Chapter 7

Chapter 7

A week had passed, and Mariah was still rocked by the miraculous healing of her wounds.

Well, perhaps less miraculous and more divine.

The infection had retreated, the fever no longer clawing hot fingers down her spine or squeezing her heart too tight. The deep ridges left by the whip’s spiked metal tip were healed, still occasionally tingling and itching, but Mariah didn’t mind.

It reminded her she would not die today.

Mariah picked at the plate on the ground in front of her. It was pathetic, as it always was: a meager portion of half-frozen, moldy bread and a cup of tepid water. The bread was like sawdust, but she did what she could to wash down the taste, grimacing as it hit her empty stomach like lead.

She sometimes felt like she’d dreamed the encounter with Zadione. Everything was so hazy—the goddess wreathed in silver, Mariah’s fever threatening to burn her away from this cold, dark cell. The story of an epic love that razed and destroyed far more than it built and grew. She wasn’t sure how the goddess’s appearance, if it had all been real, was even possible; she was no expert on the gods, but they didn’t just appear on the earth in physical forms like the one Zadione had taken.

Mariah didn’t ponder the puzzle for long. Somehow, she was healed; that’s all that mattered. She now bore some nasty scars on her back and forearm, but … she was proud of that.

Let them see what they’ve done to her. What they’ve made.

Zadione’s words, while hazy as a rapidly fading dream, still rang through her mind.

“Your love used to be a weakness, Mariah. But now that you have fallen, you must find a way to make it your retribution.”

Mariah liked the sound of that.

Love was her weakness, but it would also be her retribution.

The low, unexpected echo of footsteps from the hall beyond her cell chilled her far more than the stone floor against her skin.

The fresh scars on her back itched as the light of an allume lamp seeped into the hall, illuminating two familiar guards and a pair of tanzanite eyes that had her sinking further into the floor.

Her physical wounds had healed, but to forgive the hand that dealt them … even if he’d meant more to her than her own life, she was far from being strong enough for that.

Make love your retribution .

She straightened her spine, leaning against the rickety frame of her bed. She searched Andrian’s expression for a flash of that familiar fire she’d sworn she’d glimpsed the last time she’d seen him.

Nothing lingered in his eyes but emptiness. Bottomless and cruel.

She watched him with a mirroring hollowness as he pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked her cell door. The two guards swept in around him.

“Stand up,” the foul-tempered one—Ellis—said, his beady, hate-filled eyes narrowed.

Mariah wanted to fight the command.

But she could feel Andrian’s empty stare on her, and her fury was pulled away. She deflated, withering into herself as violent memories of a metal-tipped whip whistling through the air dragged against freshly mended scars. The words from the goddess had enlightened her, empowered her with renewed vigor … but it had only lasted for a moment.

She quietly unfolded her legs, hands still cuffed and raw in that sickening black and gold stone, and stood. The guards grabbed her arms roughly, pulled her through the cell door, and halted before the tall figure lurking in the shadows.

Andrian eyed her with muted disinterest. “You’re looking better than we anticipated.”

Mariah didn’t answer. Only stared up at him, desperately trying to rationalize this stranger with the man who’d shared his face. He shrugged, turning, and only then did she find her voice.

“Where are we going?”

There was silence for a moment as the guards pushed her after him down the hall, towards the treacherous stairs leading to that makeshift throne room.

“You’ve been invited to join the Royals for dinner. As their honored guest.” Andrian’s flat voice answered, and only her desire to move and keep warm kept her limbs from locking up, from collapsing to the ground.

This invitation wasn’t one she would’ve ever wanted.

Instead of being welcomed into the dining room, offered a chair at the table, she was pushed into a corner. The guards made quick work of forcing her to her knees, of binding her arms behind her back, of tying those binds to her ankles so she couldn’t move or fight.

The gag was the worst of it. Once she was bound, they shoved a strip of cloth in her mouth and wrapped it around her head. It was foul-tasting and dirty, and she coughed and choked the moment it touched her tongue.

The guards only laughed.

“I thought you had experience being gagged?” Ellis said, his grin baring yellowed teeth, his eyes too meandering.

“You forget, El. She’s only okay being gagged by a cock.” The other one—Konnor—chimed in before kneeling before her, eyes bearing a similar dark gleam. “If that’s what the little whore queen wants, though, perhaps after the feast, we can indulge her.”

