47: THE WITCH-QUEEN
Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since Kihrin briefly remembered being S’arric
Everyone remained quiet as Qown finished.
“The Academy spends a great deal of time researching—weapons. Spells usable as weapons,” Qown finally said. “They’ve become good at it.”
“When I said anyone who would use a weapon like that…” Kihrin swallowed and looked over at Janel. “You already knew.”
“I already knew,” she agreed. “I may hate talk of prophecies, but I will say this: Those prophecies that talk about the Hellwarrior toppling the Quuros empire? Smashing it to pieces? I hope those prophecies are true. Quur has earned it.”
“Now you sound like Teraeth.”
Janel refreshed her coffee. “Am I wrong?”
Kihrin scrubbed his eyes with his hands. He was losing track of what wrong meant. Horribly, he found himself agreeing with his brother—with Relos Var rather. Maybe everyone was wrong, and it was a matter of picking the wrong side you found more acceptable. “If the Empire of Quur is as powerful as you say … as horrible as you say … what chance would anyone have to rebel against them?”1
“Sooner or later, everything falls.” Janel and Kihrin stared at each other for a rather long beat, before Janel took a deep breath. “Anyway, I believe it’s my turn.”
Janel’s Turn. The Ice Demesne, Yor, Quur.
“Bikeinoh, I have a question for you.” I leaned over toward the woman while we waited for our turn at the practice yards.
Not all the women had been eager to take up weapons training, but a surprising number had. Even more were eager to learn to read and write and to explore the possibility they might have an aptitude for magic. The D’Lorus Lord Heir had been shocked to discover every single Yoran woman tested displayed a high magical aptitude. He muttered about it being unprecedented. The women laughed and reminded him that they were Yoran.
Bikeinoh turned to me. “Yes?”
“Who taught Veixizhau?”
She blinked at me. “What?”
I stared out at the two women who were sparring under Xivan’s critical eye. “It’s been a hundred years since it was legal to worship Suless. Did Veixizhau learn it from her family? From her mother? Seems like the sort of thing a clan leader wouldn’t want to encourage in his own family.”
“That must have been what happened.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think that?”
The older woman swallowed and looked to the side. “No, I don’t.”
I followed her line of sight. She stared at Wyrga, who’d started coming to the training yard to watch the women practice. The old woman had her polar bear cub carried in the crook of one arm while she watched.
“I’ve been here for almost fifteen years,” Bikeinoh said quietly. “She’s always had that damn cub. It’s never grown a day older than it is right now. Kind of like her.”
Wyrga must have felt us staring. She looked back, grinned, and laughed. She was too far away to hear, but I knew her terrible cackle well enough to imagine.
I stood up from the bench. “Thanks. Tell Xivan I wasn’t feeling well, okay? I’ll be back later.”
The woman shrugged. “Sure.”
I left to see if I could find a special someone to answer a question.
Senera kept an irregular schedule, but I was in luck. She’d returned.
She answered her door red-eyed with tears streaking her face. Her gray eyes turned flint hard as she regarded me, as if I’d committed an unforgivable sin by witnessing her vulnerability. She walked back to her chair without saying a word, leaving the door open behind her.
Well. I took it as permission to enter.
She sat back down by the fireplace and refilled her tea. Then she watched the fire, her expression blank.
Senera’s room turned out to be the same room I’d woken in on that first day. And it contained no more traces of personality than when I’d first seen it.
Senera spent her time and energy in the field.2
Then I saw I’d been mistaken about the traces of personality. Senera had left papers and charcoal pencils on a table, alongside a small doll made from white linen and bleached yarn. The doll appeared colorless except for two silver beads that had been used for the eyes. And the paper …
The top paper had been ripped in half, but still showed a young Joratese youth’s face. I couldn’t say whether she’d captured his likeness, but the boy’s eyes shone brilliant and joyful. And I had no reason to think this sinister, except …
Except. I remembered the tears on Senera’s face when she opened the door, her red eyes. If there had been a tragedy, likely as not Senera had caused it. I tore my gaze away, shuddering.3
“Is there something you want?” Her voice cracked the air.
“Senera, what happened?” I crossed the room to her, but she wouldn’t look at me.
“Are you going to make me repeat myself?” she countered.
“I came to ask you a favor, but you seem upset. Do you want to talk?”
