander of Death if the dead taunted me. I couldn’t become death if I couldn’t bear the death of those I loved. The only way for it to obey my call, to heed to my every order, to remain undying under my magic was to numb myself out of emotions. If I feel, death will use it as my weakness and become my master instead of me becoming its master. It makes me weak.” She made me weak. I made her weak, too. Pinching her chin, I forced her to look at me and I forced myself to look at those tear-filled eyes. “Is it to your taste?”

“There is nothing wrong with being weak,” she spoke, her breath hitching, tears forming, and a feigned smile almost made a show. “Your father was wrong.”

“You know what haunts me more than all he did? The fact that he was right. It cost me to think like you do, Thora. It costs me more each time I dare to.”

She shook her head. “What is the point of being invincible if you have no one to protect?”

“You’re full of smart words, little bird. Acting invincible doesn’t really make you invincible either. Disappearing inside your little glitter and pony filled mind can’t save you from your fears. It can't protect anyone else either.”

“This isn’t about me.”

“I showed what you asked to see. I didn’t ask for ways to be fixed.”

“Does that make you feel better? Does being cruel to me make you feel better?”

“Immensely.”

“Then go on. Make yourself feel better.”

“Always the punch bag, little bird,” I said, pulling hair behind her ear. “Do you like that?”

“Immensely,” she said, two stray tears falling down her cheeks.

I clicked my tongue, stepping closer to her. “The tears,” I murmured, watching them trail down her neck and soak into the rose-coloured dress she wore. “The damn tears.”

Refusing to look anywhere else but straight into my dark soul, she said, her mouth quivering, “Had your fun?”

“Not quite. Tell me honestly,” I said, picking up a long strand of black hair that had fallen over her shoulder and twirling it around my finger. “Why do you let me touch you?”

“Find out for yourself.”

“What if I offer you a secret for it?”

“None is worth enough.”

This girl. This maddening girl. “I will find one worth enough, and then you will tell me why you don’t mind my hands on you,” I said, wiping her tears away, my thumbs skating across her smooth skin to brush against her mouth. Gods, I loved her mouth.

“Good luck with that,” she almost whispered, looking up at me, her breaths coming in shallow when my thumb slipped between her slightly parted lips.

If there was one thing I could thank the old fuck that had sired me for, it was the self control I sometimes realised I had.