“Ellis, Konnor, leave our guest alone and join us.”

Mariah knew Andrian’s voice was too dull and emotionless to be any sort of rescue on her behalf, but a sick, pathetic part of her couldn’t help but feel grateful for it.

The two guards glanced over their shoulders before rising to their feet. “Maybe next time, little whore,” Ellis sneered in farewell before sauntering off, joining the rest of the Royals and their guests at the table.

Leaving Mariah blessedly alone. Uncomfortable, sure. But alone and forgotten was, again, the best she could hope for in a situation like this.

So she sat. Forced to listen and watch as the wealthy around her ate and drank and indulged, the delicacies splayed across the table a picture of tantalizing excess.

And because she had not eaten a real meal in weeks—months, even—her stomach panged angrily against the walls of her ribs, her too-thin frame shaking with hunger.

But she did not ask for food. Nor was she offered any, but that was no surprise.

“Miss Salis!” Shawth’s raucous voice rang out across the hall, pulling everyone’s attention first to him, then to her.

Mariah lifted her chin to meet his watery gaze, the familiar slimy smile across his face.

He stood from his chair, filling up a plate with food, before stepping around the table and meandering over to her. “Are you hungry, my dear? I hear they fed you tonight, but I imagine it wasn’t quite up to your standards. We have so much delicious food we would love to share with you!”

Mariah only kept her eyes on him, watchful and wary and furious.

Soon, too soon, he stood before her, that plate overflowing with food clutched in his meaty hands. He knelt, grunting with the effort, a few clumps of rice falling from the plate. The smell struck Mariah in the face like a punch, desperation for the nourishment roaring and raging inside her.

She bit down on the gag in her mouth to stop from groaning.

Shawth eyed her, curiosity written across his face. “You look … quite well, considering the state I last saw you in. Did someone heal you?”

Mariah forced every last ounce of hatred and rage into her stare, hoping it was enough to burn him where he stood. He watched her, brows furrowed, before he sighed and shook his head.

“It is no matter. Surely, you must be hungry?” A glint returned to his eyes. “I will promise you this.” He lifted the plate, bringing it closer to her face, wafting it under her nose. Her eyes watered with starvation. “We’ll let you join us for this feast—let you eat as much as your heart desires. On one condition.”

As much as Mariah didn’t want to hear it, she already knew what the condition would be.

A darkness entered Shawth’s blue eyes. “Abdicate your power, and the food is yours. All of it, as much as you want. And everything we offered you earlier as well. Your freedom, your independence, your health. You can have it all … if you just abdicate.”

For a brief, fleeting moment, Mariah wavered.

Why would it be so bad to give up her power? She didn’t think it was possible to do what Shawth asked, but what if it was? She would have everything she’d ever wanted—money, freedom, the ability to go anywhere and be anyone she wanted. To remake her life into what she wanted it to be, not what some man or goddess decided it would be for her.

She allowed her resolve to waver there for those moments. Allowed herself to be desperate, weak, and selfish, just for a heartbeat.

Then the promises she’d made came rushing back. Her promise to Ciana, to girls all over the kingdom just like her best friend. Victims of a society that didn’t appreciate them and would never change without something drastic to force it.

Promises to her mother to always stay strong, to never lose who she was—a fighter.

Promises to her goddess to stay the path, to listen. To fight the war that none could see, but Mariah could feel brewing, even if she didn’t yet know who was responsible.

With those promises, she remembered why she’d gone to the courtyard that night in the first place. It hadn’t just been to see Andrian.

It had been to become Queen .

Mariah lifted her head, the flickers of her magic locked away in her soul stinging against the stone on her wrist, and she knew that despite the suppression, silver-gold flashed in her eyes, her fury gleaming.

She couldn’t speak, not with the gag in her mouth, so she simply growled, the sound low and hardly human. A sound that shocked even her.

A beast stirred beneath her skin, roaring awake.

Something—fear, curiosity, horror—flickered in Shawth’s eyes. Wavered and then went out, replaced by his usual dead, hateful stare.

“Do you have something you wish to say, my dear?” He handed the plate of food to a guard behind him before pulling the gag from her mouth, his hands resting too long on her cheeks.

Disgust raced through her as she spat on the floor the moment the gag was free, coughing and desperate to clear her mouth of the vile taste.

