Chapter 10

I awoke with a start. Khofti sat, tense beside me, listening to something going on outside the cave. I could feel fear coming from Khofti—strange since he feared little; I had seen it within him. I could hear that violent scraping noise from my dreams, and the sound of feet making their way through large drifts of snow. I sat up, touching him lightly on the shoulder. He turned to me, his eyes wide, like a rabbit, caught in a trap.

“What is it?” I whispered. “Has someone come?”

“The Ak-hal,” he said, his voice full of dread. My stomach sank. I couldn’t believe that they had found us. I should have known better. Two Ak-hal in their human form entered the cave. They carried long, sword-like weapons in hand. Behind them, the face of a large white dragon hovered by the mouth of the cave, looking inside with its bright ice-blue eyes. Smoke came out as he breathed out. I could feel the flames gathering within him. I tensed and waited for the dragon to exhale, burning us away to ash in a fiery inferno. I grasped Khofti’s thickly muscled bicep with my hand.

“You have murdered our crown prince,” one of the humanoid Ak-hal accused. “You are to come with us.”

“No,” I snapped. “I’m never going back.” In one fluid motion, Khofti jumped up from the pile of blankets and shifted, his large form springing forward and barreling straight for the Ak-hal. The Ak-hal pulled out their swords with characteristic precision, their blades making a loud metallic ring as they came free.

“Khofti! No!” I yelled in desperation. The Ak-hal held their swords at his throat. With a great roar, he slapped them away with his large paw. One of the swords clattered to the ground several feet away. The disarmed Ak-hal danced to the side, trying to get to his sword. As he did so, Khofti made another swipe with his great paw, and the Ak-hal crumpled to the ground in a bloody, nerveless heap. The dragon at the cave’s mouth reached in, taking Khofti in his great, taloned claw. Khofti struggled against it, stopping when the dragon let out a threatening gout of flames.

“You have stolen a woman from the Ak-hal,” the one of the humanoid Ak-hal said to Khofti. “You will both face justice.”

“The Ak-hal have no concept of justice,” I spat.

“You have both committed crimes against our race,” he said darkly, turning to me. “It’s time that you face your punishment.” My long-held sense of doom returned to me like an old frenemy. I knew at once that there would be no trial. True justice wasn’t something that the Ak-hal did—if there were scales, they were always weighted in the Ak-hal’s favor. He walked toward me briskly, confidently. The injured Ak-hal was left behind, seemingly without a thought. As he pulled me out of the cave, wrapped only in one of the blankets, I glanced up at Khofti, who looked down at me mournfully from where the dragon held him aloft.

I am sorry, little one.

At least you tried. The Ak-hal owned us. They had owned me the whole time, I realized. They had sunk their fingers into my skin and held on. I might run, but no matter how far I got, they would never release their hold.

I had never seen the dungeons of the Ak-hal. They were likely considered unseemly, and not polite viewing for their captives, like the mines. It was bright, like the room in their ship where I had woken up. It was built entirely from mithrim: white floor, white walls, white, rounded bars on the cells. It had a strange smell—like unwashed bodies, fear, death. It was utter ugliness—just like the hearts of the Ak-hal. Khofti had been placed in the cell across from mine. We both sat, looking at the other across the room. My body was exhausted already.

“When do you think they will kill us?” I asked him, although I knew the answer.

“First light, most likely.”

“I love you,” I whispered as I clutched at my shorn hair. They had roughly chopped it short so that it wouldn’t be in the way of the executioner’s blade. I had never worn my hair short, and I felt like someone other than myself again. I was dressed in a simple slip in white silk, and my feet were bare on the cold white floor.

“And I, you.” His voice was small, faraway. The Ak-hal guards had given him a pair of their tawny-colored breeches to wear. It was strange to see him in something other than his Kamani garb. They had given him no shirt, and his perfect, deliciously muscular chest was out for me to see. I ached to have him wrap his arms about me. Not only would that be warmer, I’d feel comforted.

It wasn’t long before Sarita entered. Her face was livid—eyes glittering angrily, brows furrowed in rage. Her arms were crossed over her chest. She was dressed in her customary blood red silk, her golden crown bright, sun-like. I wasn’t afraid of her. I had hit her where it hurt. I had taken that which had been most important to her. Her eldest son had been her meal ticket. Although she had others, he had been the first, the dearest. Standing and walking over to the bars of my cell, I looked her right in the eyes, my chin raised in defiance. She ignored Khofti, her glare and her anger was meant for me only.

“You look ugly,” she snapped cattily, trying her best to wound me. It didn’t work. Her words bounced off me like a bread knife against plate armor.

“I feel beautiful,” I replied evenly.

“I told you that you would be disposed of if he died. Look at where you are now. At dawn, you die, and you will serve Moranen forever in the afterlife.” I hadn’t known that the Ak-hal believed in the afterlife. They never spoke about death, since they all seemed to assume that they would never die. I wondered if that was all that Sarita had retained of her humanity—a belief in life beyond mortality.

