My Beloved Queen

CHAPTER EIGHT

warning: descriptions of violence/gore (imagined)

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viii. the knight and the suitor

heretic
// hate is the constant—the comfortable resting state, humming just under the skin. hate is the starting place; hate is the eternal mind. it is immortal. continuous. endless. it will never die.

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Isil had left the castle. He'd taken his riding horse and slipped out through one of the back gates—one of the old, conspicuous exits he and Adalleth and sometimes Princess [Name] used to busy themselves with finding. Back in former times, when there was freedom in the pause—in the empty times between lessons and duties.

Back when dreams were natural and nightmares explainable—when eyes saw only fact in waking hours and young, naked hands could hold and be held without fear of corruption. When he was blind and ignorance was his shield and armor—before he saw. Before they pried open his eyes and made him see—made him stare into the cruel, smiling jaws of truth. Of knowing. Of being aware of what he wished was still unknown.

But the gods didn't care if the truth harmed; the gods didn't care if fact kept him awake at night, or if it twisted his stomach into knots and made him tremble at the sight of his father's sword.

They didn't care if they caused their believers to suffer—if they were the source of their disciples' anguish.

The gods didn't have to fear retribution or punishment. They were the ones who chastised—who doled out harsh penalties and firm justice. They were in the right; they were correct and fair. They were truth and good and their believers were not. Their believers were wrong; their believers were unfair and false.

Always false. Always wrong.

Even when the gods were the ones at fault.

Twigs and decaying foliage crunched under the soles of Isil's boots—all the dead, forgotten things that had been buried beneath verdant shoots of spring. All the things that had yet to be decomposed—yet to be devoured by the forces of decay.

The sweet, syrupy scent of blossoms and new life drowned out the smell of rot, pressing down on it until it became but an unpleasant undertone—a simple memory of distasteful things. The smell—sweet and sickly—filled Isil's lungs. It was in his mouth, bathing his tongue and chasing away the hot, burning taste of anger.

The rage fled to his throat, where it settled like heavy stones in the back of his mouth, pressing against the base of his tongue, waiting for the taste of new life to subside. Rage and anger and hatred, for the gods—for all they allowed and all the promises they failed to keep. For their threats—for their selfish, hypocritical decrees.

Hate. It was all he could do. All he could feel for them was hate, and all he could do was feel it. All he could do was despise them and curse them and scream heresies in their places of worship. Renounce them and turn away from them and hate them for what they really were. But none of that would change them—none of that would stop them from manipulating their worshipers.

Hate wouldn't bring justice—not to the gods.

And knowing that made him hate them all the more.

He was near the front path now—the one that led to the castle's entrance. The reigns to his riding horse were in his hands; he'd dismounted from the beast when he'd reached the woods, and now he stood just at the edge of the tree line, looking up at a castle more familiar to him than the house in which he was born.