23: ALONE WITH THE HATE
Xivan’s memory The Upper Circle
Two days after arriving in the Capital
Xivan woke with a blinding headache, an indescribable feeling of loss, and the sure, certain knowledge that she had irrevocably and completely messed up. She was lying on grass, and as she raised her head up, she realized she had been dumped in something that looked like a park. Xivan looked again and realized it was Arena Park. The grass was wet with early morning dew. Since it had been midmorning when they’d left to go visit House D’Talus, Xivan assumed they’d been unconscious for at least a day. Nothing about their clothing had changed. Nothing at all had changed except for the one small detail that changed everything.
Talea lay on the ground next to her as well, crying.
Xivan reached out to touch the woman. “Are you hurt?”
“Don’t touch me,” Talea said and rolled away. “You—she—” Talea closed her mouth and took several deep breaths. She patted herself down and barked out a short, painful laugh. “My lucky coin’s gone. It must have fallen out of my pocket.” She stood up and started carefully going back over her clothing. She let out the most despairing sound when she found nothing.
Then she began walking away.
It took Xivan a moment to realize that Talea was leaving. “Talea!” she called out.
The young woman turned around. Her eyes were hard. “Yes, master?”
Xivan flinched. “I’m not … I’m not your master.”
“You’re not? Funny, because I seem to recall a conversation just recently where you tried to sell me.”
“Not you.” Xivan stood up and ignored the wet, damp feeling of her kef. “I didn’t mean you.”
Talea put a hand to her heart. “I’m one of the Spurned. How could you not have meant me? And even if that were true, really? You were going to sell Bikeinoh? Nezessa? You’ve known them and trained them for years. And you were going to sell them to a Royal House? Do you have any idea what a Royal House will do with fifty battle witches?”
Xivan sighed. She’d known it would come to this. She’d known and she’d just been forced to watch that boulder roll downhill, gaining speed with every bump. “What was I supposed to do? She was right. I don’t have enough metal.”
“No one has enough metal!” Talea screamed. “And she wasn’t wrong, Xivan! You don’t have Urthaenriel anymore. You don’t know how to use…” She hissed as if in pain. “You don’t know how to use that damn necklace. And if you had it, Suless would laugh, and Suless would find a way to take it from you, and you still wouldn’t win! Janel has a chance! Kihrin has a chance! You don’t. And as long as you insist on doing this alone without them, you never will.”
“I won’t apologize, Talea,” Xivan said.
“I know you won’t. And you kept your word; you didn’t touch me like that again. Yet you still found a way to rip out my heart. And it’s too much. I thought I fell in love with a woman of honor and conviction, a great woman who was going to do great things because it was her nature, as natural as the sun coming up in the morning. But I was wrong. You’re just like Azhen. You’re so focused on this one meaningless thing, you’re going to let everything else burn to get it.” She shook her head. “I can’t bear to watch.”
Xivan didn’t say a word. She just let Talea go.
Really, it was better this way.
After Talea was gone, Xivan brushed herself off and went to a nearby tavern to think things over. She had been needlessly rushing ahead, and look where it had gotten her. She needed information, and she needed it fast. Unfortunately, she suspected Senera was done with helping, and it’s not like she could force the wizard to do so.
She needed to know the extent of the command chain she’d been given. She quickly discovered that the gaesh responded, if nonlethally, to even thinking about forbidden actions. She had a hard time even contemplating telling anyone that she had been gaeshed by Caless, for instance, or that Caless had been pretending to be a royal for gods knew how long.
Xivan wondered if the high lord knew, or if he just considered himself lucky that his wife was so young-looking and beautiful, even after all these years. Probably thought it was because of cosmetic magics, probably bought from—ha!—the church of Caless. At some point, Lady D’Talus would have to have an “accident” or retire to the countryside where she could die peacefully in her sleep, yes?
She was forbidden to talk about the gaesh, forbidden to reveal what she knew about Lady D’Talus or the Stone of Shackles. She was also forbidden from trying to steal the Stone of Shackles.
But Xivan had something she wanted more than the Stone of Shackles now. She wanted her gaesh. Her gaesh, and Talea’s gaesh, and she wanted Caless to pay. She wanted Caless to bleed. If she couldn’t attack Caless directly, she could still find a way to accomplish her goals. If she’d learned anything from Suless, it was that.
So she walked around the Ivory District until she found the Temple of Galava, where they kept the birth records.
The Temple of Galava was empty. It’s not that people didn’t care. Candles and flowers had been left on the altars and prayer mats. Even while Xivan stood there, a young man who looked like he probably worked as some sort of groom came in, lit a candle, and burst into tears. The sound of muffled crying echoed through the large building.
