Page 40 of Caroline the Cruel
“You started a war, endless bloodshed, because you were bored?!” Caroline was enraged. She had known their ways, how they toyed with her. But she’d been so shortsighted to their duplicity. And no one, until her—right now, knew the fate they had set in motion. She had to make it out of this hellscape. She couldn’t allow Death to rule the heavens alone. Caroline didn’t know how, but she would right their wrongs. And if Prince Breicher knew this,maybe—she yanked that seed before it could take and let her rage overtake her anew.
Her hands shot out and wrapped themselves around the pale throat in front of her. Death swung spindly arms, pinwheeling backward at the attack. Caroline and Death tumbled backward, the God’s head a wet smack against the hard stones.
Caroline straddled the last of the Gods, wringing the life from their body. Death clawed down her arms as they battled, but her fury fueled her power. She hit them with another charge of compulsion and savored the pain as it burst into her awareness as Death relinquished the last inkling.
The Queen of Everstal beamed as she extinguished Death.
Caroline awoke sprawled across a craggy hillside, which met a small plateau at the base of a mountain. She recognized the terrain as Everstal. The old mountain range ran for endless miles through the kingdom near the coast. Even as high as she was, she couldn’t see the small summit on which Roskide sat from her vantage point.
A vague memory of stumbling down from the peak in the middle of the night, getting bruises and cuts from the ragged terrain, flashed through her memory. Caroline had been so exhausted she must have collapsed where she currently rested. She didn’t know how much time had passed since she arrived dying at the feet of the Gods.
That was the funny thing about time when she was with them—it seemed to distort and sway. Sometimes when she returned, it had been hours, sometimes days. And that was by far the longest she’d been in their realm. A realm she wasn’t sure still existed, as it spit her out somewhere above the clouds.
Her chest rumbled at the vision of herself appearing in a blink, like a hero in the old stories, reborn upon the zenith of a mountain. She would not be a God who would save them, though, gracefully delivering them from themselves. But she wouldn’t be the monster they thought she was, either.
She could sense the new energy thrumming through her veins. The mighty power she had taken from the wicked Gods as she’d brought each of them under her will, compelling them to transfer their power to her. Their power and their life drained from them in an achingly slow procedure, though only moments had elapsed.
Caroline had been done with their punishments, their games. She’d hated them for years now. Without their power, the Gods were withered husks of entities. One by one, they dried up and floated away on the breeze. She didn’t regret it.
Tiny knives stabbed a thousand pricks across her skin. Caroline tried to jerk upright at the sensation, but it only made the pain louder. She was lying on her back and out of the corner of her eye the low-lying shrubs surrounding her came into her vision. This close, the sharp spines which decorated the plant were angled toward her in attack mode.
Hadn’t she been through enough? She couldn’t shake it. The spines had driven into her body when she’d passed out and her flesh had healed around them. A cry bit from her lips as she pulled herself free, dragging herself to her feet.
Caroline twisted and took account of her torn back, which was rapidly healing. Her black silk gown was in tatters, and she grabbed a handful of her long hair. It was stark white. Not cream or silver, but colorless white, like the clouds she stared up at. She pulled the rest of her locks around her shoulders, assessing. It was all that way.
What had she done? Caroline surveyed her hands. They were still the same creamy color she was used to. What had she turned herself into?
The queen surveyed the land before her. There was a small village nestled into the hillside which she guessed was only a few hours’ walk away. A little church steeple stood above the roofline, the five-pointed star, the symbol of the five Gods proudly reaching to the heavens.
Caroline rolled her eyes and took tentative steps across the rocks as she began her journey home.
Chapter 2
ThevillagersgaveCarolinethe white gelding she was riding and the flowing robes she wore, along with a pack full of rations. They’d offered to send a messenger for a carriage for their queen. The rumor was that the queen had been missing for a month now. No Petitions had been held, and no one had laid eyes on her since.
A holy man had recognized her immediately when she entered the church and fell to his knees before her, murmuring something about a goddess walking before him. She’d accepted the man’s reverence, and took his and the other villager’s offerings, knowing word of her would travel fast. She needed to get back to Roskide faster, so she allowed the guide now escorting her through the mountain passes.
When they arrived at her home, she would award the man handsomely, along with the loyalty shown to her by the villagers. Caroline let a grin slip across her face, hidden beneath the white hood of the robes, staving off the crisp mountain wind.If they only knew she’d destroyed their precious Gods.
And she wasn’t done. There was a certain prince who she had a score to settle with. Only a few more days. Then she could seek her retribution.
The gelding halted its trot as Caroline tugged on the reins right outside the city. She suspected she could vanish and reappear into Roskide, because the ability was how the Gods had brought her into their domain. But she was still gaining her strength back and was leery to use the power before she fully had control over it. And she needed this time to clear her mind.
She rode over to a rose-vine-covered wall. As she neared, each flower faded from a dark crimson to blush, then stark white. Caroline had been noticing the shift in the roses as they’d traveled, understanding it was her presence that was causing the bleaching. No other flowers had changed color, however. Only the flower that was the symbol of her heritage.
Caroline snapped off a rose, then shed its thorns with her nails. She pulled several more off the wall, then quickly wove them into a coronet, using flowers in every state of bloom. When she was pleased with the result, she placed it upon her head and entered the city.
Gasps and whispers erupted as the queen passed through the streets, as she intended. Caroline kept her hood thrown back so the people of Everstal could look upon her. They fell to their knees as she passed, staying there long after, and the rosebush plantings that littered window boxes and hedges washed-out as she wound her way up the mountain to Roskide.
The news of her return made it to the castle faster than she did. Angus burst from the two outermost doors, the hinges screaming as they bore the impact. The exhausted animal she rode upon whined as her broad commander approached.
Warmth flooded her as she stared down at the man.
The feeling was erased as the man who’d called himself Johnneth gushed out the door on Angus’s heel. Her compulsion had worked. In her last moments in her bedroom with him, she’d taken his blood, then compelled him to stay in the castle until she returned, in effect, trapping him there. It seemed he’d been able to convince Angus he’d had nothing to do with her disappearance.
“Your Majesty.” Angus dropped to his knees. His shadow didn’t bother, only stood behind him smirking, with his arms crossed over his chest. The Prince Breicher Ivanslohe’s cocky stance couldn’t hide the drained pallor of his skin, however. The towering man was at her mercy now, and that filled the queen with glee. Caroline wasn’t sure how she wanted to carry out his punishment yet, but seeing him brought the eagerness to do so to the forefront of her emotional landscape.
Shifting her robes so they wouldn’t impede her, Caroline dismounted, handing the road-worn animal off to a groomsman who’d followed her in. She shifted her weight from side to side, trying to bring life back into her dead legs while still looking queenly.
