34: THE CONSEQUENCES OF REBELLION

Xivan’s reaction The Lighthouse at Shadrag Gor

Just after Xivan’s vision

Xivan barely had a chance to focus on Talea’s eyes when the world changed again, chasing down the first vision without warning.

Talon’s prison Inside Vol Korath’s prison

She swam.

The structures of the Capital crept past as Talon fled; coral-crusted and swathed in sargassum, rough arcs led into the caves and grottos of the Royal Houses, each teeming with small fish in their house colors. The Upper Circle was crowded, awaiting the upcoming tournament that would decide the next emperor, and people from all across the empire were in attendance. Everyone, from lowly mollusks to high-swimming whales, thronged around the barrier of the Arena, making it hard for Talon to push through the crowd.

The baby in her arms stirred, several tentacles lashing fitfully. He was hungry, but she had no time to stop and feed him. She rolled one of her eyes back to look behind her, and sure enough, there were her pursuers. She pushed harder against the bodies blocking her way, elbowing a hammerhead shark right between the eyes as she shoved past him.

The child wasn’t hers. It belonged to a sister, a clutch-mate. The mother, however, was dead, slain in the horrible war with the surface dwellers.

Rounding a corner, she found a pocket of empty water and picked up speed with a thrash of her tail. But the freedom was an illusion, for the hollow had no other exits; a recent rockfall had collapsed the tunnel she could have used to escape. That fall hadn’t been there the last time she swam this part of the Capitol.

It was new.

She turned, ready to press back into the teeming hordes, but the way was blocked.

Darzin D’Mon stood there in his red-and-gold armor, flanked by soldiers. Behind him, his father, Therin, strode up the street, unhurriedly.

“Great Lord,” Talon begged, her skin flashing with heat and color as she spoke silently to him. “Please. It is just a hatchling! Help us. Please!”

Darzin cocked his head. No, wait, it wasn’t Darzin; it was Kihrin. He looked at her, then at the child cradled in her tentacles, clasped to her thorax. Behind him, Therin came to a halt and put his hand upon his son’s shoulder.

“Kill them,” he ordered.

“But—” Kihrin said.

“They are the enemy, Captain,” Therin said. “Are you disobeying an order?”

Kihrin shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. He turned to Talon and the baby kraken in her arms. “Kill them,” he ordered his soldiers.

They raised their weapons and unleashed bolts of pure energy that tore into her flesh, severing tentacles and burning out her eyes. The last thing she saw was the child she held, screaming in orange flashes across his skin.

The water around her boiled as they killed her and the child.

---

She swam.

Senera’s reaction The Lighthouse at Shadrag Gor
Just after Xivan’s vision

Senera startled as the vision ended. She turned around. “Talon?”

Talon had already slid to the floor.

“Fuck,” Senera cursed.

“Is she…?” Qown’s eyes were very wide.

“Dead? No, I imagine she’s like the others.” Senera stood, shaking her head. What had triggered that? She drew a blank. Xivan’s deal with Var? No, it couldn’t have been. But what else…?

The Royal Houses. That was the only trigger Senera could identify. But how the hell had Talon been so fond of the Royal Houses that the idea of Tyentso wiping out their leaders proved enough to throw her into Vol Karoth’s grip?¹

“Senera!” Sheloran shouted, quite unnecessarily since she was still in the same room. “Is it true? About the Royal Houses?”

Ah yes. The other person who might react strongly to the idea the Royal House high lords had been executed.

Senera sighed.

Sheloran didn’t wait for her to answer. “That man said Tyentso executed all the high lords. Did that happen? I need to know!”

Senera managed, barely, not to roll her eyes. She had that much self-control. Whatever Senera thought of Quur’s Royal Houses, she understood that this was the young woman’s family.

“I’ll check once we’re finished dealing with Talon,” Senera said firmly.

“But—” Sheloran started to protest.

“I’m sure your parents are fine,” Talea said. “Even Tyentso would have a hard time killing a god-queen without—” Talea paused. “Oh right. I guess she does have Godslayer, doesn’t she?”

“Not helping, Talea,” Xivan murmured.

“But Tyentso wouldn’t know that, would she? There’s no reason she’d use Godslayer if she didn’t think she was facing a god-queen.” Sheloran’s voice was defensive, brittle; Talea wasn’t the person Sheloran was trying to convince.