Senera turned to me then, and her nostrils flared.
“No, I do not. Now tell me what you want and leave. Or better yet, just leave.”
I didn’t answer her immediately. I sat there and enjoyed the flames crackling in the fireplace, the scent of hot tea and burning pine needles in the air.
I heard her intake of breath, knew she was about to start yelling at me.
“When is the price too much?” I asked her, looking up.
“That doesn’t sound like a favor,” she snapped.
“It isn’t,” I admitted. “But I’m curious when it all becomes too high a price to pay. What marks the line?”
She closed her eyes and muttered a curse under her breath. I’m certain it involved unpleasantries involving my genealogy.
I leaned forward. “How many lives are too many? How many have to die before it’s enough?”
She scoffed. “Death is a meaningless term. They go to the Afterlife. They’re reborn from the Afterlife and start over. Who cares?”
“Oh no. Did no one tell you? Demons and magic both changed the rules. Souls are only immortal to a point, and past that point, oblivion is real. When Xivan kills someone, they don’t go to the Afterlife. When demons eat their victim’s souls or, worse, transform those souls into more demons, they don’t go to the Land of Peace. The trauma those souls experience is real and, assuming Thaena can rescue them, carries on from one lifetime to the next. Who cares? You do. You just don’t want to admit it, because that would mean admitting you’re wrong.”
She stood up, her face a mask of righteous fury.
“How dare you. Do you have any idea what I went through when I was a slave? What every slave goes through? And you people give no thought—”
“Any sympathy I might have had for your past vanished when you started wiping out villages and you were willing to gaesh Qown. Willing to gaesh me too, even if that attempt failed.”
She closed her mouth mid-protest, eyes bright and angry. Oh, that had cut too close, I suspected, hitting at nerves still raw through guilt.
I dropped my head, turned away. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t come here to pick a fight.”
“And yet, here you are.”
“Here I am. I just…” I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “These months haven’t gone smoothly for me.”
“I heard about what happened to Oreth. I’d say I’m sorry, but…”
I smiled, looked back at her. “He was an ass.”
She nodded. “He was.”
“Unfortunately, I also think he was innocent.”
Senera sat down again. “You think it was Darzin D’Mon who plotted to kill you? I understand the Hon has forbidden him to come back here.”
“No, not him either. I’m sure Darzin is as terrible as they come, but I don’t think we should make the same mistake that the duke and his courtiers are making—they’re assuming a man must have been involved. I think this crime was women only. After all, if Veixizhau meant to sacrifice me to Suless, the men had nothing to gain by helping her.”
She studied me. “That’s plausible. But may I ask why it matters now? It’s over.”
“Is it? This wasn’t Veixizhau’s plan. Someone else was manipulating her. Think how it could’ve gone: with forty-eight chieftains receiving the heads of their daughters in boxes—accompanied by a note saying they’d been executed for being worshippers of Suless. How well do you think that would have really gone over?”
She exhaled. “I see your point. If I were one of the chieftains—” Senera scoffed. “Kaen’s having a hard enough time keeping his dominion united as it is.”
“Exactly. That would have been tossing oil into a fire. Now I think I know who’s behind this, but I don’t want to go to Duke Kaen without proof.”
“Ah, so here’s the favor. You want me to use the Name of All Things.”
“Yes. I want you to use the Name of All Things.”
“I make it a point not to use the stone for every damn random question someone asks me. I would never sleep.”
“This isn’t any damn random question, though. All I want to know is if Wyrga was the one who taught Veixizhau how to worship Suless.”
Senera paused, mid-sip. “Wyrga? But why…” She trailed off. “Huh.”
“Wyrga’s more than she seems. She knows things she shouldn’t. And I’m not sure why Kaen seems to trust her as much as he does, but I don’t think he’s being wise.”
“What motive would she have? She has no protector if he loses power.”
“What motive does she need? This is a woman who tried to feed me foal meat, just because she knew the idea would sicken me. I think she loves to stir up trouble for its own sake.” I rolled my eyes. “Honestly, she trains the damn snow hyenas the palace uses for patrols. Weren’t those animals sacred to Suless?”
Senera pursed her lips. “That’s true. And your question is answered with yes or no. I prefer those.”
“So will you?”
“And what do I get for helping you?”
At least that wasn’t a no. “Well, for one thing, you get the satisfaction of helping women who are treated as little better than slaves.”