“Well?” Shawth’s tone was expectant, excited.

Gods, Mariah really shouldn’t say what she was about to. But holding her tongue wasn’t one of her strengths.

“I do have something to say.” Her voice was hoarse from disuse, but the room still fell silent, even the whispered side conversations of the ladies ceasing in expectation. Shawth lifted an eyebrow as Mariah met his stare.

“I will …” She coughed again, throat still raw. “I will pray to the goddess that you get fucked up the ass by your horse before being drowned in the depths of the Mirrored Sea.”

Mariah wasn’t sure what sort of reaction she expected from her words, but it certainly wasn’t the one she got.

The room erupted into raucous, roaring laughter. Shawth grinned merrily before rising from his crouch.

“What a pity.” He glanced at his guards. “Replace her gag.”

The scrap of fabric was just as disgusting as the first time as it slid back between her teeth.

“It seems our little whore queen still has a bit of a mouth on her. Nice to know we haven’t broken her spirit … yet.” Shawth laughed, eyes glimmering with dark maliciousness. Mariah’s blood ran cold as he gazed down at her.

“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Mariah.”

The lords left Mariah there in the corner, bound and gagged and starved, as they continued to eat and drink and enjoy an evening of squawking merriment.

Mariah did her best to tune it out. Did her best to ignore them, to pretend she was the only one in that room. To pretend the lack of attention from a dark-haired son seated at the end of the table didn’t shred her already broken heart into smaller, twisted pieces.

Not that she would prefer his attention. That had proven to be just as damaging. Her scars itched.

Perhaps the glimmer she’d seen in his remarkable eyes had been an illusion, a play in the dim light, a sick joke from her crippled mind. It cracked something inside her further open, but a part of her had suspected that this was the truth all along, that she’d been fooled as easily as they mocked her for.

She was lost in the dark ocean of those thoughts when movement caught her attention. Mariah’s eyes darted up to see a pretty, dark-haired girl close to her age sauntering out from the crowd, a sneer twisting her features.

Mariah inspected the girl as she neared. She was shorter than Mariah, skin pale from a lifetime spent within castle walls. Long, chocolate tresses draped across her shoulders, her honey-brown eyes set in a regal face glimmering with superiority.

She was beautiful, and well-bred, and obviously sent to torment Mariah. But Mariah had spent her whole life dealing with girls like this.

Mariah lifted her head, a hint of a challenge.

The girl paused a few feet from Mariah, gripping a chair and sliding it away from a small table nearby. She placed it beside Mariah but just out of arms-reach, sitting down primly, smoothing down the folds of her rich red gown.

“I thought it was time to introduce myself. You don’t know me, but I certainly know you.” Her eyes did a sweeping pass of Mariah’s bound and filthy form, lip curling. “Hard to say I’m impressed. This image you paint here is just pathetic. Hardly suitable for a queen.” She swept her dark hair off her shoulder, settling in the chair.

“My name is Anniliese Hareth, daughter of Royal Lord Hareth,” the girl—Anniliese—continued, before locking her brown gaze on Mariah, angry, vengeful fire dancing in their depths. “And I should’ve been Chosen as the next queen; not you.”

Everything in Mariah went too-still. She hardly thought she was breathing. She realized that while this girl looked unassuming enough, she had more reason than most in that room to hate her.

Which was certainly saying something.

“Everyone thought it would be me. I was born at the right time, I come from a Royal house, and I do not have magic. When I received Queen Ryenne’s summons, a great celebration was held in Ettervan. I’d been bred and raised to take the throne, and I was ready.” Her delicate hands tightened into fists, smooth brows furrowing.

“Until the day of the Choosing, when the magic, for whatever reason, slipped over my head and chose you instead.” Anniliese’s voice was low, almost a whisper, as she stared out at the room. Blood flushed into her cheeks. “You, a mere commoner , with no training or respect or dignity. Nothing more than a whore from the crossroads.”

Mariah was surprised the girl didn’t turn and spit at her, just to get the point across. Though she didn’t feel any anger at Anniliese’s words. Perhaps she was too tired, too hungry, to care. She’d been called so much worse just in the last hour; nothing Anniliese said was original.

Anniliese shifted in her chair. “I don’t understand why they even bother keeping you alive. We all thought you would have been taken care of a week ago. I say they should just kill you now. Only a few months have passed since the Choosing; I know the magic would flow to me. Where it belongs. And I’ll get what I was always meant to have.”