Kalindra barked out a laugh, an ugly, mocking sound. When Sheloran turned to her, narrow-eyed, the former Black Brotherhood assassin was still chuckling. “Tyentso is also an angel of Thaena,” Kalindra pointed out. “So I wouldn’t bet on Tyentso’s ignorance.”

“Also not helping,” Xivan muttered.

Senera sighed and rubbed her temples. She felt so old.

Kalindra shook her head. “She’s your mother and you love her. And from what I can see, she seems to have done a decent job of raising you, which is kind of a miracle, considering. But you said it yourself: she’s had centuries to do some good and what has she accomplished? Nothing. If Tyentso did take her down? Don’t expect me to mourn.”

“I don’t.” But Sheloran’s lower lip trembled, even as her eyes were hot knives.

Kalindra leaned forward. “Half the women who entered this damn Lighthouse are former slaves. If she died—”

“They both lived,” Senera interrupted. “I don’t need to use the stone. I asked about your parents yesterday, for other reasons. Your parents were alive the day that the Lash attacked Devors. So they survived.” Indeed, it seemed that both of Sheloran’s parents had been involved in setting up the massacre, but Senera didn’t feel like having that conversation just then.²

Nobody could say Caless wasn’t very, very good at knowing which way the wind would blow and aligning all her sails in the proper direction in advance of the change in weather. A survival skill no doubt learned from her mother.

Sheloran slumped in relief.

“What a shame,” Kalindra said.

Sheloran turned to the woman with blazing eyes. “How dare you.”

“She’s the God-Queen of Whores,” Kalindra replied coldly. “Don’t expect me to be happy for her survival.”

“Oh, just shut up,” Senera said.

“I don’t take orders from you,” Kalindra snapped.

“But Veils help you, you will take them from me,” Xivan growled. Her voice was quiet, but razor-sharp. “You’ve done enough damage. Stop.”

Senera fought down her own desire to lose her temper. “Also, you’re wrong.”

She probably should have kept silent, Senera realized. Xivan and Kalindra had been locked in some sort of stare-duel for dominance, and Xivan had been winning. Kalindra might have behaved.

But Senera had just distracted her. Kalindra’s upper lip twitched but never quite managed to graduate to a full sneer. “How so, Mistress Know Everything?”

Senera ignored the jab. She only wished she knew everything. “She’s not the God-Queen of Whores. She’s the God-Queen of Love,” Senera said, forcing herself to sound utterly bored about the whole subject. “But a god-king isn’t the same as an Immortal. A god-king’s portfolio can shift with popular opinion, as the reasons for offerings change. At some point, people stopped worshipping Caless to find true love or stop a roving eye or—whatever—and started giving her offerings with more prurient motives. She couldn’t say no.”

“She could,” Kalindra protested.

“No, she couldn’t,” Senera said. “That’s not how it works. She had no choice at all if she wanted to survive. She became the God-Queen of Lust and Whores and Sex.” Senera looked down her nose at Kalindra. “Given the things you’ve done for survival, you have no right to judge her.”

“She has all that power,” Kalindra pressed, “and she’s done what with it?”

Senera shrugged. “If you think she’s the only god-king in the Upper Circle, you’re sorely mistaken. Even Relos Var only ventures into that cesspool of snapping crocodiles when absolutely necessary. I guarantee you that Tyentso didn’t kill all the high lords, and the poor little lamb is about to find out Quuros politics is more … complicated … than she realized.” Senera sniffed. “Someone really should have let her know, but I suppose they’ve all been distracted.”

Talea frowned. “Didn’t you grow up in the Upper Circle, Senera?”

“And it made her everything she is,” Kalindra said, ignoring Senera’s glare.

Senera couldn’t bring herself to deny it, however.

Xivan, meanwhile, crossed over to the young princess. “Sheloran, look at me.”

Sheloran did, with eyes still full of tears.

“Okay,” Xivan said. “Here are some things you need to understand about being a mother. First, it can change your priorities. What is best for your children becomes very important. Now I don’t know if your mother has ever had any other children besides you, but you’re right—” She ignored Sheloran’s surprised blink. “Caless has had millennia, and Quur is still the way it is. But perhaps—just perhaps—you’re the reason she’s decided that she wants Quur to change. Because even if she never had a problem with the way women were treated before you were born, now she’s being forced to watch you grow up in that same world. Clearly, she’s willing to do a lot to protect you.” She pointed at herself for emphasis.