She rolled her head back, giving me an amused look. “Oh, so I’d be contributing goodwill and camaraderie? And here I thought I was on the wrong side.”
“Wyrga could end up in a lot of trouble?”
Her gaze sharpened. “Hmm. That’s more tempting. Relos Var hates Wyrga.” She pulled the Name of All Things out from her bodice. “There’s very few people he hates, you know. She’s on an exclusive, short list.” She concentrated on the stone, licked her finger, traced a word on the wooden tabletop.
No ink this time. No paper. Those things were performative. She was using the waxed surface of the table to read the result.
“Yes,” Senera said. “She did.” Then she concentrated again and wrote out another word.
Also yes.
“What did you just ask?”
“If Wyrga ordered Veixizhau to dedicate you to Suless.”
I frowned. “Xivan said in the old days women would sacrifice their daughters to gain favors from the witch-queen.”
“What she was doing isn’t technically sacrifice,” Senera amended. “Dedication, not sacrifice. The women never saw their daughters again, but Suless didn’t kill them.”
“That’s what Xivan suspected. That Suless trained them as her priestesses, as witch-mothers.” I leaned over the table. “Senera … is it possible that Wyrga is a priestess of Suless? A witch-mother?”
“The Quuros killed all—”
“Is it possible?”
Senera bit her lip. “Let’s ask.” She concentrated again, wrote out another one-word response. I didn’t have to be close to see that it was no.
Senera shook her head. “Well, it was an interesting hypothesis. But no, it’s more likely that Wyrga’s just a nasty old woman who knows enough old stories to lure a bunch of gullible young wives into trouble. She probably did it for a lark so she can crawl back into whatever hole she sleeps in at night and cackle about it to that stupid bear cub of hers.”
I startled. Of course. “The bear cub. Ask about the bear cub.”
Senera raised an eyebrow. “What about the bear cub?”
“It’s just—” I waved a hand. “Someone told me the bear cub doesn’t age.”
“What?” Senera laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure she keeps a cub until she’s killed it and then switches it out for another cub.”
“Check for me?”
She scoffed. “Okay, now we’re getting into silly territory. I don’t answer silly questions.”
“Just ask the age of Wyrga’s bear cub. That’s a simple question, right? Harmless? It’s not a yes or no, but the answer is precise.” I was grasping at straws, but damn it, I knew something about Wyrga was wrong, from her knowledge of prophecies to her insistence that she’d known my mother, Irisia.
And the fact that my mother is named Irisia. Wyrga had known that information before I had. How many people knew the Goddess of Magic’s birth name wasn’t Tya?
Senera rolled her eyes as she asked the Name of All Things one more time.
We both watched as she traced a number on the table.
A large number.
“Is that minutes? Months?” I was confused. It couldn’t possibly be years.
Senera’s eyes widened. She ignored me and ran to her desk, pulling out paper and graphite before bringing both back to the table.
She concentrated again and wrote out a single word: voras.
That didn’t clarify matters. “What does that mean?”
Senera looked exasperated. “I thought Thurvishar was supposed to be educating you lot.”
“Don’t lump me in with the spurned wives,” I snapped.
“Back before the Quuros Empire,” Senera explained, “many years before the Quuros Empire, there were four immortal races: the voras, the voramer, the vorfelane, and the vordredd. Each race except for the vorfelane has been forced to give up its immortality in order to keep Vol Karoth imprisoned. The voras were the first; they became human.”
“I’ve never heard of the vorfelane.”
“That’s because we call them vané now.” She waved a hand. “You’re missing the point. The cub wasn’t born a polar bear. It was born human, or the immortal equivalent of a human. It was born voras.” Senera wrote down the large number sequence a second time, this time with charcoal on paper. “Those are years.”
“Over fourteen thousand?” I said. “How can a polar bear cub possibly be over fourteen thousand years old?”
“It can’t. That’s why I asked what race the cub was when it was born.”
“What’s its name? What’s its birth name? I don’t know what Wyrga calls it, but I’d have to assume she’d lie if I asked.”
“I almost can’t bring myself to ask.”
“Do it, anyway.”
Senera concentrated on the artifact in her hand and then wrote out a single word. “If I’m right…”
Cherthog.
Cherthog, the Yoran god-king of winter.
