24. Melisandre

24

MELISANDRE

H iss-clicks carried through the company of Voidborn, whispering over the miles, telling me what I already knew.

The Nine had been neutralized.

Just as I’d promised they would.

Smiling to myself, I didn’t look away from my study of the map on the table before me. It wasn’t just territories and national boundaries I saw. No, my mind overlaid the ley lines atop it all, while I played out the strategy of where to take next.

The provinces were mine. True, a few still held out. Lord Thomas and his annoying Duteliera remained obstinate. For some unknown reason, he kept his people behind the city walls and burned any tree that I sent up through the ground, almost like he’d gotten warning of the threat they would present to his precious free will.

“That silly lord could be in league with your stepdaughter.”

I ignored Alaric’s voice coming from the shards of glass on the carpet.

“She probably sent word to him somehow,” the irritating bastard pointed out.

“Silence,” I spat, not taking my eyes from the map.

“You could find out so easily, though.”

I tsked at him. “It hardly matters.”

A concerned sound came from the shards. “You’re slipping, pet.”

“Lord Thomas and his peasants cannot hide forever,” I snapped. “They’ll starve behind their city walls or they will bend to my will. Either way, I win.”

“And the girl?” Alaric teased. “Is this truly all you plan for her?”

Incredulity made me recoil, but I refused to grant him with my full attention. “ All I plan?”

His silence spoke volumes, most of them mocking.

Growling under my breath, I pressed my fingertips to the tiny, unmarked space on the map that hid the mines of Eliantra. The Voidborn bastard was a fool. That sentimental child had fallen squarely into my trap, lured by emotion and idiotic loyalty that rendered her absurdly predictable. And there she would stay, caged beneath earth laced by magic and silver until she finally starved.

My lips curled with anticipation. Before starvation took her, she’d suffer. Hunger would hound her—and all those infuriating giants as well. One by one, those brutes would fall, the weakest collapsing first and leaving the rest with a choice.

Eat the bodies of your own… or die.

But Gwyneira’s punishment would be far worse because while she could outlast the pathetic mortals around her, she was still a creature I’d made. And that creature would need to feed.

Oh, she’d try to resist. She’d hem and haw, fretting like a ridiculous, emotional child. But every passing day would chip away at her pretentious morals. Before she even realized how it happened, she’d start making compromises, weighing the worth of this life over that one. Until slowly but surely, she’d decide it was okay to just take one… little… sip .

Her hunger wouldn’t give her a choice.

Of course that wouldn’t be the end of it. Eventually starvation meant she would feast on those men she treasured, the ones who stood with her against me, mocking my plans and thinking to condemn me to the darkness rather than her.

Maybe they’d even beg her to do it, whether out of their disgusting love for her or to put themselves out of their misery.

It wouldn’t change the ending.

“When this is done,” I told Alaric, “that sentimental child will be nothing but an emaciated ghost surrounded by the dead. All alone in the dark beneath the earth, going mad among the bloodless corpses…” I chuckled. “She’ll wish I’d been so kind as to leave her to the empty realms.”

Alaric made a considering noise. “But didn’t you have a reason for wanting to feed her to the empty realms in your place?”

In spite of myself, I looked away from the map, and my eyes found the shards of glass. Within each one, a tiny image of Alaric’s eel-like face swirled. “What?”

“A proxy, yes? A sacrifice to spare you the… less pleasant aspects of our bargain, while preserving the better parts for yourself.” His brow rose as if waiting for me put the pieces of his puzzle together.

I had planned that, it was true. “But what does that matter? I have all the power I could need, and you are nothing but a distracting illusion cast by Voidborn fools—ones I will happily kill once I uncover their identities.”

He hummed in surprise. “ All the power? Is there such a thing, pet? It seems rather unlike you to think so.”

What was he getting at?

His fangs flashed as he grinned. “Are you sure you’re still sane?”

Of course I was.

Irritated, I turned away. Simply because I was satisfied with my own progress—I was on my way to ruling the world, after all—he had no reason to question my sanity.

Moreover, why was I even engaging in this debate? Alaric was dead. These images were all some illusion. If anything, I should be hunting down the Voidborn who were toying with me in this way.

Admittedly, none of the Voidborn were in the room with me now. But perhaps they’d left a spell token. I hadn’t found anything on my previous searches, it was true. Yet it could be covered in charms and spells to make it invisible. And if there was some object bound with magic to make me see?—

“What if there was more power to be had?” Alaric commented. “Would you truly turn your back on that?”

My eyes twitched over to the glass shards.

The dozens of images of his face all smiled. “You know what to do, pet.”

How dare he still call me pet when I’d burned him into non-existence? For that matter, how dare he taunt me like that, insinuating that I was turning my back on power?

And why was I even entertaining the fiction of this conversation? Alaric was dead . He couldn’t?—

Hiss-clicking carried through my connection to the Voidborn throughout the castle.