Her words were impassioned and manic, but Mariah heard something lost and broken in them.

For a moment, Mariah felt sorry for Anniliese. She was just like Ciana, like so many other girls in Onita, in so many ways. Told to be only one thing her entire life, molded to fit the needs and desires of men who didn’t truly care for her.

She hated herself for feeling it.

“But, if you die … I wonder what happens to your Armature?”

That streak of sympathy vanished in a flash of anger and fear.

Every muscle in Mariah’s body tensed. She clenched her already sore jaw tighter around the gag, fingernails digging into her palms so hard she was sure she broke the skin.

When Mariah saw Anniliese’s eyes take on a dark glint as they focused on where Andrian sat at the table beside her father, everything in her mind went blank.

“Well … at the very least, I’m glad he isn’t bonded to you. No need to worry that far, then.” Anniliese turned back to Mariah, her eyes cold and assessing. “He is quite nice to look at, isn’t he? I’ve known him my whole life. Every time I visited Verith with my father, I would visit Andrian, too. Despite our age difference, we shared a special bond—because we were both Royal, of course. I do hope that no matter what ends up happening to you, I’ll be allowed to keep him. This is simply where he belongs.”

The emptiness Mariah felt made it easy to keep her emotions from her face. Everything was cold and dark, and she was vacant.

There must’ve been something there that Anniliese saw. Something that made her brown eyes flash with victory, something that made her pretty lips twist into an evil grin.

Mariah supposed brokenness and heartbreak, no matter how empty they made you feel, never quite left the eyes.

“He never loved you, you know. He only played his part so deliciously well,” Anniliese purred, leaning closer. “He fed you exactly what you wanted to hear, and you ate it up like the desperate little slut you are.” She rose to her feet, glancing once more at Andrian before looking down her nose at Mariah, kneeling at her feet.

“Why don’t I prove it to you?” Anniliese hummed, sweet and sinister.

With that same wicked grin, Anniliese strode away, her path leading her to where Andrian lounged, casual and devastating, beside his father.

As much as Mariah wanted to look away, to not watch whatever was about to happen … she couldn’t. She was frozen in place, the ice that held her sliding over the beating of her heart, forced to watch the scene unfold before her.

Anniliese ambled behind Andrian, running her long-nailed fingers along his shoulders and into his thick, dark hair. His answering smile was as empty and hollow as his eyes. She bent, whispering into his ear. His shoulders tensed, a shadow flickering across his features, a shadow that was quickly shuttered as he returned that hollow smile to Anniliese with an answering chuckle.

The lords around them grinned and snickered, their attention shifting away to continue their meaningless discussions.

But Mariah did not look away.

She did not look away as Anniliese settled herself across Andrian’s hips, pushing up her heavy red skirts as she straddled his muscular thighs.

She did not look away as Andrian’s hands settled on those thighs, on the creamy skin peeking out from beneath the fabric.

Did not look away as Anniliese purred into Andrian’s ear, as she ran her hands through his hair, mussing it in a way that was reminiscent of the day he’d surprised Mariah in a forgotten palace gallery. She’d thought his hair had looked much the same way—like possessive hands had been run through it too many times.

Did not look away, even as Anniliese lowered her mouth to his, capturing his lips in a hungry kiss.

Everything in Mariah flooded and broke and drowned. Every piece of her washed away, hopelessness and despair both emptying and filling her.

How could she have been so blinded? So wrong?

Zadione had tried to warn her. Tried to help her avoid making the same mistakes the goddess herself had once made.

And Mariah hadn’t listened. Now she was here, watching her first love, her only love, kiss another woman like Mariah never existed.

As if she’d called his name, Andrian’s eyes snapped open, the blue clashing with hers across the room. He yanked away from Anniliese, chest heaving as waves of raw, heavy emotion warred and raged across his face.

But Mariah was too empty to contemplate his changed expression or what thoughts might battle behind his walls of ice. It was too late for her. She’d been drowned, and she was lost to the emptiness of her pain.

Despite the hollowness, she held Andrian’s stare until Ellis approached, roughly undoing her binds. The gag was yanked from her mouth, and she was pushed out of the dining room, back down the stairs to her dungeons.

It was only once the lock had snicked into place and the light of the allume lamp had faded from view that her tears fell.