We both stared at the word.
Senera said, “Fuck.”
After that … everything was quiet.
I don’t mean to say nothing happened. We continued training. I kept looking for how I might safely pass through the poisoned stone caves to recover the spear. Duke Kaen started asking for my opinion on Joratese strategies, giving me access to his war room and plans. He slowly began testing my loyalty, which wasn’t always pleasant.
Veixizhau was hardly forgiven by the other wives, but everyone seemed willing to leave her alone until she gave birth. No one knew what would happen to Veixizhau after the baby was born—it was entirely possible that Duke Kaen would still have her executed for adultery. Because of that impending threat, the other ex-wives overlooked her tantrums.
I avoided her whenever possible.
A week after Senera and I discovered the truth about Wyrga and her “pet,” a messenger told me the Hon wanted to see me.
The messenger found me in my room alone. Although Talea and I continued to be lovers, I firmly insisted on sleeping by myself. I didn’t want her or anyone else to realize that my nighttime slumber couldn’t be interrupted.
When I arrived at the Hon’s private rooms, I saw Senera and Wyrga were also present.
Wyrga was kneeling on the floor. For once, her polar bear cub was nowhere to be seen.
I exhaled. Senera had asked me to wait before going to Duke Kaen about her, and so I had. Apparently, however, Senera had only asked so she might deliver the news herself.
The question was: Just how much had she told him? Had she told him the cub was Cherthog? Had she told him who that meant Wyrga must be? Not a witch-mother, no. The Name of All Things had been right when it had told us she wasn’t one of Suless’s chosen daughters. No, she was much worse.
Wyrga was Suless herself.
“Close the doors behind you.”
Senera looked tense, nearly standing at attention, looking straight ahead, eyes unfocused. I had the feeling she’d been questioned intensely before I entered. Next to her, on the table before the Hon, sat the Name of All Things.
Several pieces of crumpled parchment had been thrown to the floor.
“Thank you for joining us, Janel.”
I bowed to the Hon. “Of course, Your Grace. How may I be of service?”
“I think you know.”
I straightened and tried to keep my face blank.
I pursed my lips for a moment. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, but I don’t wish to assume on this matter. It concerns Wyrga?”
The Hon’s expression didn’t change. His ice-colored eyes bored into mine. Angry. I had never seen him so angry.
“Yes,” he said. “Senera was kind enough to look into the situation that ended with you on the ice. She tells me I have Wyrga to thank. Indeed, I have Wyrga to thank for convincing my wives to rekindle the worship of Suless as well.” He walked out from behind the desk, and as he passed the old woman, he kicked her in the stomach.
She cried out and rolled up into a ball, holding her midriff.
I frowned. Had I been wrong? If she really was Suless, wouldn’t she fight this? Wouldn’t she lash out?
“If you hadn’t come to my wives’ defense, her plan would never have been discovered. Or discovered too late. I’d probably be facing open rebellion.”
“Then I’m even more glad I was there, Your Grace.” I tried to smile at him, but I couldn’t shake my dread. I’d seen his temper.
Senera looked worried.
No. Senera looked scared.
“Wyrga has been in my family’s service for many years,” Kaen said as he began to pace. The mountains shone behind him like a crown of glory, the sun reflecting off perfect blue-white peaks. “I have been warned many times not to trust her, but I have always dismissed those warnings because she has served us so well. Isn’t that right, Wyrga?”
The old woman groveled. “Yes, my lord. Yes, I have always served you. I have always done whatever you’ve asked of me.”
“You’re gaeshed, Wyrga,” Kaen said, hand around a necklace at his throat. “What choice do you have?”
“None, my lord.”
“Gaeshed? But—” I realized my mouth had dropped open. If Suless was gaeshed, that explained a great deal. I just hadn’t realized it was possible to gaesh a god-king.
“Do you know who the father of Veixizhau’s child is?” Duke Kaen asked me.
“I—” I hadn’t expected to be asked that. “No, I don’t.”
“My son. Veixizhau’s baby will be my grandchild.”
I blinked. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” Duke Kaen snapped. “Wyrga’s idea, of course. She convinced Veixizhau to seduce my son, Exidhar, fed the woman some drivel about being able to change my son’s child into my child. Lies. Wyrga fully intended to reveal what Veixizhau had done. I’d have killed my philandering wife and Exidhar for that, thus executing both my son and grandchild. Now that was an act fit to feed a goddess of betrayal, wasn’t it, Wyrga? Wasn’t it?”