My attention snapped to the door a moment before it opened. An orc stood there, taller than the doorway and very nearly wider than it too. He nodded his head to the left, the creature inside him making his eyes gleam with anticipation.

I drew myself up and strode away from the shattered mirror. To hell with that demented illusion.

But what had he meant, ”you know what to do”?

Shuddering, I silently ordered myself to ignore that too.

My throne room would have seemed silent to a human when I entered it, but I could hear the fluttering pulses of three prisoners currently on their knees between the Voidborn-possessed harpies. They wore the armor of my guards at the mine of Eliantra, but I was not fooled.

The Voidborn-possessed human standing calmly beside them had informed me of their plans long before Gwyneira and her pathetic allies had tried to take my mine by surprise.

It had only been a matter of leaving enough soldiers standing guard for them to buy into the ruse, and that foolish girl was mine.

I glanced at the Voidborn-possessed human as I took my seat upon the throne. He appeared perhaps twenty, maybe younger, with sun-darkened, calloused skin from a life of work outside. His eyes were currently dark brown, but I could still see the Voidborn within him radiating its displeasure at being confined by such a limited host.

Harpies, orcs, and others at least had claws or fangs or strength. They inspired fear and dread before they killed their enemies.

To the Voidborn, humans were incredibly… boring .

Smirking mildly at its displeasure, I turned my attention to the prisoners. Two of them appeared to be nothing more than farmers, their clothes beneath their patchwork Aneiran armor threadbare and stained by mud. Breathless shock still clung to their faces, most likely a byproduct of having been flown here by the harpies.

Humans were so silly about flight, craving it and yet being terrified when it occurred.

But it was the third who made me smile. Unlike the others, she wore her stolen armor with a familiarity that spoke to a military history. With her head unbowed and her jaw set, the dark-haired woman made the fact she was on her knees seem a choice rather than a byproduct of force, and while her eyes tracked me, they showed only determination to die with honor rather than the slightest intent of giving me anything I might want.

Anticipation shivered through me. This one would be fun to break.

“I don’t suppose I need to tell you why you’ve been brought here,” I said to the trio. “One does not commit treason by accident, after all. So I’ll dispense with the formalities and offer you a choice.” I glanced to the side briefly as a Voidborn-possessed orc carried in a tray of apples. “Submit to me now by simply feasting upon the food I’ve provided you… or die.”

The two humans on either side of the woman trembled, their eyes flicking from the apples to the doors to me as if seeking another way out.

They knew what these were, then. That made this even more entertaining.

“Remember the forest,” the woman murmured to her people through gritted teeth.

The farmers tensed, swallowing down their nervousness but not moving to take any of the fruit I offered them.

“The gods will damn you as a traitor for this, Nerak,” the woman continued to the Voidborn-possessed human standing nearby. “Whatever they offered you to betray us, it will be nothing compared to the punishment you’ll find in the realms of hell.”

The Voidborn-possessed human smiled, his eyes lighting up with an orange-red glow. “ Nerak has been dead for days, bitch. And soon, you will be too.”

A small shudder went through the woman, her only reaction to the Voidborn glaring at her from the body of the young farmer.

“Enough.” I jerked my chin slightly at the Voidborn. “Find a new host.”

With a final smirk, the creature erupted from the boy’s body. In a twist of serpentine smoke, it sped from the room, seeking something more interesting in the darkened halls.

“What… what was…” one of the human prisoners gasped, staring after it.

“Quiet,” the woman ordered tightly.

The human clamped his mouth shut, visibly trembling.

I smiled. “What is your name, woman?”

She drew herself up higher, the fact she was on her knees with her hands bound at her back be damned. “General Valeria d’Elisan, loyal soldier of the true queen of Aneira—and that isn’t you.”

Alaric’s chuckle carried from a sliver of reflection on the tray of apples, though none of the humans or orcs showed any sign of hearing it.

Ignoring him, I lifted an eyebrow at the impetuous woman. “My, such fire. And such unrepentant remorse for your crimes. Tell me—” I turned to the other two humans. “Do you concur with this assessment? That I am not , in fact, the true queen?”

They glanced at each other and at their commander. One moved his mouth like he couldn’t decide upon words, while the other just whimpered with fear.

I sighed.

In an instant, I shifted form and swept down from the throne, slashing through the air. The farmers dropped like toppling logs, gasping and thrashing in their restraints, unable to reach the bloodied remains of their throats.

Splattered by their blood, Valeria didn’t move, but her accelerating heartbeat betrayed her shock and horror. Likewise, her breathing turned short and quick, though her jaw remained set with determination.

“Oh, pet,” Alaric whispered. “You can do better than that to break her.”

He had no idea.

Shifting back to my human-like form before the woman, I smiled. “They were not nearly as entertaining as I believe you will prove to be.”

“Kill me and be done with it,” she spat back. “I will never betray my queen or my kingdom.”

I chuckled. “Oh, General,” My fangs descended. “Yes, you will.”