Cursed Opal (The Cardinal Winds, #3) - Kathryn Ann Kingsley Page 0,2
of those things. She had decided instead to pursue her passion. Which was, coincidently, passion.
Maybe that made the philistines right about what they said about her. Maybe that made her a slut and a harlot. Maybe that made her a terrible, sinful creature. But what was so wrong about two—ish—consenting adults enjoying each other? Why was that sin? Why was that kind of “lust” worthy of the gates of Hades?
She should have been born in the South Wind Dominion. They weren’t so strict with their social rules. But in the West Wind, things were decidedly more rigid. More austere. More judgmental. The East Wind was a hard no-go for her. The North…eh…she hated the cold. Even if she did hear that the fires of the camps were plenty warm and welcoming.
It didn’t matter anymore. This was the last place she would ever see. The cold, rigid, austere hospital beds of a society that piled its dying souls into one room to better serve their end-of-life needs.
And so they could watch each other die.
She had seen seven people go in the three days she had been there so far. Each time it happened she couldn’t help but stare. Sometimes she wondered how long the person had been there under their sheets as a corpse with no one knowing.
How long would she lie here before anyone noticed she had died?
After a lifetime of warm hands holding hers under the table, all the drinks, and laughter, and stolen kisses, and private nights…it had been reduced to this. Wondering how long she would be a lifeless corpse—one among many—in a room of the dying.
All together.
And entirely alone.
A coughing fit rose in her lungs without warning. She wheezed, doubled over, cringing in pain as a thick, viscous liquid filled her mouth. She swallowed some of it. Bitter, copper, and poisoned.
She blotted at her lips and looked down at the rag in her hands. Red. She fought the tears and won. She was done crying. She was done feeling sorry for herself. She had lived her life. It had been short—but it had been glorious.
She wondered if Sean would cry when he found out she was dead. He was the third son of a politician and had little else to look forward to. He was expected to appear at public events, be seen with a beautiful woman who was unnoteworthy, and live an otherwise quiet, scandal-free life. He was not his own individual, after all. He was his father’s son.
If others learned that he preferred the company of men…well, that would reflect poorly on his father. And such things could not be tolerated.
And so she was there at his side. Giggling at his jokes, listening eagerly to his stories, and kissing him in the garden when she knew a photographer was around. Some scandals were the right kind of scandals. And poor Sean needed help fighting the rumors.
After hours, they drank scotch and played cards and laughed together. He was a very funny man. She had considered him a close friend. He had proposed to her. Asked her to make him an “honest man.” But that would have been a terrible lie for both of them to live.
The irony hadn’t been lost on him.
She hoped Sean didn’t cry too much when she died.
But it did feel nice to think she might be missed. Even just a little.
I don’t like this whole dying bullshit. I don’t like it at all.
She looked up at the sound of the doors to the hospice ward opening. It was pretty early for the lunch rounds. She furrowed her brow in curiosity. Three figures stood by the door, caught in the shadows and too obscured for her to make sense of them. One of them was very large. One of them was very short. And the third looked human.
It was only in comparison to the third one that she realized that the other two weren’t shaped right. Not at all.
She swallowed some of the glop in her throat and sat up a little straighter. The Dominions were all prone to rumor and twisted stories of the power that propelled them. The East Wind with their whispers of lightning and robotic armies. The South Wind with their fire and—recently abolished—slavery. The North Wind had its stories of ice, of rock, and…armies of the dead.
The West Wind Dominion was not without its rumors. Of typhoons that rose at the will of its Cardinal. And of monsters who answered his command. Monsters of his making.