Qown handed Sheloran a handkerchief, which she used to wipe her eyes. “Thank you,” she told him, then turned back to Xivan. “I want to believe that,” Sheloran said, “I really do. But she lied to me.”

“Parents do that too,” Xivan admitted. “We want our children to be a reflection of what we wish we were, not what we really are, so we lie about our weaknesses and our sins in the hopes that they’ll emulate our example. We don’t want our children making the mistakes that we made, and sometimes that means pretending we’ve never made any.” Xivan swallowed and added, “I’m not saying it’s a particularly good system. It’s just an easy trap to fall into. Also, Kalindra’s being a bitch. Don’t let her get to you.”

“Oh, I don’t blame her,” Sheloran said. “She’s scared.”

“I’m right here, and also: fuck you,” Kalindra snapped. “If you’re not scared, you’re not paying attention.”

“But we’re not lashing out.” Talea tilted her head and examined Kalindra. “And you are. Please stop. We’re not your enemy.”

“Then who is?” Kalindra was near to shouting. “I thought I knew! Demons? Apparently, the man I love and my sister-in-law are both demons. Relos Var? We’re being awfully chatty with two of his henchmen, aren’t we?” She angrily gestured at Senera and Qown. “And Thaena—” She choked and turned away, standing so stiffly there was little doubt in Senera’s mind that Kalindra was doing everything in her power not to break down crying.

Senera despised the fact that she knew exactly why. Senera knew it the way she knew the color of the sky. More than Kalindra losing her husband or the risks to her child, although those things were almost certainly important, Kalindra’s real problem was so simple: she was a devotee who’d been stripped of her god.

It was almost a shame she was being so belligerent to Sheloran. They had so much in common.³

Then Xivan did something unexpected. Senera would have thought Talea would have been the one, but no. Xivan walked up to the former angel and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. Nothing more than that.

Kalindra collapsed into her arms, sobbing.

Senera sighed and turned to everyone else. “Let’s give them a moment,” she said. “But after, we need to discuss what we’re going to do about Talon.”

“Talon?” Talea asked, looking confused. “Why do we need to do anything about … Oh.”

“Yes,” Senera agreed. “Oh.”

---

Qown’s solution to every emotional problem that had ever existed was usually the same: food. Senera almost laughed when she realized how he was seemingly able to materialize so much food so quickly: he’d left dish after dish in food storage from his last visit there. Yes, that was probably centuries ago, as the Lighthouse tracked time, but the food pantry there had been enchanted to keep food perfectly unspoiled for millennia.

So even though they’d only eaten breakfast a short time previously, he still presented everyone with small finger foods. Rolls and pastries. Tea. Ironically, he never ate much of what he cooked himself, but then, he never had, had he? Senera found herself wondering if Caless had been right about it being a metabolism issue.

Xivan grabbed a handful of nut-stuffed rice dumplings. “Should I be flattered that a scene of me cutting a deal with Relos Var was enough to send Talon over the edge?” Xivan said.

Senera snorted. “I very much doubt it had anything to do with you and everything to do with the death of Gerisea D’Mon.” She paused. “Although we’re absolutely going to be having a discussion about you vowing to serve Relos Var for the rest of your life.”

Xivan grimaced and looked away only to meet Talea’s judging gaze. She sighed. “Of course we are.”

Sheloran blinked. “Why would Talon care about Gerisea D’Mon?”

“Thank you,” Qown said. “That was confusing me too.”

Senera immediately regretted having said anything at all. Talking was such a bad habit. She much preferred sarcastic footnotes. “Do you have any idea what Talon’s background is?”

Sheloran cocked her head. “Uh … why no.”

“Before she became a mimic—” Senera waved a hand. “There’s a whole story. I’m not getting into it right now. Before she ended up as a mimic, she was a slave in the D’Mon household. She would have been the same age as Gerisea. It would be foolish to assume they had no contact, especially given that Lyrilyn had been something of a”—her nose wrinkled in distaste—“procurer for the high lord at the time, Pedron.”

“Oh.” Sheloran looked ill. “I’ve heard about him. Not … good … things.”

“So perhaps Lyrilyn and Gerisea were once close. Maybe it wasn’t Gerisea at all but some other high lord. Who knows?”

“Often it can take a while for the full impact of a trauma to make itself known,” Sheloran volunteered quietly.

“Unfortunately for us,” Senera said. “But now we have a problem. Because we only have two telepaths,” Senera said, “and now both of them are trapped out there in Vol Karoth’s mental prison. Which means I need to find a way to wake Thurvishar up.”