Wyrga cried out, “Yes, my lord!”
I met Senera’s eyes. In that moment, I realized Kaen knew exactly who Wyrga really was.
He already knew Wyrga was Suless. He’d always known.
He sat down on the table’s edge, shaking his head. “Thank you, Wyrga. It’s always best when you tell the truth.” He looked … hurt. Disappointed. And still furiously angry. “But I hope you realize you will have to be punished.”
“My Hon,” Senera began. “I must advise caution—”
“I will handle this myself, sorceress. You’ve done your job. You are, in fact, free to leave.”
Senera reached down and picked up the Name of All Things, tucked the stone into her bodice. “Your Grace, please—” But she didn’t finish the sentence. Leaving whatever she might have said unspoken, Senera gave me a sympathetic look and walked out the door.
I felt rather abandoned, to be honest.
As soon as the door slammed shut, Azhen Kaen turned to Wyrga and said, “Pluck out your eyes.”
I wasn’t certain if Wyrga gasped or if I had. Maybe both.
I hadn’t truly understood how evil gaeshe were until then. And no matter how I felt about Wyrga, I couldn’t stand by while he forced her to do this.
“No!” I shouted, but her hand moved to her face.
I reached for her, grabbed her wrist, but Wyrga shoved me away.
“No,” Kaen said as he reached down and grabbed me by my laevos. “You won’t stop this.”
“Don’t do this and then be surprised when she plots against you and your family. What do you expect? Loyalty? Duty? You might have gained loyalty if you had freed her!”
“She has no honor or loyalty. She’s evil, a force of chaos, and I should have killed her years ago.” He pulled me back against the desk, and I didn’t fight him that time. He released my hair even as I heard Wyrga scream. I knew when I turned back, I’d see blood streaming down the old woman’s face.
It didn’t matter that Wyrga had tried to kill me or that she was thoroughly horrible. She was a slave, and she was helpless. I had to do something. I knew better than to attack Duke Kaen, so what could I do? What options did I have? What could I possibly use as leverage?
I did have something. One thing that Kaen evidently valued. I pulled my dagger from my belt and set the edge against the corner of my eye. “Order her to stop, Your Grace, or we’ll both lose our eyes.”
Azhen Kaen turned back to me, eyes wide with surprise. “You—what?”
I took a deep breath, ground my teeth together, and pushed the edge in.4
The sharp dagger ensured I didn’t register the result as pain right away. Cold and wet and unpleasant, a sharp icy claw reaching right through my skull. Something wet and oozing started sliding down my cheek.
I’m told I also set the drapes on fire. And the table.
“Wyrga, ignore your last order! You stupid fool!”
That last part was directed at me.
Then pain spiked through my whole skull and I screamed, folding up into a tight ball. “Help her!” Azhen Kaen ordered Wyrga.
Help is an open-ended command, but Wyrga did something.
Everything turned black, and nothing hurt.
When I woke, I found myself in a guest room at the top of the pyramid, the sort with beautiful mountainside views. Perhaps most importantly, I could see from both eyes. I checked. Both were present and accounted for, uninjured.
I sat up from the bed, noted I remained dressed, and walked over to the slanted crystal window. I watched the storm-shrouded mountains, noting that someone had put me in a southern-facing room looking out toward Jorat. I couldn’t see my adopted homeland from here, but I knew the direction. And as I watched, I saw Aeyan’arric sporting along a ridgeline, a giant sparkling diamond of white death.
“You’re going to have to learn magic, you know.”
I winced as I turned to face Wyrga—the witch-queen Suless, although for obvious reasons, I couldn’t call her such. She stood at the doorway with her polar bear cub—with Cherthog—tucked under her arm. The flesh around her empty left socket looked puffy and red.
So Kaen hadn’t let her heal the injury. He at least hadn’t let her finish the job either, while I lay unconscious.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think he’d do that.”
The old hag grinned her toothful smile and waddled over in my direction. “Don’t let it bother you any. I barely notice it myself. See?” She raised her hand and I saw she held her other eye. The orb rotated in her fingers, a brown cat’s eye pointing at me.
“Oh Eight.” I tasted bile and turned away, even as she started laughing.
