I watched Lia until the last glimmer of her pale skin disappeared into the deep shadows. Her crown, glittering in the bits of sunshine that leaked into the shadowed cave, abandoned to perch on a bed of moss, seemed like a bad omen. No sense reading into it, though. I couldn’t go with her, so I’d wait. I unstrapped the rock hammer and set it aside, along with the bagiroca, and settled myself on the ground, back against a boulder. The thick, weirdly bright-green moss covering everything—which I tried not to find too creepy, though it was—made the seat as comfortable as a bed.
“You going to drink the water?” Sondra asked, standing at the edge of the pool and scuffing the toe of her boot through the gravel.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I could see this going either way. Whether I gambled on drinking that water might depend on how bored I got—which was probably not the best reason to elect to examine the dark corners of my psyche. “Are you?”
“Asked you first,” she retorted, then came to sit next to me.
“On the one hand, we have nothing better to do, and it could be a long wait.” I stared at the water. The fall from the spring barely stirred the mirror-still blackness of the surface. It made a pretty tinkling sound, but it seemed Ambrose’s screams still echoed from the deep tunnels. “On the other hand, there’s a lot of shit in my head I’m pretty sure I don’t want to dredge up.”
“Yeah,” she agreed glumly, drawing up her knees and dangling her hands between them. “Look what happened to Ambrose. For a few minutes there I thought it was going to kill him.”
“I think it nearly did.” I’d never expected to see the wizard brought so low. “I think Ambrose is really old,” I said, mulling it over as I spoke. “And it could be he paid a heavy price to be a wizard. He might be paying it still.”
“Do you think that’s why he doesn’t use his magic much?”
I glanced at her, surprised. Sondra still stared intently at the water, like she hoped to catch a glimpse ahead of time of what she might see. “Could be. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Yeah. You know, like maybe he pays a price every time he uses it. Like that old tale of the minstrel who snuck into Sawehl’s golden palace and stole the magic harp. He got to keep it, play it, and write those songs we still sing—but his fingers bled every time, and he wept from the pain.”
“I don’t think I ever heard that story,” I finally said.
She grinned at me. “You were a naughty kid—you never paid attention to any of the songs and stories.”
“I listened to some,” I protested. “I remember hearing you sing,” I added on impulse. Maybe the truth of the place had snuck into me anyway, just by breathing the mist in the air. Though Sondra stiffened, I plunged on. “Your voice impressed even this snot-nosed kid. It was like … magic. And the way you sang those old songs—I could see the stories in my head. I’ve never heard anything like it since.”
She didn’t reply right away, and I hoped I hadn’t pissed her off—or hurt her too much by bringing up old wounds. “Thank you,” she finally said, her voice thick with emotion. “I miss singing. I miss the music, giving voice to it.”
“You could still sing.”
She gave me a baleful stare, blue eyes catching the light. “I croak like a frog.”
“Frogs sing and don’t care if someone thinks it sounds pretty.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “I sure hope you say nicer things than that to your wife.”
“I’m working at it. And you don’t know how you sound singing, because you haven’t tried. Maybe you can relearn. It won’t sound exactly the same, but…” I waved a hand, trying to think of the right words. “You have that musical talent still, right?”
She considered that. “Hard to say. I can’t fall back on training, that’s for sure. Singing was so effortless back then that I never worked at it like my voice tutor wanted me to. I didn’t appreciate what a gift it was. Maybe that’s why Ejarat took it back, you know?” She swiped a fist under her nose, clearing the thickness from her throat.
“I don’t believe that,” I said, surprised at my own certainty. “I don’t think the gods punish us. We do that to each other well enough.”
She snorted a laugh. “Don’t we, though.”
“If not for Anure, you would’ve had time to mature, to appreciate your gift and work at it.” I stared at my own hands, so gnarled and permanently stained black in the creases, and thought of Brenda’s tale, how she never had the chance to repair the foolish decisions of her youth.
“I guess we both turned out different than we would have, for sure.” She eyed the spring. “You know, Conrí. I’ve killed a lot of men.”
I had no trouble following her thoughts. “We both have. Men and women.” If Calanthe planned to parade their faces in front of me, I didn’t want to see that, either.
“I mean that I made them suffer. I wanted to hurt them, and I did. Nothing to say?” she asked when I didn’t reply.
