ONC 2022 Longlist / Top 25 The Historical Award 2022 & 2023 hosted by @HistoricalFiction / Featured by multiple profiles
In the tyrannical kingdom of Aratta, a young widowed mother returns alive from the den of a mysterious king where women go only...
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I haven't felt happier than this day, neither so much at the bottom of despondency. My heart flutters out to seek sunshine and then crashes to the ground.
I don't know how to handle this man.
He sits quietly by himself with his back facing me, looking at the chirping sparrows outside. A flock of pink slender necked cranes beautify the sky-blue azure. The serenity of his still being and the flaxen locks dancing with the breeze almost make me believe he is a saint.
"She died, isn't it?" he asks like he didn't expect it.
It makes my blood boil.
I look at the bed. It's messy and creased. "Yes."
"Why does your voice quiver?"
I keep mum.
He lolls his head back. The chocolate brown irises look warmer and more normal now, unlike his gaze at night when a woman stands in front of him. Carnal urges are menacing.
"I have a work for you."
I can be assured he won't ask me to find a wife or woman for him. He at least respects my allergy towards bedding humans and the task of finding such potential bodies.
"I sense, I can feel, there was a woman outside my room before Juno was brought. Or even a man, though I doubt it was someone of our kind. But someone was there."
"The servants were."
He turns and glares at me. "I am not a fool, Vivasvat. When I am specifically telling you it's some woman I don't include the servants."
He gets up and heads towards me. He is significantly shorter than I am– thanks to the enormous height my ancestors gifted me. I look down at his ruddy bare chest and hawk-like stare, devilish enough to lure many.
"I feel they have a power. They made the one inside me afraid, so afraid that when I woke up in the morning I felt paralysed."
I take in the words slowly with caution. I cannot make sense of it, but something is definitely fishy. The king doesn't look intoxicated to utter gibberish. "I will find out who was there."
"Dismissed."
My feet hurl me out.
A part of me is sure he isn't going to take this stranger I am on a search for as his new prey. Another is almost sure that things will turn upside down.
It has, already. I don't recognise this man at all. This isn't the soldier who fought for my niece's dignity. This isn't the soldier who promised to give me justice.
He is a beast now, running after blood and beauty in a fit of passion. And now, he wants to make me a puppet of his games too.
I am indebted to him. He has done for me so much that even my own little brother has not. He didn't make me feel alien, unlike my own family back in Misriya.