“He told me to pluck my eyes out. He never said anything about not being able to still use them.”
“Of course. What was I thinking?” I swallowed down the awful taste in my mouth and wished for water. A sparkling white flash caught my eye as the ice dragon dove down below the cloud line. She twisted herself around to fill up the snow hollow she used as bedding. At least that’s a beautiful monster, I thought.
But Suless was a monster too. I hadn’t moved to her defense because I thought her a wonderful person, I’d done it because I didn’t think anyone deserved such treatment.
In a way, I was grateful. Suless had given me clarity. Because when Kaen had given her that terrible command, I’d known for certain I could never serve Azhen Kaen, no matter what rewards he offered. I’d been tempted, but a man who used his power as he had with Wyrga could never be trusted.5
What you protect is what you rule. Kaen was thorra—a bully, someone who used his strength to dominate. Any vows I’d made to him melted in my heart and then turned to ash.
“You’re going to have to learn magic if you want to take Aeyan’arric down, you know. Sword skill alone can’t kill a dragon, no matter how good you are; you’ll never be good enough. Magic, on the other hand, might just keep you alive for long enough. Maybe. If you’re lucky.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” My heart hammered drumbeat fast. What questions had the Hon asked Senera? What did they know? How did Wyrga know about my mission? If the Hon realized my goal was to steal the spear Khoreval and use it to slay the dragon he loved sending into Jorat …
It wouldn’t go well for me.
She set her dismembered eye on the nightstand. “I don’t want to lose this. The cub will start chewing on it, and wouldn’t that be awful.” The old woman turned back to me, pointing at me with a skeletal finger. “Veix dedicated you to Suless. That means something. You can’t hide yourself from Suless now. She knows all your secrets.”
I knew why she spoke of herself in the third person. Kaen had likely forbidden her from revealing her identity. Of course, that didn’t change how troubling her words were.
Assuming they were true.
“You know you would be good at magic. Do you think Tya would have a child who didn’t have the gift? She breathed it into you from your birth, stamped it into your bones, set it spiraling into your blood. Yet you’ve done everything but study it. Swordplay? Yes. Strategy? Oh please. Tactics. Yes, tactics. Your father’s gifts. But not your mother’s. You reject those.”6
“Are you so sure?” I said. “I haven’t been here that long.”
“I think all you have to do is ask.” The way she looked at me emphasized her dowager’s hump, her spine’s curve. “And your mother would be only too glad to teach you.” She reached out toward me with a twisted hand and touched my arm with the lightest sweep. “But she isn’t half as good a teacher as I am.”
“Any help you’d offer would come poisoned. I’m not the fool Veixizhau was.”
Wyrga cackled, like the laughter of her hyenas. “Can you blame me? The abused dog snaps at her keepers. You know what it’s like to rebel against your jailer, don’t you? Are you so fond of Xaltorath?”
I winced and looked away. Wyrga knew far too much about me. Maybe what she’d said about being “dedicated” had some truth to it. If so, I had even more reason to curse Veixizhau. She had laid my secrets bare to a monster.
Wyrga grinned once more. “Where was your mother when you needed her?”
“Shut up.”
“That’s why you deny her, why you deny her gifts. She had nothing to give you when you needed her protection, and so now you would deny her the satisfaction of knowing any talent of yours stems from her.”
A shuddering exhale escaped me. The fact Wyrga might be right galled me. My father hadn’t known I existed, but my mother had no such excuses. Worse, in my mother’s eyes, I had been created as nothing more than a tool, not born from love or lust or even accident but purely to fulfill some idiotic prophecy.
Tools can be traded. Tools can be discarded. Tools can be broken.
“I had a daughter once,” Wyrga said. “She felt very much the same about me, but in trying to rebel against me, she became me.7 Isn’t that funny?”
“You’re acting sane today. Please tell me what the duke did to you isn’t responsible for this pleasant change.”
She winked at me. “Don’t worry, dearie. It won’t last.”
I didn’t find that reassuring.
She spider-walked her fingers over the crystal wall. Black lines branched out to cover the glass. Writing, but nothing I knew how to read.
“What does it take,” I said, “to become a god?”
“Oh, it’s not so hard.” The spidery glyphs branched out, flowed into passages. The fact I couldn’t understand them didn’t stop me from feeling like I should. “At least, it wouldn’t be hard for you.”
