Page 45 of The Midnight King
“No, please—” I gasp.
“—I command you to accept.”
“Please, my lady. He’s a good person.”
Her eyes are slivers of black ice. “Need I remind you that this wasyouridea? You wanted to make a deal. His freedom in exchange for yours.”
“I’ve thought better of it. He doesn’t deserve this.”
“Deserve?” She laughs, high and sharp. “No one deserves anything. We’re all just swimming around in shit, trying to climb out of the cesspool. And if I have to push a few heads down and step on their skulls to climb higher, I will. I have plans for this fucking country. I’m going to fix it, and along the way I’m going to destroy everyone who has ever insulted or underestimated me. My daughters will marry nobles. Andyou—your fate will be decided by how well you serve me in the coming days. I command you to attend the ball tonight, to accept the Prince’s proposal, and to be a docile and affectionate fiancée. Tell him nothing to deter or alarm him. Suggest a brief engagement, with the wedding in a week’s time, and convince him that marrying immediately is better than waiting. Tell no living soul about my plan for the Prince.”
My body quakes with rage and despair, hot breaths puffing against the weave of my scarf as the commands land on my soul, one after another, like great boulders weighing me down. But I don’t protest again. If I say anything else, it will only give her ideas for more rules to impose, and the more commands bind me, the tighter the chains wrap around my mind and my heart.
“Good. You have a dress for tonight?”
She didn’t demand the truth, so I leap at the chance to lie to her, to reclaim that tiny freedom. “Yes, the Prince sent another gown he wants me to wear. He told me not to destroy this one.”
“He’s fucking insane. He probably thinks you’re as mad as he is. It’s a good thing I’m going to be in control, otherwise thekingdom would be doomed.” Shaking her head, my stepmother turns away and walks back into the house.
I stand alone, hollowed out by despair and by the knowledge that I did this to myself. I had a plan, and I let it go astray. If the Prince proposes tonight, I’ll be trapped in this marriage, forced to watch him become Gilda’s slave.
And the King—the handsome King who has been so generous to me, both with his library and his body—he will be deeply hurt. He won’t understand why I would sleep with him and then marry his son. In fact, he might hate me for it. Or perhaps he’ll be disgusted by the idea that his son might fuck the same pussy he fucked, and he’ll forbid the wedding. That’s a tiny ray of hope for the Prince, if not for me.
I can’t avoid the ball. I can’t stop the Prince from proposing or warn him about my family. And I still don’t know how to remove the anklet. So I’m truly, terribly fucked, with no way out but to proceed through the events of the evening like an automaton designed to perform someone else’s will.
Instead of making me prepare my stepsisters for the ball tonight, Gilda orders them to help each other get ready. Though she doesn’t say it, I know she wants me to have plenty of time to make myself beautiful for the Prince.
Now that Gilda has devised a different method of reaching her goal, her focus has shifted from her daughters to me. They can feel the change, and they don’t like it. The sounds of them slamming doors and screaming at each other upstairs are like music to my ears as I descend to my cellar.
Once alone, with the door closed, I rub the pocket watch between my thumb and fingers. I’ve used tears thrice to call my Faerie godfather. I’m not sure I can call him again the same way.
“Killian?” I whisper to the watch. It seems silly to talk to an inanimate object, but I know it’s linked to him by magic. Maybe he can hear me.
I wait for a while, and then I decide to fix my hair myself, using the cracked mirror over the washstand. I have time before the Prince’s carriage arrives. It only takes Killian a few seconds to make me a dress, so as long as he shows up before—
A heavy weight crashes onto my cot, and I spin away from the mirror to see Killian sprawled across the bed.
“What are you doing?” I exclaim in a loud whisper. “My family is home? You have to be quiet.”
“Of course.” He tries to push himself up, then collapses onto the thin mattress again, his cheek sunk into my pillow.
“What’s wrong with you?” As I approach him, I spot dark blood trickling from beneath his coat sleeve, down his wrist and fingers, running along the hilt of a small scythe clutched in his hand—a scythe with a black blade. “Killian?”
“I got it,” he slurs. “Nearly killed me, but I got it. Fucking Unseelie monsters tried to eat me.”
My heart thunders as I creep closer. My stepmother has forbidden me to touch actual weapons, but a scythe is technically an implement used in farming, so I should be able to touch it without the anklet reacting.
Cautiously I place one finger on the scythe’s handle. When my anklet doesn’t react, I take the implement gently from Killian’s hand and lay it on the floor. Then I push him over onto his back.
My stomach lurches at the sight of him. His chest has been ravaged, gnawed down until his breastbone and ribs are exposed. Deep in his body, beneath the bones and the glistening, bloody flesh, there’s a faint, pulsing lavender glow, and I realize it’s his heart. His heartglows.
“My god, Killian.” I cover my mouth, fighting the urge to gag.
“Nasty, isn’t it?”
“Why did you come here?” I exclaim. “I don’t know how to help you—you should have gone home. Your father could fix you, right?”
“I’ll heal,” he says. “There’s no iron involved, so the healing process won’t take long. I wanted to come here at once and give it to you. Try it. See if it works.”