TMBIPYMEN Chapter 25

The moment Laila heard his voice, she felt an urge to turn and flee stronger than any she'd known before.

Yet she found herself drawn toward the bed as if enchanted. At the sight of the King's face—shadowed by that peculiar desolation only chronic illness brings—her desire to run intensified.

"Closer."

Ode gestured with meticulous persistence, as though willing Laila to sit beside him. She moved mechanically.

It was strange. Just as with Yustar, Laila found herself unable to truly resist Ode's words.

Laila now stood scarcely a hand's breadth away from him. A fear arose in her: that his skeletal fingers might reach out and seize her wrist at any moment.

"Kneel and show proper respect to His Majesty."

The chamberlain, statue-like beside the canopy's column, spoke in a solemn, imperious voice. Without conscious thought, Laila's knees buckled to the floor.

Then Ode extended his withered hand. Laila brought her lips to the back of it briefly, as an act of deference. His skin was cold as a fish's, desiccated as deadwood.

"Lift your head."

She did. It was as though invisible hands gripped both sides of her face, forcing her gaze upward to meet the King's directly.

The chamberlain's eyes narrowed at her boldness, but King Ode—unexpectedly—laughed. The sound was like rust scraped from metal.

"So you truly are a witch."

In that instant, Ode's bony fingers seized her jaw. Both Laila and Yustar, watching from the shadows, startled at the sudden movement.

Ode spoke, "Tell me, witch. Was your mother also a witch? Are you descended from the First Witch herself?"

Laila's lips trembled with alarm and fear, yet her voice came steady.

"Yes, Your Majesty. My mother was a great witch who shared some of her knowledge with me. I and my ancestors are daughters born from the First Witch."

"The Crown Prince tells me you can see things that humans know of, hear voices that linger at the threshold, and expose their ugly secrets, making them as weak as mortals. Is this true?"

"It is true, Your Majesty."

Ode's hollow cheeks swelled. It seemed he would laugh—then he turned his darkened face sharply to one side and coughed violently.

"Cough! Cough—hack!"

"Your Majesty!"

The chamberlain rushed forward, but Ode raised a hand to forestall him. Laila remained on her knees, eyes wide.

When the coughing subsided, a thin thread of dark blood traced from the corner of Ode's mouth. He wiped it away carelessly with the back of his hand, then fixed Laila with eyes shot through with blood.

"If you are truly a witch, tell me. How many ailments lodge within my body?"

Laila's lips trembled in confusion. Among witches, there were those gifted to see into the body's secrets through mere touch. But she was not one of them. She possessed no such ability.

"Your Majesty, I lack such gifts. However, if you would describe your symptoms, I might brew a tincture that could offer some relief."

"You claim your remedies surpass the royal physicians?"

Ode's words dripped with mockery, and Laila felt heat rise to her cheeks.

It was then that Yustar spoke, his voice gentle: "True witches descended from the First Witch are said to breathe intention into their tinctures. The physicians heal Your Majesty through precise measurement of herbs, but surely Miss Chrysrad might also heal through the power of blessing, might she not?"

"Blessing," Ode repeated.

He laughed again—that harsh, metallic sound. And he fixed Yustar with a pointed gaze.

"I did not ask you, Yustar."

His tone was oppressive, crude. In that moment, Laila felt a sudden dislike for Ode kindle within her—and was shocked at herself for feeling it.

"My apologies, Your Majesty," Yustar replied smoothly, yet Ode's expression seemed far from satisfied. At least, that was how it appeared to Laila.

Then Ode burst into rough laughter. Despite the violence of it, no cough followed this time.

He regarded Laila, still kneeling before him, and spoke: "It seems your search was worthwhile, Yustar. This is the first time I have seen you advocate for another in my presence."

Yustar said nothing. For one suspended moment, a strange, taut silence suffused the air around all three of them. An overwhelming premonition seized Laila that something terrible was about to unfold, and cold sweat traced down her spine.

Ode spoke, "Take this woman as your consort, Yustar."

Silence fell—the kind of vertiginous, fathomless silence that seemed to draw the entire chamber, the entire palace, deep into the earth.

It was Yustar who broke that silence.

"Your Majesty, I did not seek out Miss Chrysrad for such a purpose."

