Rhianon-7. Queen of Vinor. Natalie Yacobson

been. He had counted on this effect and yet now it came as a shock to him. He had failed to bewitch the demon lover and now he would have to look at the world through her eyes forever. It is not he who has rounded her up, but he himself has become part of her being. There, seated on the throne of the new realm, Rhianon had enslaved him without her knowing it, and here on the rocky, cold shore the angel looked at him with a look of such fury that it made the blood run cold.

      Arnaud glanced down at the glittering sword. Even after his recent bat, it still demanded blood. Where the master’s hand would guide it now?

      «I… I can’t watch her right now,» he murmured apologetically. «Sometimes I feel like I’m dissolving into her. I didn’t mean to, but…»

      He took the precautionary step back, but slipped and almost fell.

      «So you did it after all,» Madael said, a split second, and he was pinned against the rock. The sword’s thin, cold blade brushed against the back of his exposed neck, its collar and tresses seeming to part on their own to make way for the steel. For all its coldness it burned, sending tingling sparks down his spine from neck to vertebrae.

      «I could kill you,» Madael whispered, «you are immortal now, but I could destroy you. With a flick of my hand, your head would be separate from your body, burning eternally in one of my cauldrons below, and I would let the crows peck out your eyes. It was they who seduced you when you first saw a worthy woman’s camp and started chanting charms. You have nothing to offer a woman, only deceptions left. You put a veil over the victim’s eyes and she starts me in you? All spells work the same way. I begin to shine in someone else and seduce on his behalf. That’s when the process of seduction is irreversible. Only with Rhianon this trick won’t work, because she already knows me.»

      «I…» Arnaud moved to loosen his grip, but the angel gripped him like a vice.

      «Shut up,» Madael pressed his head against the rocky surface with one hand, exposing his neck even more. He pressed the blade slightly, letting the dark blood drain down. Blood poisoned by the ritual. It made the stunted grass beneath it rot more, and even the rocky surface grew moldy, its insects with hellish faces swarming over the surface.

      «You’re not dead, but you’re not alive either, just a creature that has no place in life or death anymore. You wanted to be that. It was better to remain an outcast in both worlds than one who exists forever, who does not live. It’s a torment, isn’t it, Arnaud, to exist like that? And what if now you have to exist without eyes? Or without the right hand you used to strike at the ritual? Would you be able to play with one left hand or blindly?»

      There was no mocking tone in his beautiful, smooth voice. He was terrifyingly calm. Arnaud sobbed and the strings of his harp echoed softly, as if they felt no danger.

      Madael loosened his grip and squinted at the instrument. «You know, they say the voices of the celestials are born in the music that comes from the war, and they no longer exist. But I recognize their singing sometimes. If I spare you, it is for your skill, but not for your own.»

      «Yes… my lord,» he felt his grip loosen, and was relieved to sing a hymn to Satan. My lord, my lord, my sovereign… He had so many flattering appellations, and with them all one unchangeable Mastema. But all these meanings coalesced in him.

      Arnaud had barely had time to sigh when his strong fingers closed around his wrists, sniping and burning the skin. That’s what the game of cat and mouse was all about. Now he would forever feel pinned against the wall, even when they let him go for a moment.

      «Remember,» Madael leaned so low over him that Arnaud could feel his fiery breath. One golden curl snaked down his cheek, Madael’s hair was soft, softer than silk, but it almost scratched him now. Not even a cat’s claws or a hot wire could bring his skin to such irritation. The angel’s whisper was also fiery.

      «Just one step toward Rhianon, and even my troops wouldn’t envy your fate. Do you understand?»

      «Yes, my lord.»

      Madael released him, but Arnaud could still feel his grip on his wrists. Even in shackles or on the rack he would feel more comfortable. His soul was gloomy, and his harp began to play something cheerful as if out of spite. Arnaud thought that Madael would stop it with one look for disrespecting the sovereign of all the damned and his fury, but he merely stepped aside, not even looking at the twitching strings.

      Rhianon tried on the diamond jewelry. Which would go better with the dress?

      «It looked like tears…»

      The voice of the spirit might not have told her that. She saw for herself, so she merely nodded. Her interlocutor, after a moment, was himself disappointedly silent. And it was good. She didn’t feel like talking to him today.

      She rummaged through the contents of the boxes herself, without the help of her ladies. She had good taste, and the trinkets the court jewelers had made especially for her were not bad either, but today she noticed that the glittering diamonds looked like tears. Were they tears of fairies? Rhianon had heard somewhere that they could turn into diamonds. She couldn’t remember exactly. She had only recently begun to think that Madael’s tears should not be transparent, but bloody. And his spilled blood could only turn into a ruby.

      «Then you must have hundreds of shards of rubies inside you by now,» the spirit gently reminded me.

      «That’s not what I meant…» Why should she have to justify her own thoughts to him? Yes, she remembered the taste of angel’s blood on her lips and the incredible sensation of warmth and power flooding her body afterward. It was even more pleasurable than love. A drop of his blood… Rhianon tried not to think about the way she touched the ground and turned into rubies. Madael is invulnerable, after all. He could not be killed or hurt. And he is immortal.

      «Perhaps I will die, and he will still kill his enemies on the battlefield… and if only his own enemies, not the enemies of the Almighty…»

      «Don’t go into mourning. Not yet. We have a wedding to celebrate before then,» the spirit reminded her. «Then it will be the coronation.»

      She nodded again, indifferently. There was a knock at the door. She must go now.

      «Couldn’t you…» she turned to the spirit, and then stopped short. No, she wouldn’t do that. No, she wouldn’t send anyone to him now, notify him of her intentions. Otherwise he would come here and ruin everything. She won’t have Loretta or Vinor or hope for the future. She didn’t want that.

      «If it weren’t for God,» she’d thought of it so often. «He could avenge for her, return her Loretta and never lost her himself.»

      «If there was a god, there would be a devil,» the spirit finished for her. «And if there were no devil, the world would be just. You’re dreaming for nothing, child, the world was already created that way.»

      «You see everything in black,» she teased him.

      «I can see deeper than mortals like you can,» he said nonchalantly.

      He had a point, and yet Rhianon protested:

      «I’m not like other mortals anymore.»

      «You’re better off if no one else knows about it but me. People don’t like those who are too different from them. Remember, one false step and your recent success in the throne room could backfire on you. If the queen ends up causing displeasure, she too may be burned as a witch. The occasion is already there. Everyone remembers how death worshipped you. Do you think she fell in love with you?»

      – He, not she,» corrected Rhianon sharply.

      «It is he, not she,» corrected Rhianon sharply.

      «What difference does it make? It has not made any difference to you.»

      «And you have been watching me the whole time, how could you have known?»

      «You look like an angel, my dear, and angels are sexless.» He easily found excuses