“I don’t belong to him. I never did. I lived a human, and I die a Kamani,” I said it with pride. She studied my eyes.

“Yes. I see the gold.” She saw my shocked look and smiled. She had unnerved me.

“Maggie’s eyes—” I began, but she interrupted me.

“Maggie?” It was her turn to be surprised. Evidently, her ploy had worked. There was no gold in my eyes. The Kamani weren’t as invasive as the Ak-hal. I gazed upon her defiantly.

“She survived. She beat you.”

“She is living in filth,” she spat.

“She is a free woman,” I snapped. I gripped the bars of my cell in anger. I wished that I could wrap them tightly about her neck.

“You aren’t a free woman. You will never be a free woman. And that is all that matters to me,” she stated with a triumphant look. I studied her for a moment.

“Do you not feel even a little bit bad?” I asked her. “Not even a little guilty? Have you become as cold as they are?”

“For what would I ever feel guilty?”

“For taking me from my home! I was happy there!” I yelled. “I was safe.”

“I took you from your human life and gave you everything. Power, prestige, eternal life, elegance—everything and anything that you could have ever wanted. Also, I gave you my son. I entrusted him to you. You betrayed my trust.”

“The one thing about trust that you should know is that it’s a two-way street,” I snapped. “And I would always know a snake, even when it’s dressed up in silks and wearing a crown.”

“You think that you know everything,” she remarked. “In my human life, I was nothing. Here, I am queen. In your human life, you were no one. Disgusting men wasted your time. You lived alone. You were offered the chance to be royalty. And yet, you chose a savage over my son.”

“I’d rather die the mate of a savage than to live an eternity with the beast that you called son.” I looked over at Khofti as I said it. His face was impassive as he sat watching our exchange. His hands were folded in his lap.

“You get your wish. I will so enjoy watching as the sword cleaves your head from your shoulders tomorrow morning.” Wanting to have the last word, she spun and stalked off, slamming the mithrim door to the dungeons behind her. It vanished into the wall.

I looked over at Khofti. He still sat on the floor of his cell across from me. He was very calm. I could feel myself slowly spiraling into a deeper panic. This was it. I had come to the true end of the line.

“Well? How do you like my almost mother-in-law?” I asked jokingly. I ran my fingers through my hair nervously.

“I don’t know the term. But Maggie was right—she strikes like a snake,” he replied thoughtfully.

“Mmmhm.” I nodded, placing my hands on my hips and taking a deep breath.

“Would you really rather have been left on Earth?” he asked me. I shook my head.

“No. The life that I lived there wasn’t much of one, now that I think about it,” I said. “I just wanted to see if Sarita had any remorse.” I bit my lip. “She doesn’t. Not for what she did to me, at least. She regrets bringing me to her son, though.”

“You have so much fire in you, little one,” Khofti commented proudly. “Are you sure you didn’t want to be Ak-hal?”

“Positive. I’d have them all so angry that this place would be burned to the ground within a few days.” I cocked my head to the side. “Make that several hours. As soon as their training left me, I wouldn’t have lasted a day here. It would have ended in this way or worse.”

We stayed up through the night. It was impossible to sleep in that bright, awful space. I was freezing, my arms and legs covered in goosebumps and going blue from the cold. Khofti sat in his cell, calmly watching me. I paced my cell like one of the large cats that I had seen at the zoo during my human life.

My eyes felt dry and I had a dull ache forming at my temples. Physically, I was exhausted. I looked over at Khofti. He got onto his knees by the front of his cell and reached out his hand to me through the bars. Even though I knew that we could never touch, I, too, knelt before the bars of my cell and reached out my hand. We stretched, as if to touch in the center. It was like in life, I thought. We would always be reaching out, waiting for the other to fight to get close enough to touch.

I was the first to stop reaching. I slumped against the bars of my cell, closing my eyes. There were no windows in the dungeon, so we had no idea of what time it was. I wondered if this would be any easier if I did know what time it was. Then, the horrible ticking down of the clock would torture me.

I found myself shaking horribly. I tried to calm myself, focusing on my breathing. I felt nauseous, and my pulse hammered loudly in my ears.

“It will be okay, little one,” Khofti said softly. I couldn’t speak. Opening my eyes, I smiled at him halfheartedly.

The door reappeared in the wall as the executioner came to get us. He strode in briskly, already dressed in his black hood, his pale blond hair spilling out and over his shoulders. He wore the red sash of an Ak-hal noble over his black tunic. His broadsword was in a sheath on his back. Even put away, it was enormous, the blade almost as wide as my hand and as long as the Ak-hal male was tall. He unlocked my cell first, turning me roughly to face away from him and locking my hands behind me in a pair of white metal cuffs. He did the same with Khofti. He placed a mithrim collar around his neck in order to prevent him from shifting while we walked to the scaffolding. The executioner was entirely silent. Khofti bumped against me as we walked. Even facing certain death, he was still able to smile.

“How do you do it?” I whispered.

