The Infernal King | 1 ✓

CHAPTER XII | TASTING INNOCENT BLOOD

       THE FOOD TRULY did taste glorious, and each bite felt like angels dancing on Maarit's taste buds. The fact that she had not eaten increased her enjoyment of it tenfold. It was gourmet cuisine like she had never tasted it before—glazed chicken, succulent lamb stewed with sage and parsley, carrots, parsnips and jasmine rice.

While she hated the fact that King Theodoracius and Picard both eyed her as she ate and drank, she was too concerned with filling her stomach to care.

The warlock had conjured utensils for her (she felt a pang of jealousy whenever she saw him exercising his magical abilities).

The king, on the other hand, was silent for a while. He was pensive and seemed to be utterly lost in his thoughts. Maarit allowed herself to stare at him, to take in his seraphic beauty. A crease appeared between his eyebrows, making him seem slightly more human. She found herself wondering what he was thinking. Was his mind plagued with the thirst for blood, or did he ever ponder the simple, mundane things in life?

"Care for some dessert?" King Theodoracius asked suddenly. He seemed to have noticed that she had finished eating and was staring at him.

She shook her head.

I hate you more than humanely possible, she thought to herself. Because you aren't a human. You're just a monster.

"In case you have failed to notice, there is a chamber pot in your dungeon cell," he told her. "Luckily for you, your cellmate has not decomposed all over it. We will also be bringing you food and water twice a day from now on."

Maarit nodded wordlessly, averting her eyes from his.

King Theodoracius hesitated. "Very well," he said after a pause that seemed transient. "Now that you are fed and informed, I think there is something you would be interested in hearing."

Maarit's pulse quickened and she stood immediately, gripping at the cell bars. The king took a step away from her.

"Your absolute rodent of a boyfriend made a pathetic attempt at assassinating me a few hours ago," he said casually.

His words made the young soothsayer's legs tremble with angst and her teeth chatter in trepidatious fright. Though she didn't have a boyfriend, she knew he was referring to one of two people: Keion or Helios.

And she had an idea of which it was.

"He claimed to have climbed De Montfort Mountain by foot. Then he threatened to kill me if I did not disclose where I was keeping you—if you were still alive at all." The monarch lifted a ringed finger to his clean-shaven chin and tapped it thoughtfully. "A young man by the name of—Picard, what was it? Kelion? Kaceron?"

Maarit sucked in a sharp breath, clenching her hands tighter around the cell bars. "Keion?" she said loudly. Her heart seemed to sink right into the floor. Panic seeped into her bones, numbing them. "What happened? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM? WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU BASTARD?!"

"I have... done away with him," King Theodoracius said, his eyes unwavering. "As with any man who attempts to slaughter a king, he has been killed—"

"NO!" Maarit shrieked. Her brown eyes were suddenly burning with tears. "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!"

Over and over again, she screamed. Her throat was on fire, but she cared not. All that mattered was Keion Valence, and his protectiveness, and his impulsiveness, and his kindheartedness.

She loved him and he was gone.

"I HATE YOU, MURDERER!" Maarit screamed at the king. "I HOPE YOU—ROT—IN—HELL!" She punctuated each word with a violent tug on the bars, as though she might've been able to pull them apart with her bare hands. "YOU'LL GET JUST WHAT YOU DESERVE ONE DAY! I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF! I'M GOING TO DO IT, I'LL GET RID OF YOU! YOU KILLED—YOU KILLED HIM—"

She stopped down to the ground and grabbed the plate, flinging it with all her might at him: the beautiful monarch, the despicable king in front of her. She had never longed for anything more than for the plate to hit him in the head and shatter, slicing open his perfect cheeks.

The earth had tasted too much innocent blood—it was time it tasted the blood of a monster who deserved to bleed.

To her immense disappointment, the plate stopped short of King Theodoracius and settled to the ground as a feather might have done.

It was Picard—he was always too quick.

Maarit wanted him dead too. If she had her powers, she would've easily been able to take him on.

She turned her angered gaze on King Theodoracius. Her mouth was not the only part of her screaming the directed the words at him; every fibre in her being was screaming them too.

"I HATE YOU, YOU DESPICABLE MONSTER! THAT'S ALL YOU ARE AND THAT'S ALL YOU EVER WILL BE! I KNOW YOU KILLED YOUR FATHER JUST LIKE YOU KILLED THAT INNOCENT SERVANT, AND JUST LIKE YOU KILLED K-KEION!"

She could have sworn she saw a shred of fear in his eyes, even through her tears, which blurred together the few colours that were present in the room. As Picard left the room, he prepared to extinguish the candles when King Theodoracius stopped him with a shake of his head.

Soon after, the two left the dungeons swiftly, closing and locking the door. The candles flickered dangerously, nearly mimicking Maarit's emotions.

She screamed her lungs out, even long after she was sure it was pointless and that no one heard her—never had she experienced such pain before. She yelled Keion's name over and over, sobbing more than she ever had before. It was one thing to fear for her own life; but to live knowing that one of the two people she loved most in the world was dead was positively excruciating.

Her head was spinning and she stumbled and fell to the ground, her hands scraping against the filthy stone floor. She could no longer breathe—she had forgotten how, and all she could manage were despaired gasps and disconsolate sobs. Her whole body ached, but she no longer felt it in her body—she felt it in her soul.

Keion—her Keion, the older brother she had never had—was gone forever. Keion, with his blue eyes that seemed to contain the sky and the ocean all at once. Keion, with his dramatics and unyielding righteousness. Keion, with his love for not only Maarit, but for his mother and younger brother.

He had come to save Maarit; and for that, he had been murdered.

She ran over to the chamber pot that cowered at the very back of the dungeon cell, apprehensively casting a sideways glance at the decaying body in the corner.

That would soon be Keion.

She gripped the sides of the chamber pot until her knuckles turned white; then, she vomited into it.