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MARYSKA
Maryska made her way back to the throne room, livid, her heart bubbling with blistering fury, destroying what little satisfaction pulsed through her veins at knowing she’d destroyed Anton’s false Queen of Bones. The girl was nothing, and he could be nothing, too—if she chose such a fate for him. Yet she didn’t want to break him down into a pile of bones the way she had the others.
Eventually, Anton would come to her, crawling. After he begged for mercy, she would return his flesh, and he could crawl to her some more, naked.
Peering down at the crown cuff at her wrist, Maryska squeezed the metal as if she were removing a life from it. She should have waited to choose him as her king, until he’d officially agreed to be hers. Then he wouldn’t have been able to bring the female to life.
Around her, the dark walls quivered and swayed, accelerating in strength as her anger grew. She took a seat on her throne of bones and massaged speckles of old blood away from its arm.
From the round bone table to her right, she whisked an ornate silver goblet to her mouth. The liquid contained a mixture of blood from different animals. Licking her lips, she found it to be horse, sheep, and squirrel—it calmed her a fraction.
Maryska had gone to the surface on several occasions to find lovers, but none of them were deemed worthy to be her king. Until she’d come across him. Anton with his honesty. Anton with the loathing in his eyes as he gave her pleasure—she relished that feeling.
At first, he felt sorrow for her. She’d told him lies of her last lover, that he’d beaten her. But even those couldn’t make him bow down to her. Each time he came to her, Maryska became a little more insulting, and the more he hated her, the more she wanted him.
Puckering her lips, Maryska let out a low whistle. The heavy sound of paws grew near as two beasts entered the room. Perched on one’s neck was the head of a horse. The rest was a body of an ape, stripped of skin, its bloody muscles rippling as the beast hobbled toward her. On the other, the head resembled that of a ram and the body of a large dog with saggy, tan skin surrounding it. Two curled horns protruded from its head.
“Callie, Neru, now!” she yelled.
The beast with the head of a horse, Callie, quickened her pace as Neru darted to the right side of Maryska. She stroked Neru’s fleshy head and cooed to him how beautiful he was. Callie appeared on the opposite side, and Maryska slammed a hand against the beast’s head, scarlet staining her palm.
“Human!” she screamed, disgusted with Callie for dallying like she shouldn’t have.
The male human entered the room, too pale and thin, red muscle throbbing beneath his skin. He held his chin high, so he could see Maryska. Out of boredom, she’d rearranged his face and placed his eyes below his jaw, so he would have to work harder than initially. His nose sat on his forehead, his ears at his cheeks, and his mouth in the back of his head.
He wobbled as he halted, then dropped to one knee. “Yes, my queen?”
“I cannot hear you.” She grinned, baring all her teeth, and staring at the bone collar around his throat.
The human stood and turned around so his mouth now faced her. “Yes, my queen?”
“Why aren’t you bowing?” she seethed, more than exasperated.
“Sorry, my queen.” The lips moved slowly, his rotting teeth clenching as the male lowered to one knee. He leaned his back toward her at an awkward angle, mouth facing the floor, body trembling as he held the position.
“Now, rise and turn.” She should have made him lean back until his mouth kissed the floor. When he whirled to face her, chin lifted and eyes meeting hers, she demanded, “Clean my hand.”
The male servant moved at a quick pace to the back of the room, lifting a satin cloth and a pitcher of water, before placing them in front of Neru. The beast curled back his lips and growled.
“There’s no need for that, Neru.” Maryska petted his head, observing the human with disdain. “Unless I say so.” Her smile widened wickedly.
The servant brought the cloth to her hand and wiped away the crimson. With a dry satin one, he absorbed the dampness as he patted her skin several times. Maryska admired the flex of his muscles against his thin skin as he stroked her hand. She could take him to her bed and sew his lips shut so he’d be unable to form a single squeak as she rode him to bliss. But alas, he was not Anton, no matter how quiet he could stay for her to pretend he was.
These heathens outside the Bone Valley deserved their punishment.
“I wish to bathe now,” she told the servant, reaching out a gray hand toward him. Exchanging a glance from Callie to Neru, she motioned them forward. “Bow down to my throne until I return.”
The servant helped Maryska rise from her chair of bones and led her down the dimly lit hall. Floating golden orbs guided their way until they reached her Lake of Flesh.
“Retrieve grapes for me and fill my goblet,” she commanded, waving him away.
The human nodded and left to fulfill his duty.
Sliding the straps of her sheer dress down from her shoulders, Maryska watched it glide to the stone floor. The Lake of Flesh stood still before her as the shades of liquid skin alternated colors. Slowly, she stepped one foot into the milky texture.
As she trudged through bits of muscle and pieces of organs, the liquid thickened when she moved deeper to its center. She lowered herself so that the lake covered her entire head and antlers.
Needing pleasure from somewhere, she brought a hand to her breast and lowered it down her body to the spot in between her legs, her body heating from the touch, the circular movements.
Maryska thought about one of the greatest things she’d ever done as Torlarah’s ruler—create the Bone Valley. It hadn’t always been that way, though. No, it had once been the Divine Valley, serene and tranquil, the most dazzling of places one could step foot into after their life had ended.
The first time she’d seen the Divine Valley, she watched it with hunger, tasting all the colors. There was the knowledge that in Torlarah she could gain even more control than what she’d already been gifted. That thought consumed her.
After a night she longed to forget, she gathered the strength she could from the two crowns and took away all the flesh of the people, leaving them as walking and talking bones.
She thought she’d done a good deed by allowing them to survive, but they wanted back what was rightfully theirs—the skin to let them truly feel, a heart to beat against their cage of bones, and all the other missing pieces to make them whole.
Maryska would not be undermined any longer. Sliding her arms down to her sides, she brought her hands together in a furious clap that echoed throughout the entire valley. After the clatter of bones fell to pieces against the dirt, silence was all that could be heard.
The cottages still standing were all made of bones—trees were bones, flowers were bones, and bones were scattered across the once glorious fields.
She looked at what she’d created. The Bone Valley.
Maryska swallowed the lovely memory as her body spasmed from her touch and the power it absorbed from the Lake of Flesh. She gasped in satisfaction while rising to the surface.
At the lake’s edge, the bowl of grapes and silver goblet awaited her. She moved toward the things and picked up the goblet, bringing the warm metallic taste to her lips, reminding her of the poison Anton drank to end his life.
She’d heard rumors that Daryna was a witch, and she had gone to see her. And what a surprise it was when Maryska had met her. The entirety of the visit, Maryska wanted to smile and taunt Daryna, but she’d proven she could make anything believable.
Since Maryska had come to Kedaf from Torlarah, she couldn’t simply stab Anton with a dagger herself. Besides, she wanted something less messy.
But a poison remedied by someone else and poured into a cup by that person would be the answer. All she had to do was heat up the offerings and give it to him as if it were a gift from another. And drank it, he did.
Now, she figured she had all the time in the world to wait for Anton. With that thought in mind, she shifted to her animal form, hooves shaping and fur sprouting, until she closely resembled a stag.
As she retired to her bedroom, she envisioned all the ways Anton would please her once he belonged to her—as her king.