“I don’t want to be a god,” I said.
“Everyone wants to be a god,” she retorted, her voice hot. “The reason my ‘master’ hasn’t asked is because he doesn’t realize I know how. He didn’t gaesh me. His grandfather didn’t even gaesh me. You know who did? Cherthog.”
I looked over at her, eyes wide. “What?”
Her chuckle turned nasty. “He’d been one of my students. Never liked him. It was just after Vol Karoth killed the rest of the Eight. After I made my breakthrough, Cherthog turned up on my doorstep with this little blue rock, about this big.” She held thumb and forefinger apart to demonstrate. “The Stone of Shackles. And that was that.” She held up the bear cub with her other arm. “Isn’t that right? Who’s been a bad boy? Was it you? Yes, it was you!”
She saw me staring at the cub, must have seen the question in my eyes. “You know you can’t be too specific with a gaesh command or you’ll kill the person, and if you’re too vague, you leave loopholes. Cherthog wanted to be hidden from the Quuros. And Suless did that for him, didn’t she?” The old crone waved a hand. “To Hell with them all. None of them appreciate me.8 Kaen’s no better than Cherthog. He’d make himself a god if he thought he could.”
“Kaen hates the gods. He thinks it’s his destiny to find Urthaenriel and kill the Eight Immortals with it, remember?”
She continued weaving her words across the wall’s clear surface. “Because he thinks they aren’t doing their job. Which is a fine way of saying he’d do a better job. When people pull down their idols, they never hesitate to put themselves on those same pedestals.”
I started to feel dizzy, looking at the unfurling words … “What—what are you doing?”
No cackle this time, but a deep, throaty chuckle, still animal, still hyena-like. She smiled at me like I was a cherished niece. Her remaining brown cat’s eye flashed pale ice blue. “Kaen told me to help you, my dear. It was a little vague … There was a prophecy about four fathers, you know. You might have heard it. Maybe you haven’t. But there’s another one about four mothers. A bit of trap, that. Because they don’t mean a mother for each of you cute little Hellwarriors, no. Four mothers just for you.” She patted her bosom. “I’m the fourth.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I said. My protest wasn’t as strong as I would have liked.
“Ah, don’t worry, little lion. I am going to help you. I’m going to give you so much help you won’t be able to stand it.”
The script on the windows rearranged itself, transformed, and suddenly I could read it.
But it wasn’t Guarem.9 The words hadn’t changed, only my own perception.
Also, I don’t remember what I read. I know I read … something.
Then the world went black, and this time—
This time I didn’t wake up in the Afterlife at all.
The world looked white, and the sky looked bright blue. Not the sky’s normal teal color but Kazivar pottery glaze or House D’Mon blue.
I stood at the crystal pyramid’s summit in the mountains, which glowed so brightly from reflected sunlight I couldn’t look down without blinding myself. Skulls edged the top of the truncated pyramid, their eyes glowing with ghostly blue light. The air smelled of glacial ice and pine and, faintly, fresh blood and desiccated flesh.
I turned around and saw Suless.
She was still an old woman; I knew she could’ve been young if she’d wanted. I knew too that we existed in a place of her own invention, and she could’ve taken on any appearance. Her hair was white fur and her skin made the snow seem dark. She dressed in a style unfamiliar to me, archaic and alien. Yet she still looked like an old woman, wrinkled and sagging, her eyes the same ice blue as the white hyenas who sat at her feet. The hyenas paid no attention to me, more interested in gnawing on skulls.
“This world is controlled by power and will,” she said in a voice both majestic and deep. The hyenas perked up and looked at me for the first time, then went back to gazing at their queen.
“Wyrga—” I stopped myself. “Suless. Whatever you’re doing—”
“Child.” She rose from her crystal-and-diamond throne. As she did, I realized the throne sat off center. There had been a second throne up on this plateau once, now broken or removed—Cherthog’s, I assumed. “You’re on a quest, and it is a quest you cannot complete without help. If you will be so stubborn as to refuse the aid of your other mothers, then I’ll force my help upon you.”
I breathed deeply, ignored the way the cold air lanced through my lungs like knives. “I’m tired of being a piece in other people’s games.”