Xivan fought off a sense of bittersweet irony just being there. She was, after all, not a creature of Galava’s. Just the opposite, or at least, she would have been just the opposite if Thaena had been willing to claim her, if Thaena hadn’t decreed her kind and any like her anathema. So she was trapped, belonging to neither goddess.
Fortunately for her sense of self, both goddesses were now dead.
She searched the church grounds until she noticed a man in Galava’s green robes duck into a back room, and followed him. He had evidently gone to a rectory for the priests of the order, although many of the doors had been thrown open, clothes and vestments strewn, beds now empty. They must have felt it when she died. They must have known at the precise moment it had happened, that Galava would be answering no more prayers ever again.
“This is a private area.”
She turned around to see a priest, although the agolé he wore was stained as if a great deal of wine had been spilled down the front. He looked very tired and quite possibly very hungover as well.
“That’s all right,” she said. “You can help me. Do you know if the royal families keep their birth records here?”
The priest seemed taken aback. “Well, yes, but I don’t see—”
She pulled a pouch of gems from her belt—a child’s set of shiny rocks compared to what House D’Talus could levy, but still more than a priest ever saw in his lifetime. She tossed the bag to him. “I want to see your records.”
That seemed to sober him. He visibly straightened. “Oh no. I’m sorry. Those are private.”
Xivan sighed. Why did everyone want to do things the hard way? She walked up to him, quickly, before he could run, grabbed him by the back of his robes, and threw him into one of the cloister rooms, shutting the door behind her. It was thankfully empty, containing only a cot, a small box for personal effects, and very little else. The priest scrabbled as he hit the edge of the cot and fell to the floor.
“It wasn’t a request,” Xivan said. “Now I’m offering you money, and considering your goddess is dead and soon everyone will know it, I don’t see how any of you lot are going to be on the receiving end of donations for a long time. You can take the money and give me what I want, or we can get to know each other better.” She pulled the knife from her belt, thinking as she did that it had actually been rather polite of the high lady to leave them with their weapons. She pretended to examine the edge. At times like this, it was best to stick to the classics. “Let’s start with your fingers. You don’t really need your fingers to pray, do you?”
He began to scream, so Xivan stuffed his agolé into his mouth. She settled back on her heels next to him. “I hope you realize the position you’re putting me in here. If I have to gag you, how will I know that you’re ready to cooperate? I might well go through all your fingers before you can make me understand. That doesn’t seem like a good strategy to me. What do you think?”
Wide-eyed, the priest shook his head.
“Okay, better,” Xivan said. “Now if I pull this agolé out of your mouth, will you scream?”
He shook his head again. When she removed the gag, he added, “Please don’t do this.”
“You know what I want,” Xivan said. “I’m not unaware of the situation you’re in. And Galava isn’t around anymore, so who will heal your injuries, regrow your fingers? House D’Mon? Maybe, but you’d need a lot of metal—” She jingled the bag. “Doesn’t it make more sense to just help me from the start, keep the metal and your fingers?”
The priest nodded.
“Good,” Xivan said. “Now I’m going to help you up, and you’re going to remember that I have this knife and I’m not at all afraid to use it, and we’re going to walk over to where they keep the records. Deal?”
He swallowed and nodded. “Deal.”
“Good man.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. Xivan was pleased with how quickly he’d folded, because truthfully, she hadn’t really wanted to start severing fingers. She would have done it, but it always made a mess.
Together, they walked over to another hallway, another, slightly more administerial grouping of rooms, and eventually to a relatively small room filled with glyphs and magical sigils, but no paper, no boxes.
“Wh-what are y-you looking for?” the priest managed.
“This is the record room?” She was skeptical.
He nodded vigorously. “It is. The actual records are kept in a vault, but this is an access point. There’s another access point in the Soaring Halls.” He pulled a scroll from under a desk. “Who are you looking for?”
“I want all births in House D’Talus for the last fifty years,” she said.
All the color fled the man’s face, and it occurred to Xivan that he must think he’d signed his own execution order, since if Xivan didn’t kill him, House D’Talus would. Which … honestly was a possibility. Assuming they ever found out.
“Don’t start having second thoughts now,” Xivan warned him. “I’m giving you enough money to leave the Capital and settle down in a nice quiet town in a beautiful house and never worry another day in your life. The only way you’ll mess that up is by being scared or being greedy.”
The priest looked at her sideways and finally nodded. “Yes. I see.” He stepped forward and removed a large scroll from underneath the main table. It didn’t seem like it could possibly be large enough to hold the records of every birth, and she didn’t see any other scrolls. However, Xivan just took it as granted that magic was involved.
He unfolded the scroll, wrote something down, unfolded the scroll again, wrote something down again, and finally unrolled it one last time. Then he said, “Here they are. Thirty-seven births during that time period. Would you like to see?” He pointed down to the scroll, so she could see the list of names, dates, and parents.