“What am I, your confessor? Find a priest of Sawehl for that.”
“No, you are my king, Conrí,” she replied slowly. “If I appeared before you in the court of Oriel, what sentence would you pass upon me?”
“None. Full pardon. There you go.”
“That won’t work. If Lia’s plan works, you’ll be king of Oriel and you’ll be dealing with rafts of this shit. What about the nobles that colluded with Anure? They’ll have all kinds of war crimes to answer for. You won’t be able to just pardon me—you’ll have precedents to set.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I thought you wanted me to take Anure’s place, to be emperor.”
She was so quiet that I glanced at her, but she was still staring at the pool, as if something might rise out of it, grab her by the ankle, and drag her in. “Not anymore. If you’d seen Yekpehr, the citadel … They paraded us through the streets and crowds gathered, but … they all looked dead inside. And Anure’s throne room—it’s like a monument to greed. No one person should have that much power. I don’t wish that on you.”
“You could say the same about me being king,” I felt I had to say.
But she considered me, expression canny in the speckled shadows. “I think … this whole thing about serving the land, maybe it keeps you honest, you know? Lia, She’s suffered for Calanthe. It’s not all jewels and waving Her pinkie for the least little thing.” She gazed off down the tunnel. “Who knows what She’ll have to carve out of Herself this time, to tame Calanthe again.”
The prickle of doom crawled over my scalp, my gaze drawn to Lia’s sparkling crown, settled into its niche like some artifact of old, waiting for a true ruler to come claim it again.
“I’m drinking the water,” Sondra declared, prying off her boots.
“You sure?” I hadn’t really thought she would, despite my poking at her.
“Seems cowardly not to,” she replied, standing to unbuckle her sword belt, then shucking off her reinforced leather vest and her leather pants, so she stood in just a thin undershirt and shorts. “I’m thinking maybe that there’s something to facing the truth. It doesn’t change anything I’ve done, and even though I can guess what I’ll see, there might be something I can learn just by making myself do it.”
She walked to the pond, waded in. “Shit, that’s cold. Why didn’t they tell us it was so fucking cold?”
“Probably because that’s the least of it?” I suggested. “If you can’t take a little cold water, you sure aren’t going to be able to handle the truth.”
“Fair point.” She waded in farther, stopping shy of the fall of water. “That girl I was—she never faced anything difficult. Never worked at anything.”
“I think you’ve faced plenty of difficult stuff since.”
She glanced over her shoulder, the mist making her look younger, hiding the toughness and scars. “Because I had to. I was forced into that. This is something I am choosing.” With that, she stepped under the fall of water, tipped back her head, and drank.
It was a lonely vigil, and an uncomfortable one, watching Sondra sit in the pool and weep. She didn’t scream like Ambrose had, but she stayed in much longer, her tears almost invisible under the fall of water. Only the occasional soft sob betrayed her.
Feeling more impotent than I had since before we escaped the mines, I sat there while Sondra faced her truth, while Lia tamed her monsters, while Ambrose fought his own demons. I kind of expected one of the priestesses—or Lia’s ladies—to arrive and chastise me for my idleness. But no one did. I didn’t even have Vesno to keep me company.
When Sondra finally crawled out of the pond on her hands and knees, she went to the stick she’d taken from the wizards’ workroom, wrapping her hand around it thoughtfully before sprawling back onto the moss. She lay there, staring at the cave ceiling, holding that ugly stick and staying nothing.
By then I’d about had enough of sitting around. Why had I come along, if I was just going to waste time getting soft, accomplishing nothing? I could’ve gone to the shipyard and at least lent another pair of hands to repairing a ship. Or I could be meeting with Brenda—Percy probably wasn’t speaking to me—about our strategy to free the captives from Yekpehr. I could be getting Agatha to tell me everything she knew about Yekpehr and the royal captives. I knew I damn well wasn’t drinking that water.
“You should do it, Conrí,” Sondra said, like the voice of my conscience, as she’d always been. The first to swear loyalty to me. Long live the king.
“Why,” I grated out, “because you had so much fun?”
She rolled her head to look at me. “Don’t be a baby and just do it.”
“No, thanks.” I adjusted my seat. Maybe I’d take a nap.
