Hekate’s Bride

I rear back, breath catching. “What? What… are you saying–what does that mean?”

He turns from me sharply and his broad shoulders bunch up with tension as he stares at the wall. “Your ancestors have spun lies for centuries, pushing a narrative that is all but untrue, hiding the truth of what they have done to me and why I am really here, beyond the Void.”

I laugh. I hug myself and laugh harder. “You’re lying.”

I don’t doubt my father. Or the stories that I listened to every night as a child, woven from my grandmother’s lips. I have heard of what my people went through at the hands of this tyrant. His brutality and cruelty that threatened to wipe out our existence. I don’t doubt it for a second.

“Sit.”

His command leaves no room for argument or fights and I hate that my legs are moving of their own volition. Somehow, against my will, I settle by the edge of the bed. I glare openly at his figure. “I am not interested in whatever lies you wish to speak.”

He ignores me, walking to the wide windows of to the side and he pushes slightly, opening them.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Air that is both cool and warm and soothing kisses my skin and I sigh softly at its gentle caress. The flames of the torches flicker at the gentle breeze but they stay on, casting shadows to the room.

“Lorna loved me just as much as I did her.”

I snort. “You were obsessed. You stole her. She ran from you.”

His head tilts slightly, and I see some of that wispy hair fall to the side. “She was stunning. She was fire. She was the only woman who did not run from me. She challenged me. I did not know what to make of it. So I… borrowed her from her cottage to study her for a few days.”

“You… borrowed her?” I ask, eyes wide with mirth. The seriousness with which he speaks just makes it more ridiculous and hilarious. I want to laugh my head off, even if I know I shouldn’t be laughing and smiling at the enemy. Borrowed. Right.

He turns to me. “You mock me.”

My eyebrows wiggle a little–it usually happens that way when I’m trying my utmost best not to laugh. Like right now. “I’m not. Though, your choice of words are very questionable.”

I can tell he is frowning now without even seeing his face. “I am King. All belongs to me. The cottage she lived in, her life–”

“An excellent excuse to lock a woman up and take away her choices–and you ‘were’ king. Not anymore.” My voice is sharper than razor and I can tell from his preternatural stillness that he doesn’t like it one bit.

Who cares? Definitely not me.

“She raged, cursing and nearly destroyed my castle,” he continues, choosing instead to ignore me. There is a slight shift in his tone with every word he speaks. It is lighter and perhaps I am imagining it, but there is a bit of laughter in it. “I could never have imagined that a fiery little thing like her could force me to feel things I never thought myself capable of.”

My voice is lost as I listen to him. I want to hear more from him, even if I know he is lying. I don’t feel like protesting or fighting him anymore. I feel his gaze on me as he says, “I am not a good man and I suffered no delusion of pretending to be something I am not. But Lorna… she coaxed goodness from me. She made me want to do more; to be good; to deserve her.”

“Why then, did you kill her?” I whisper, entertaining the thought for a moment. That maybe he is indeed telling the truth.

The temperature drops drastically and a shiver licks my spine, ridding of the warmth that had enveloped me only a few moments ago. “I did not kill her. She did not run from me, either. She was taken from my castle.”

I’m pretty sure that isn’t how the story goes, but for some reason, the pain in his voice as he speaks goes all the way to my core, rocking me hard where I sit. I am being plunged into a world filled with unknowns and it is a great contrast from everything I have come to know in my life.

I believe the teachings and the lores just as much as I believe my name is Astrid Blackwood.

But something chaffs.

“Taken?” I manage to say, voice faint.

“She had been acting strange. More temperamental than usual. Cranky. I had felt it was due to the pressure of our approaching wedding. Perhaps it had been too much for her to handle, I had thought. Then she began to make requests for things she had never liked to eat before. She would send me as far into town as possible to get her fruits. I had thought nothing of it. I would have gone to hell and back if that had been the location of her… juicy persimmons, as she called it.”

The story is taking a turn that I absolutely do not like, but I say nothing. Listening intently.

“That day,” his voice breaks off and I hear the sound of him swallowing. Another almost normal reaction that makes him seem less of a menace. It seems to hurt to speak on this subject and slowly, I start to doubt that what he is saying is a lie.

“She had wanted… peaches, but it was winter. It reached my ears that there was a village with them in abundant, despite the weather. I rode out, oblivious of the trap I was walking into. I left Lorna and my mother behind with a few guards, having sent the majority to the boundaries to deal with the rogues.

“I returned a few days later with them, but my castle was destroyed and in Lorna’s room, there laid my mother’s corpse.”

My heart slows and I constantly have to remind myself, again and again that it is a made up story. It is a lie. He is lying to me.

Though, I can’t see to think of the reason why he would do that in the first place.

“I combed through my kingdom, searching. I was enraged. They mocked me while I searched, throwing stones at me and my men. It did not matter. It became my life’s mission to find her.

“I did. In the outskirts of the human preferred lands. It was the last place they thought I would search. She was lean, covered in severe cuts and bruises that suggested that she had been tortured continuously. She was chained in a tower, held captive by my enemies who wished nothing upon me but revenge for the life I had left behind when I chose her.

His voice shakes again, but he continues, barrelling me with words that I refuse to familiarise my self with. “With a silver dagger pointed to her heart, they had demanded I abdicate and bend the knee.

“I did. I gave my crown. It was worth nothing to me. She tried to tell me. She yelled at me, but I would not listen to her. I wanted her safe.

“But rather than release her when I abdicated, they plunged the dagger into her heart.”

I blink severally, wiping swiftly at the wetness on my cheek. Shit. I’m crying. This is so fucked up. Lie or no, that is so fucked up.

“I watched her die in my arms, and even her last words to me had been an order. ‘Find our son. He is in the catacombs.’ She had been with child, and I did not know.”

“That is enough now,” I say, standing to my feet shakily. “That is as much of your lies that I can take.”

He is quiet for a moment. He walks to where I stand by the bed and fingers reach for me. I jerk back, trying to get away before he can touch me, but he is fast. Very fast.

His fingers grasp my neck and I scream when he leans in sharply and sinks his teeth into my neck.