rosamund hodge

I was raised to marry a monster.

The day before the wedding, I could barely breathe. Fear and fury curdled in my stomach.

Demons are made of shadow. Don’t look at the shadows too long or a demon might look back.

And my future husband—the Gentle Lord—was the prince of demons.

He was not like the vicious, mindless shadows that he ruled. As befit a prince, he far surpassed his subjects in power: he could speak and take such form that mortal eyes could look on him and not go mad. But he was a demon still.

After our wedding night, how much of me would be left?

and I put on my best black mourning dress, the one with satin bows.

counting off each second that brought me closer to my husband. My stomach roiled, but I smiled wider and gritted out cheerful nothings about how my marriage was an adventure, how I was so excited to fight the Gentle Lord, and by the spirit of our dead mother, I swore she would be avenged.

Why shouldn’t she laugh? She could marry a mortal man and live to old age in freedom.

I knew my resentment was unfair—surely she laughed for my sake, as I smiled for hers—but it still bubbled at the back of my mind all through dinner, until every smile, every glance she darted at me scraped across my skin. My left hand clenched under the table, nails biting into my palm, but I managed to smile back at her and pretend.

Astraia didn’t deserve anyone’s anger, least of all mine. She didn’t. But for the past few years, whenever I looked at her, all I could see was the reason that I would have to face the Gentle Lord.

One of us had to die. That was the bargain Father had struck, and it was not her fault that he had picked her to be the one who lived, but every time she smiled, I still thought: She smiles because she is safe. She is safe because I am going to die.

I used to believe that if I just tried hard enough, I could learn to love her without resentment, but finally I had accepted that it was impossible.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know you must hate me,” and her voice broke.

Suddenly I remembered one morning when we were ten and she dragged me out of the library because our old cat Penelope wouldn’t eat and wouldn’t drink and Father can fix her, can’t he? Can’t he? But she had already known the answer.

“No.” I grabbed her shoulders. “No.” The lie felt like broken glass in my throat, but anything was better than hearing that hopeless grief and knowing I had caused it.

“But you’re going to die—” She hiccupped on a sob. “Because of me—”