Xivan studied it. She couldn’t directly ask for what she wanted, but she didn’t have to. “That one,” she said, pointing to a specific name. It was the only one listed as the offspring of Lessoral D’Talus and Varik D’Talus.1 Interestingly enough, she’d seen a birth listing for Varik D’Talus. She hadn’t seen one for Lessoral. Xivan wondered if the woman was even claiming to be a member of House D’Talus or had just married into it.
It didn’t matter. What did matter was she had a single daughter, in her late teens, named Sheloran. And Sheloran would not be a god-queen. Sheloran would be vulnerable.
Let’s just see how Caless liked how it felt to lose someone she cared about.
Xivan’s reaction The Lighthouse at Shadrag Gor
Galen surged forward, hand on his sword. “You bitch!”
Xivan had her sword drawn an instant later. The sound of metal rang out as Talea followed suit. Qown dropped his bowl again and seemed about to bodily interpose himself. Xivan scowled and tried to push the damn priest out of the way. She wasn’t really worried about Galen—he was a decent swordsman as far as she could tell, but not at all a match for her. Even if he scored a hit, Xivan would likely be able to just ignore it. Sheloran and her magic were a different story.
Qown and his magic were very much a different story.
And Xivan had to just hope that Senera stayed the hell out of it.
Everyone began shouting at once, Xivan included.
“Just put down your damn weapon!”
“I don’t want to fight you!”
“You lay a single finger on Sheloran—!”
“Even if Lady D’Talus is Caless, that doesn’t mean we need—”
“Please! Let’s not fight about this!”
“You hypocrite! How are you any different from Suless?”
Okay, that last one hurt. Before she could say or do anything, however, a rather large tentacle holding a fish—a wet fish!—slapped Xivan across the cheek. And everyone else across the face as well, all simultaneously. Everyone’s breath frosted in the air.
Everyone paused, stunned.
Talon retracted her arms. “Would the children stop playing for a moment? Mommy’s trying to have a conversation.” She turned to Talea. “Could you repeat that last bit? I don’t think everyone heard.”
Talea, looking extremely flushed and flustered, crossed her arms over her chest. “I said, I don’t really care if Lady D’Talus is secretly the god-queen Caless. I’m fine—” The corners of her lips turned down in a small, adorable frown. “Huh. Should I be able to talk about this?”
Senera cocked her head. “I admit I had assumed Caless would have gaeshed you to keep that a secret.”
“She did,” Xivan growled, incredulous at what she was hearing. “She very much did. Talea, how … how are you doing this?”
“Talea hasn’t secretly been replaced by a mimic,” Talon volunteered. “I know ’cause I’m the only mimic in this Lighthouse, and I’m still right here.” She paused, though. “You’re not Jarith, are you?”
“No!” Talea said.
“Had to check.”
“Okay, what the fuck?” Kalindra said. “You can’t just ‘break’ a gaesh.”
“And yet…” Galen said. “Talea seems to have done something pretty interesting.”
“You mean impossible,” Kalindra corrected.
“Doesn’t impossible qualify as interesting?” Sheloran asked.
“How does one cure a gaesh?” Qown asked Senera.
“You mean besides destroying the Stone of Shackles?” Senera shook her head. “Remove the soul fragment from the container housing it—usually by destroying said container—kill the person who’s gaeshed, let the damage heal in the Afterlife, hope no demon grabs them while that’s happening, and then Return them. It’s not a particularly clean solution, but it can work. Not easily, and until recently, the Goddess of Death would probably try to stop you, but the theory exists.” She pulled her Cornerstone out of her shirt and sat down at the table. “Keep talking. I’m going to ask a few questions.”
Talea pulled a chair out from the table and sat down, bemused. She started ticking off points on her fingers. “Lady D’Talus is secretly Suless’s daughter, the god-queen Caless, she has the Stone of Shackles, and she gaeshed both of us to keep us from revealing that fact.” She chewed on her lip. “Huh. Yup, not feeling any impulse to die or anything. Doesn’t even hurt.” She looked over at Xivan. “Do you want to try?”
“No. I really don’t, thank you.” But Xivan had the horrifying suspicion she probably could have done so safely. She just didn’t want to do it out here, in front of everyone.
The room fell silent.
“Well, well, well,” Senera muttered, stopping to turn the paper she used.
“Did you find out anything?” Talea asked.
“Possibly. I asked if you were gaeshed, and it said no. I asked if you had been gaeshed, and the answer was yes. I asked why Talea Ferandis was no longer gaeshed, and it answered because your soul has been healed. I asked who healed your soul, and the answer was Taja.”
“Oh.” Talea’s voice was very small. She looked vaguely guilty.
