My Beloved Queen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

xix. the knight and his queen

dear
// his loyalty he pledged to her; his life he bound to her own. wherever she went, he would follow. whatever she wished, he would do.

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A cold, ugly creature had settled in Isil's chest. He could feel it moving, prodding at his lungs and brushing up against his heart—carving for itself a place beside the old, familiar anger that thrived just behind his ribcage. It had teeth made of iron, and the color of its eyes was that of rotting fat: slimy, yellow flesh that pulsated and wriggled about like a worm.

The bitter chill that had sunk its claws into his chest was so cold it tasted almost warm upon his tongue, but its heat was neither kind nor pleasant. It burned; it ravaged his lungs and throat with all the ferocity and cruelty of fire, and the taste it left in his mouth was that of sulfur: acrid and bitter.

The wedding had passed. His beloved princess was now a queen. The queen of Ceorid.

An ugly title—unfit for so lovely a woman.

She sat just before him, her back to him and her eyes turned upon the thin-faced Ceorid nobleman who'd approached her. Her spine was as straight as the shaft of an arrow, and she held her head high, but her stature did not fool him; he knew her front was as hollow as a rotted log. But she wore it anyway, brandishing it as openly as the brightest, prettiest truth, and the Ceorid nobility were eager to welcome her deceit, to bask in the light of such a beautiful lie.

But that came as no surprise; they'd allowed such a horrid monster of a man to crawl and kill his way to the throne—a false smile was child's play.

Princess—Queen [Name] was no longer dressed in the full regalia of the wedding ceremony, but Isil could still see the deceitfully elegant crown the augur had placed upon her head. It was a ghost, an echo fashioned from broken feathers and wilted flowers, and the man it bound her to had already wandered off.

The tyrant of Ceorid stood now with his countrymen, eagerly engaging in whatever discussion men of such depravity delighted in. The sun was falling, and flickering candlelight cast a tall, crooked shadow behind the wicked king. Isil watched it waver. He saw the darkness take the shape of a monster, a beast with teeth flush with deadly venom and paws strong enough to crush a man's skull, before it fell into the shape of a murderer—an executioner with a jailer's ring of keys hanging from his dark belt.

The creature in Isil's chest shifted, and he felt it press its iron teeth warningly against the flesh of his heart. Black venom dripped from its fangs, and the vitriol was swift to sink into his lungs. The taste of such bitter poison bubbled up into his mouth and lingered in the back of his throat, and he narrowed his eyes until his stare was as sharp as the venom filling his chest.

The familiar anger felt oddly cooler now; the chill of this new creature must have infected it, freezing it until it was like ice: hollow and pale and so cold that it burned the flesh like fire. A false fire, with flames that promised neither safety nor warmth. A fire that warned of destruction, that swore to burn all that crossed its path.

The crooked shadow shifted, and the tyrant to which it belonged lifted his head. The sharp blade of Isil's glare must have nicked the monster's neck, for his gaze fled from the faces of his fellow crooks and turned to meet the eyes of the queen's knight.

Isil did not balk at the sudden weight of the king's stare; he continued to glare, his gaze narrowed and hardened by the ice in his chest. In return, the king watched Isil, observed the knight with eyes as dark as his tyrannical heart. After a breath, Isil could see the monster's stare slowly begin to narrow, sharpening into suspicious, dark-colored slits, but then, the cold creature in Isil's chest shifted, and his gaze fled to follow its movements.