“It’s the furthest thing from fun,” she said, rolling her head back and closing her eyes, “but it’s … informative. Freeing. Cleansing, maybe, like purging a festering wound. It wasn’t what I expected. You’ll be glad you did.”
“Maybe after Anure is dead and Rhéiane is on the throne of Oriel,” I said. “Time enough for spiritual awakenings then.”
“Your choice, of course,” she replied drowsily. “But you might need to do this, if we’re going to win.”
That odd sense of premonition prickled over me again. “Why? What do you think I’ll need to face?”
She shrugged a little, snuggling deeper into the moss. “Dunno. That’s your shit to figure out. But I have this feeling that we might not get to leave until you do it.”
“What?” I reached for my rock hammer, other hand going to the bagiroca at my hip. “Is there—”
“The magic, Conrí.” Sondra didn’t even open her eyes. “Think about it. We’ve been here hours and hours and the light hasn’t changed.”
I squinted at the sun angling in. It looked the same as when we’d arrived, but … “That’s just a trick of the cave vents. It probably always looks like this, unless it’s night.” But even as I said the words, I knew they weren’t true. This place sure made you aware of untruths; even a little bit of wishful thinking sounded like an outright lie.
“If you say,” Sondra agreed sleepily, then yawned. “Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“See? You should be. And no one has come to check on us. Maybe we’re in a time bubble.”
“A time bubble,” I echoed with scorn. “That isn’t a thing.”
She shrugged again, less movement this time. “Guess you’ll find out.” And she dropped off to sleep, snoring softly.
Tempted to head out of the cave, just to prove nothing would stop me, I didn’t even get up to try. Though I’d argued with Sondra, I suspected she’d nailed it. Something about the cave, the pool, the endlessly falling water, the sunbeams that danced but never changed angle—it did feel timeless. Sondra had stopped snoring and slept very still, barely a sign of breathing.
Probably if I tried to leave, I’d find myself just circling back to this same place, like in the old stories. Like the one about the guy trapped in the labyrinth chased by the monster, and him forever looping back and finding himself facing it again and again. See? I’d listened to that story.
Hopefully Calanthe wouldn’t send a monster to drive me into the pool.
Though I guessed She wouldn’t have to. The advantage of immortal beings who wielded time bubbles was they could wait you out. And if Lia was some kind of extension of whatever spirit inhabited this island, then Calanthe knew everything that Lia knew about me. Which I already knew about myself, right? I mean, I didn’t need to drink some water of truth to be very aware of my many crimes and failings. I’d fucked up over and over. I’d killed countless people, either by my own hand or through orders to others—and all out of arrogance and hubris. I carried the weight of those deaths willingly, as a punishment I deserved. There wouldn’t be any surprises in the water.
Especially Lia’s death. I might as well have handed her over to Anure personally, I’d been so determined to kill him myself. I wasn’t kidding myself about that reality. Even if she said she didn’t blame me, I knew it was true. I could feed her on my blood for the rest of my forsaken life and never make up for that failure.
Or the fact that she clearly still believed I’d inevitably leave her. Oh, she said it was because she figured I’d have to answer the call of Oriel, but I knew better. I’d broken my promises to keep her safe—had offered her up on the platter of my vengeance—and now Lia understood better than ever that I simply couldn’t be trusted with her heart.
I had to face that I’d failed everyone I’d ever loved. My mother who died in front of me. My father, drowning on dry land, his lungs filling with his own blood as he died in my arms. Rhéiane, captive all this time while I wandered free. Sondra and Lia. And all the people who’d followed me, giving their hope and their lives to me so that I’d rid the world of Anure.
I’d failed all of them. Of course Lia couldn’t love a man like that. She deserved better.
There: I’d faced the truth. And on my own, too, without that stinking truth water.
I glowered at the tinkling waterfall, so pretty with the mist and the filtered sunlight. “I get it, all right?” I said aloud, my voice startlingly gruff in the sacred space. I was the ill-mannered dog fouling up the place. “Start up time again or whatever. I’m not drinking. I don’t need it.”
Musical water answered me. Lia’s crown glinted on the mossy boulder a thousand leagues away. “Sondra, wake up. Let’s get out of here,” I said loudly, but she didn’t move.
