The Gamdeshian woman inclined her head. “Will you be long?”
“No.”
Leaving behind the Princess’s wing, he trotted down the servants’ staircase, making his way into the bowels of the palace, feeling the heaviness of grief hanging over the halls despite nearly all being abed. The servants had taken the death of the girl—whose name was Asha—badly, many of them unwilling to accept that she’d been marked by the Seventh, most especially her mother. Esme had been inconsolable. It had required both Lena and Gwen to restrain her, the woman screaming that her child was chosen by the Six and then cursing Killian as a murderer. Even now, her voice rang loud in his ears, drowning out the sound of his boots as he approached the palace dungeon.
It was empty, but the cell where he’d locked Asha’s corpse was surrounded by burning candles, melted wax pooling on the floor.
Resting his forehead against the bars, he stared at the shrouded corpse, guilt rising thick and sour in his gut. She was only a child.
Shoes scuffed against the floor, and turning, he found Esme standing by the entrance to the dungeon, her eyes swollen. Almost unrecognizable as the woman who snapped her dish towel at the heels of her assistants, coordinating night after night of elaborate feasts for Malahi and her court. He waited for the onslaught of words and accusations, but she only said, “Finn and his friends will be suffering a miserable night in this storm. The sewers will be raging.”
“It’s not the worst storm they’ve weathered.”
“Still.” Her throat convulsed as she swallowed, eyes fixed on the body. “It’s no way to live.”
Silence clung to the space between them without even the sound of thunder to dispel it.
“May I see her?”
Killian gave a slight shake of his head. “You don’t want to. She’s no longer … whole.”
Esme flinched, a single tear running down her cheek. “Please. I wish to say good-bye to my girl before—” A sob tore from her throat and she pressed a hand to her mouth.
Before she was entombed in rock. It was what was done with the corrupted. Rather than burning them, the bodies were entombed in mortar or rock in a hole seven feet deep, binding the soul and denying the Corrupter his due. An eternity in limbo.
Knowing he might have cause to regret it, Killian reached into his pocket and extracted the key to the cell. The oiled lock made no sound, nor did the hinges of the barred door as he swung them open.
Her shoes made soft pats against the stone as she entered the cell, hands reaching down to the shrouded form, hesitating over the dark stains marring the white fabric. He heard her take a deep breath; then she untucked the folds to reveal the girl beneath.
Killian didn’t want to see but forced himself to look anyway. To watch while the weeping woman kissed the cold grey skin of her daughter’s forehead before carefully tucking the shroud back in place. Then she turned back to him. “Asha was a good girl. She wouldn’t have chosen this. Couldn’t have. She was already—” The cook broke off, shaking her head. “It’s impossible.”
Shifting his weight from foot to foot, Killian debated his words before coughing to clear his throat. “I killed one of the corrupted before the battle for the wall began.” It was a story most everyone knew, but there were things that Killian had kept to himself. “Before she died, she seemed to have a moment of clarity. A moment … free from the Seventh’s hold. And she told me that she hadn’t been given a choice. That she didn’t want to be a monster. I don’t know if it’s any comfort or not, but Asha may not have walked this path entirely of her own volition.”
Far from easing his own mind, the notion that the Corrupter could force his mark upon anyone made his skin crawl. And yet if it were so easy, why were the corrupted so few in number? What held the Seventh in check?
“If Asha didn’t choose it, why does she deserve an eternity of punishment?” Esme’s eyes were full of a quiet plea. “Please don’t put her in the ground.”
It was law that he did so. To do otherwise bordered on blasphemy, and yet … A faint breeze blew through the dungeon, his skin tingling with the sense of being watched.