His voice carried more consternation than she'd ever heard from him. Laila stared up at Ode's face, stupefied. This man was surely not afflicted in body alone but in mind. How else could—

"Your purposes matter nothing to me, Yustar. Should you bring me a true witch, I had always intended to gift her to you as my sister-in-law."

Then Laila rose, incensed.

"I am not an object!"

Yustar seized her arm in alarm.

"Calm yourself, Laila."

Ode observed them both—or rather, Laila—with cold mockery etched across his sunken face. The hollow of his cheeks twisted hideously.

"If I call you an object, you become one. If I name you a beast, you become one. And if I declare you the Crown Prince's consort, then surely you shall become it. Do you wish to know why? Because I am the apex of this realm—the King of Sierrow."

The blood drained from Laila's face. Then Ode laughed again, monstrously.

"Are you not grateful, Yustar? I intended to grant you any witch you brought before me—warts upon her brow the size of a fist, her face ravaged by plague-sores, her teeth rotted and gums suppurating—and yet you have delivered one of such... acceptable appearance."

Ode twisted his lips.

"That black hair, those blood-colored eyes—they are hardly grave defects. And her skin is so pale and flawless that even among the nobility's daughters it would be rare to find its equal."

"Your Majesty."

"See that you understand. I shall issue orders to the Minister of the Palace regarding the wedding arrangements. Prepare yourselves according to the schedule I set. This is my word."

In that instant, his eyes flashed—and the door at his back swung open. For a moment, Laila thought him a sorcerer. But it was the chamberlain who had opened it, though how he had reached it so swiftly, she could not say.

"Begone," Ode commanded.

Immediately, a violent cough seized him. Yustar took Laila's shoulder gently and drew her forward.

"Let us go, Laila. We can speak outside."

The corridor was flooded with warm, bright sunlight. The ill-omened, oppressive atmosphere of the previous night had vanished entirely—yet Laila trembled uncontrollably.

Her teeth chattered audibly. Gooseflesh rose from her neck to her lower back and would not subside.

"Laila."

The instant Yustar's hand settled on her shoulder, she twisted away from him. She felt his touch slip from her body, and from the depths of her mind rose an inexplicable guilt.

What is this? Laila thought. An impulse to scream welled up, but no tears came. It was incomprehensible—an emotion she could not reconcile. Her chest ached with it.

"Laila."

Yustar waited until she grew calmer, then approached her again, carefully. This time she did not retreat. But her face twisted in a scowl, and she regarded him as though catastrophe itself had taken human form.

"I'm going back," Laila said.

Yustar's chin dipped slightly. "Going back?"

"Yes! I'm going back!"

"Where to? To Ridgecarse? To that place where people tried to burn your home and throw you into the flames?"

Yes, Laila thought. But the thought would not become words.

Ridgecarse—to return there! Who would welcome her back? All that awaited her was the charred remains of her house, and the villagers who would surely try to burn her this time.

"It is unwise thinking, Laila. You know this yourself."

Yustar spoke as though reading her mind. Laila, who had been trembling as she rubbed her own arms, went still. Her eyes had reddened at the rims.

"Why does His Majesty want me to marry you?"

The question came sharp.

Yustar's gaze fell away. Then he smiled faintly, inscrutably.

"My brother would not do you harm."

"That makes no sense. You just heard what he said—and yet you say this? How?"

"What did you just hear? An order to take you as my wife? That is not harm done to me, Laila. To you, yes—a thunderbolt from a clear sky. But not to me."

Impossible. Laila stared at him silently, her mouth open.

"How can you say such a thing?"

"Why do you assume I cannot?"

When he turned the question back on her, Laila's anger flared. She could not fathom how he spoke such words in earnest. It was like being caged and mocked.

Suddenly, she seized her own hair as though to tear it out.

"Look at me! Look at my hair—and my eyes! I can never hide them. Or will you make me wear a veil before all? Give me a false crown of hair? Change my eyes with magic?"

"I have always looked at you, Laila. I was looking before, and I am looking now. I suspect I always will be."

His soft words drained the strength from her hands. Yustar gazed down at her, hesitated briefly, then combed her tangled hair with his fingers, setting it in order.

He spoke, "What is it you truly fear, Laila? That I would be mocked for marrying you? Or that you yourself would become an object of scorn?"