She walked over to me. Unnervingly, I stood taller than she did. Her pale blue cat eyes met mine. “So am I. But I watch and wait, and I act a bit touched in the head.” She smiled. “It’s not always an act, I admit. But they underestimate me. Oh, they’ve always underestimated us, have they not? We have behaved for so long. Played the good servants, the obedient slaves. It wins us no prizes, but they do think we’re beaten. Sooner or later, they let down their guard.” She reached out and grasped my hand. “Let’s see what we can do about that, shall we? Not long now, before all slaves are freed.”
“The prophecies?”
“Oh yes. Let’s be ready, for we’ll have little warning when the time comes.” And before I could dodge or pull my hand from her grasp, she grabbed my arm, drew me to her, and set her thumb against the center of my forehead.
My vision shifted, and I saw the universe differently. Suless didn’t stop there, though. I felt her slip into my mind, silken and cold and so very painful as she began to change contents. Rearrange thoughts.10
Moving down old roads, long forgotten …
I’m standing just off from the main stage, waiting to go on, my nerves so taut I feel like they’re about to start making their own noise.
I look across the room and see A’val, and I smile at her even as I curse that she’s talked me into doing this. I never intended to go into politics … yet here I am.
“C’indrol, it’s time.”11 She motions to me, and then I’m walking in front of the Assembly to give my first speech …
I remember when the demons first come, and I remember screaming when they kill my sister and then wear her body like a skin while they chase down my family. I remember the pain and the terror. I escape, but I never forgive myself for living, when they didn’t …
An impossibly bright light flashes through my apartment windows. I run to the door leading upstairs to our rooftop garden. I manage to step through the door when the blast wave’s edge hits. Then I remember nothing …
I ride on the back of a wagon while we travel down an old dirt road through an impossibly dry, hot desert. I shift my veil around my neck to catch the sweat while I practice chords on my father’s harp. One day, I hope to buy my own harp …
I’m crying as Valathea takes me into her arms, and the vané woman’s lips are soft. I still know this is goodbye. Worse than goodbye, because there’s nothing I can do to convince Valathea to stay. To stay living. To make the pain of existing bearable for just a bit longer. She puts her hand on my swollen belly and whispers, “Promise me you’ll teach him to play,” just before she begins the ritual that might as well be suicide.
I set down the harp once called Valathea on the edge of ruined streets, not liking the way these ruins feel familiar, the way I feel like I’ve been here before. Worse, I know I’m being followed. I’ve felt eyes on me for days now. I don’t think it will be long before the morgage make themselves known. But I’ve come here for a reason, and that reason is to negotiate for the lives of my people. I refuse to believe the only path to victory lives on a sword’s edge.
There must be another way.
Up ahead I see a large palace, the least ruined structure in the whole dead damn city. Surely if the morgage leaders are anywhere, they will be there. I lift the harp again, muttering that Valathea might have at least waited until we’d left before cursing herself, and head in that direction …
Then I remember darkness and hunger and a great, unending void. I remember a voice, screaming. I remember pain, not my own, but felt as keenly.
I blinked my eyes, waking. I was still on the mountain, still in Suless’s dream world. The goddess of witchcraft and betrayal still held me.
“What was—”
“Did you think you’d forgotten the lives you’ve lived before? That such knowledge is lost? What interesting lives you have led, my dear. I can see why Tya picked you.”
I backed away from her. “I don’t…” I shuddered. “I saw fleeting images. They didn’t mean anything.”
“Just as well.” She wiped her hands against each other. “We’re done here for now, anyway.”
“What did you do to me?”
“Left road marks.” Her smile seemed every bit as feral as I remembered from the normal world. “A foundation for you to build upon. It’s much easier when you’re a baby, but it can work to some extent on anyone who hasn’t finished their neural development. You, for example. And you didn’t need much help—either Tya or Xaltorath must have beaten me to the most important changes.”
I pulled myself upright. My head hurt; I wanted to throw up. “I don’t believe I’ll thank you.”
Suless grinned and the hyenas next to her did as well, tongues lolling.
“No, I wouldn’t expect you to thank me at all. I’m not doing this to help you, but you already know that. I just want to see the look on Kaen’s face when you kill his dragon and grab hold of every prize he thinks should be his. When you—oh yes—betray him. Oh, what joy.”
“Fine. That part I’ll be happy to oblige.”
She waved her arms, and I woke back in my room.