What she didn’t look was surprised.
“Talea…?” Xivan stared at her. “Is there something you’d like to tell us?”
Senera leaned back in her chair, tapped the Cornerstone on the table. “Is the Goddess of Luck not dead?”
“No,” Talea said, swallowing, pain flashing across bright eyes. “Taja’s dead. I saw her die.” Talea gestured back to Xivan. “We both did.”
“Hmm.” Senera stared at the woman for a moment longer. “As it happens, the Name of All Things agrees with you.”
“Then why did you ask?” Talea didn’t seem upset, just a bit exasperated.
Xivan’s focus snapped back to Senera as the woman said, “I asked because people don’t always give the same answers to the same questions, and it doesn’t mean anyone involved is lying. Nuance is a tricky thing. If there’s something we’ve overlooked…”
The answer was so immediately obvious, the words were out of Xivan’s mouth before she’d had a chance to consider what she was saying. “What about your lucky coin? I know you said it wasn’t important—”
“Oh yes,” Senera said, “because my dying last act is certainly going to be to empty my purse of loose change I can hand to strangers.”
Xivan ignored the interruption. “—and you lost it when we woke up after being kicked out of House D’Talus. You thought it must have fallen out of your pocket. What if you didn’t lose it so much as you used it up? Is it possible that the coin healed you?”
“Is it possible that, I don’t know, maybe Taja had a motive other than giving alms?” Senera said.
Talea’s mouth twisted to the side. “I suppose that’s possible. I mean … I don’t really know. But the coin is gone.”
“And you’re not in danger from the coin,” Senera said. “I asked that too.” She scowled. “I hate not knowing the right questions to ask.”
“Oh, you poor thing.” Kalindra’s voice was so dry and dull and heavy that almost everyone in the room turned to look at her. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. She looked like she’d seen her own death.
“Kalindra, are you feeling all right?” Galen knelt next to her.
“I’m fine,” Kalindra said in a voice anything but.
“Kalindra—”
“I’m fine!” she snapped.
She did not look fine to Xivan. She looked like she just needed one, maybe two more pushes and then she’d walk into Vol Karoth’s loving embrace of her own free will, all the while thanking him for oblivion. Xivan’s mouth felt dry, her tongue thick.
She knew what it felt like. It was hard to look at Kalindra and not think of herself with a husband and son, of the hollow feeling of knowing that you could in fact lose everything and yet somehow still exist. Except …
No. This probably wasn’t how she’d felt. This was closer to how Azhen must have felt, wasn’t it? The slow, creeping horror of realizing that the person you loved wasn’t dead—technically—but hating yourself for wondering if death might not have been the kinder option. And what did one say to that, that made the least bit of difference?
I understand. My husband went through this. Of course, it drove him insane. Yours too?
Xivan turned to Talon. “You’ve got to do something.”
Talon blinked at her, wide-eyed and starting to laugh. “Me? And just what do you think I can do…?”
Xivan’s hands closed around Talon’s shoulders, although she knew Talon could easily escape her anytime she felt like it. “You’re a telepath,” Xivan said. “There has to be something. Something in Kalindra’s mind. Something in Jarith’s mind, if you can find him.”
That caught Kalindra’s attention. To Talon, she said, “Can you find Jarith?”
Talon looked uncomfortable, caught out. “It’s not that easy. His mind is … It’s like a tapestry that’s been unraveled. It’s just threads everywhere in a giant messy tangle, and none of it makes any sense, let alone forms a pattern.”
Senera blinked. “You can sense him?”
“Only in the thinnest definition of that term, which means nothing about him makes any sense!” Talon protested. “And this is coming from me.”
“Look for the parts that are locked away,” Senera suggested. “Damaged and tied off. That’s where you’ll find the important memories.”
Talon glared. “You’re not helping!”
Senera raised an eyebrow. “I am helping. Because Xivan’s right. If Vol Karoth is feeding off our emotional states, then Kalindra must be a buffet. This isn’t charity. This is survival. If we can help her, then we should.” With that, she went back to whatever question she was asking that Cornerstone of hers, writing with perfectly neat, exact script.
“You mean I should,” Talon corrected with narrowed eyes.
“As you say.” Senera didn’t look up from her writing.
“Do I get a choice—?” Kalindra started to voice an angry question. She stopped and closed her eyes. “Fine. If you can do it, you should. I’d be grateful.”
What was that look in Talon’s eyes? Sympathy? From Talon?
The mimic closed her eyes and seemed to be concentrating. Everyone just … watched. Unlike other attempts, this wasn’t fast. Whatever she was looking for wasn’t so easy to locate. Talon seemed to be struggling, searching.
“Why do people have to be so complicated?” Talon whined. “But fine, I guess this snarl will have to do.”
The world changed.