“Silence.” The executioner’s voice boomed throughout the dungeon, echoing against the blank walls.

How do I do what? I felt his consciousness like a soft caress against my mind as Khofti’s voice sounded within my own head. He was never far away—ever since we had become mates, it was like he was continually near me. Not always able to hear my thoughts, but always near. It was probably the only way that I was currently able to walk to my death.

How can you still smile, even now?

I am remembering the time that you agreed to be with me.

Even though it’s only been a day?

It’s enough.

I wished that I could do that—be so satisfied with what little that we had had. I didn’t want to die—I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t lived quite long enough. I had been in a coma for eighty years—then, I had escaped the Ak-hal’s clutches, twice. I had finally found the love of my life—a man who walked toward his death with a smile on his face because of me. Me. I was no one special. I knew this. But because I was special to him—I wanted to live. I wanted to live for that.

I want it.

What do you want? I hadn’t realized that I had been projecting that thought at him.

More time with you. Will you stay with me? Until the end?

I never left.

We walked out and into the courtyard. The Ak-hal and their human captives stood out in the cold in their colorful finery. Silks and satins waved in the icy wind like colorful streamers. It was still dark out—the sky was turning gray in the pre-dawn light. I kept my gaze on my feet as I climbed the scaffold. I didn’t want to trip, for that would make me look weak in the cold, bright eyes of the ever-perfect Ak-hal. When I walked across the scaffold, barefoot, I held both of my hands tightly before me. I didn’t want to look as though I were shaking, but all that I wore was the white silk dress, nothing more than a slip with no sleeves. I was so cold that I couldn’t help but shiver.

The executioner guided us to our places. When I stood in place before the blood-stained block, I looked up, raising my chin confidently and defiantly. I could smell the scent of old blood, and my stomach churned queasily. I gazed upon the faces of the Ak-hal and their captives. The Ak-hal were expressionless. I saw Clara—she was pale, her face drawn. I saw Libba—she was as impassive as the Ak-hal. And I saw Sarita, who looked absolutely triumphant that I was about to get my just desserts. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of falling apart in that moment, although I was pretty close to it. Instead, I stared at her, keeping my limbs locked and my look expressionless. I had developed my poker face so well during my time living with the Ak-hal. I had gotten so used to masking my own horror at their atrocities. This was merely another instance in a long chain of grotesqueries.

The executioner stood to the side, waiting for the sun to rise. We stood there in the cold of the grey pre-dawn as the drums sounded in time with my heartbeat, counting down the last few seconds that we had to live. Steeling myself, I wondered who they would kill first. They most likely wanted me to suffer the most. I would have to watch Khofti die. My heart ached at the realization. I glanced over at Khofti. He smiled widely, as though he had just won the lottery. His gaze was on the Ak-hal. I frowned as I looked at him questioningly.

How…?

Wait. Just wait, little one.

For what?

Patience.

With a heavy sigh, I waited. The drumbeats paused, and the executioner unsheathed his sword with a loud, ringing metallic noise. He began walking toward Khofti. In the courtyard, utter silence reigned. The shift whipped against my body as the wind blew. I was freezing. I’d say to death… but that wasn’t likely to kill me at this point. Tears streamed down my cheeks as the executioner pressed Khofti to his knees. He placed his hand on the back of Khofti’s head, leaning him over on the block. I watched, my heart pounding. Khofti’s golden eyes were on me.

It’s not over yet, he promised me. Don’t cry yet.

Through the door, the one to the courtyard that the Ak-hal, in their arrogance, always left open and unwatched, a large bear barreled through, his roar echoing off the courtyard walls. He was followed by several more, a crowd, all bursting through and into the already crowded space. Their roars were deafening. The Ak-hal were taken by surprise, and many bodies went flying through the air, as the strokes of the bears’ claws hit them. They were broken like limp, nerveless ragdolls against the courtyard walls, the castle—I watched, unable to believe what I was seeing. The Ak-hal raced toward the door to the courtyard, trying to get out.

Let’s go. Khofti stood up, the executioner having run off into the fray with his broadsword. If the Ak-hal get out, they will have the space to shift.

We should help them.

I need to get you out of here. You’re the one that they want dead. I was just…

Collateral?

If that’s the word for the extra one.

With that, he shifted, his cuffs popping off his hands as his body shifted into bear form.

I thought that mithrim couldn’t be broken?

A lie that the Ak-hal told you. Mithrim cannot hold a Kamani. I climbed awkwardly onto his back, my hands still cuffed, and held on as well as I could by wrapping my fingers into his thick fur. The bears moved to let him through, forcing their way toward the Ak-hal, who were still fighting to get out.

Khofti made his way through the push, and then we were out, running free through the snow. I breathed a sigh of relief as I leaned into the soft white furry rolls at his neck.

I never want to go back.

You never will.

Where are we going?

Home.

His long, lumbering strides carried us away from the castle of the Ak-hal. I watched over my shoulder as it disappeared in the distance, miles of snowy terrain coming between me and the pale demons.