Kihrin’s story
Inside Vol Korath’s prison
Just after Talon’s vision

“Okay,” said Teraeth as we walked down a side street on the outskirts of the city, “I get that Talon loves herself some tentacles, but since when is she a Daughter of Laaka? I’m pretty sure I know where little baby mimics come from, and that’s not it.”

“That felt different from the other visions,” Thurvishar said. “It felt more like…”

“Like his,” I said, pointing at Teraeth.

“Yes,” said Janel.

“So what? Talon’s been taken like Teraeth was?” I asked.

Thurvishar scowled and stopped walking. “That is a problem.”

I motioned for everyone to join me on a stairway that led down into some kind of basement space. It wasn’t cover, but at least we wouldn’t be immediately visible from the street. “Why?” I asked. “She’s not exactly in the top ten of my most-well-loved entities.”

“Because she’s the one projecting the ‘rebuttal’ visions,” Thurvishar said. “Since I’ve been here, she’s been handling it. If Vol Karoth’s kidnapped her, it means that the ‘good’ visions must be having some sort of effect, possibly tied to that.” He waved an arm at the gray, colorless street. “Which means we can’t stop.”

“I see what you mean,” Janel said. “A problem.”

“Not really,” I said. “I’ll just start doing them again.”

Thurvishar immediately shook his head. “You’re the only one who shares Vol Karoth’s memories. It would be better if you concentrated on using that knowledge, so we can track down Talon and anyone else he tries to grab in the future, and find out how to use the gray places against him. That technique is showing promise. He hasn’t been as active. It’s possible that we’ve weakened him.”

I studied Thurvishar. “Is that the only reason?”

“Isn’t that enough?” Thurvishar had his defensive hackles up right away.

Teraeth and Janel glanced at each other.

“Thurvishar—” I said.

“I’m worried about Senera,” he admitted. “It’s probably nothing. I just want to be there.”

“You think Vol Karoth going to target her next?” Janel asked.

Thurvishar tilted his head. “I think it’s odd he hasn’t already. I understand why he hasn’t gone after Xivan or Kalindra—he can’t exploit their memories for more visions unless they’re in the Lighthouse. Senera though? He should have targeted her by now.”

“Why?” Janel asked. “Senera seems like she had a better handle on this than almost anyone.”

Thurvishar gave her a skeptical look. “Things aren’t always what they seem.”

I leaned back against the railing of the stairs and chewed on my lip. I didn’t want to argue with him. As far as I could tell, Senera seemed fine—or as fine as anyone could be who’d just given up her life’s work and switched sides—but my ability to go reading through her “book” didn’t automatically translate into a deep understanding of her mental state. So maybe Thurvishar had a point.⁴

“I guess then … see what you can do to help,” I said.

Thurvishar nodded. In a blink, he vanished.

“Meanwhile, what should we do?” Janel asked. “I’d say we hit a nerve with the city beautification project, but that might not be a nerve we want to hit again, given how Vol Karoth reacted last time.”

“What’s that?” Teraeth asked.

“Oh, you remember.” She nudged him gently in the ribs with her elbow. “Big ball of fire in the sky, obliterated everything, we only just found each other again…”

“No,” Teraeth said, pointing up the street, “what’s that?”

We turned to look. “That” appeared to be a handful of white lions walking down the street toward us in a staggered V formation. In the silence as we took in this spectacle, hard click-thumps echoed as if two pieces of stone were being clapped together repeatedly.

Then I realized that was exactly what was happening; the lions were made of stone.

“Yeah, uh … run?” I suggested.

For once, no one argued with me. We ran.

Several blocks later, Teraeth pulled Janel who pulled me into a large house-looking structure. We scampered inside, then up the stairs. Crouching by the window, tilting our heads to peer out without exposing more than a sliver of our heads from below, we held hands and watched.

The troop of stone lions rounded the corner, but they continued down the street without spotting us. We all breathed sighs of relief.

“So that’s new,” Teraeth said. “You know, Vol Karoth’s really starting to annoy me with his ‘I can change the rules whenever I feel like it’ bullshit.”

“How did you know they wouldn’t follow us in here?” I asked.

“They’re made of stone,” he replied. “I can’t imagine they can smell very well.”

“I’m sure they smell just fine,” Janel said, “assuming you polish them regularly.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes.

“Really,” Teraeth said, “you should have seen that coming.”