Just great. I got to my feet and went to her, nudging her with the toe of my boot. Her breathing didn’t even change. I crouched down to shake her awake, but she stayed deep asleep. Fuck me.
“I thought this was an optional thing,” I shouted at the waterfall, my voice echoing back all around, like the distant howling of wolves.
I turned to go back to my seat, to wait Calanthe out. Lia would emerge eventually. She had magic, or was magic, and Calanthe would have to obey her and let me go. Dammed if I’d let some temple force me to, what? Relive the worst moments of my life? No, thanks.
But I couldn’t go back to my seat. My feet wouldn’t move. I tried taking a step sideways and just stood there like an idiot. Unless I took a step toward the pool. Oh right—that worked just fine.
“Fuck you!” I yelled at the waterfall, shaking my fist at it. “I refuse to be cowed by you. Enough already.” Twisting and snarling, I fought whatever kept me from moving backward, but it felt like fighting myself. I reached for my rock hammer, but I’d left it out of my reach. Unhooking the bagiroca from my belt, I swung it wildly, hoping to break the invisible bonds.
But I only ended up closer to the pool, my gyrations moving me forward by increments, the magic preventing me from going back at all. My shouts and curses echoed, overlapping and making a mocking chorus of my ruined voice, of my fundamental impotence.
What will you do, wolf? Lia’s voice seemed to rise from the chiming water. You can’t just bash them all over the head.
At last, exhausted, lungs straining for air, sweating like I’d fought a battle, I stood at the edge of the pool, bagiroca hanging limply by my side. Sondra slept on. And as the echoes of my raging faded, the pretty melody of the tinkling water took over. The sunlight wove through the falling droplets. So peaceful. So deceptive.
“Is this truth?” I roared. The question bounced back to me. Truth? Truth? Truth?
So that was the deal. Either I drank the water or I lost my mind in this cave. Maybe I would become the monster charging out to drive people to doing what they couldn’t make themselves do.
“Fine,” I snarled and put the bagiroca down. I lifted one foot to yank off my boot, then the other. I tossed them aside, then ditched the leather vest and shirt. No way I was standing there stark naked, so the pants would just have to get soaked. I already felt naked enough without weapons in this uncanny place. Stepping into the water, I managed not to flinch—but only because Sondra had warned me. It was cold, like snowmelt cold. I didn’t get how that could be on an island that I’d bet had never seen a snowfall. “Guess that’s part of the torture,” I muttered, stomping to the fall. “Can’t have the water of truth be comfortable.”
The water splashed over me, instantly soaking my hair and beard, cold on my bare chest—more like a deluge than what looked like a little trickle. “Just get it over with,” I ordered myself, and threw back my head and drank.
It tasted delicious, like the purest water ever—which maybe it was. And for a minute nothing happened. Just a cold shower and a long drink of water.
It would just figure if I was the only one to drink the water of truth and not see a dammed thing. The gods always had the last laugh. Here I was, wet and shivering, and just as much an idiot brute as when I stepped into the pool.
A hoarse laugh escaped me. I would suspect the others of putting on a show to fool me, if I didn’t know Ambrose and Sondra’s pain had been truly felt. Lia hadn’t shown as much emotion, but then she never did. And her gaze across the pool had been thoughtful, as if what she’d seen had to do with me. That might be vain of me to think so. She had much bigger things to deal with than whatever relationship we had. “So much for truth,” I muttered.
“Still my hotheaded and impatient son, I see.”
I whirled, water flying. My mother. Standing right there. “Mama?” I croaked, sounding five years old again.
She smiled, full of indulgent love. “My Conrí. It’s so good to see you. And look how you’ve grown up. You’re even taller than your father, broader in the shoulder, too.”
I scanned the cavern. Everything looked the same, including the sleeping Sondra—except my mother was now standing beside the pool, wearing a gown I remembered from when I was a kid. “You’re not real,” I said.
She cocked her head. “What is real?”
“You’re not my mother. You’re a figment of my memories.”
“If that was the case, then you would’ve known already that you’re taller than your father,” she said gently, then smiled at my confusion. “You didn’t, and why would you? Not many other people besides me would be in a position to know.”
“The others didn’t get a visitor,” I pointed out. At least, none of them had seemed to be talking to anyone else.
“Everyone has their own truth, my son,” she reminded me. “I am part of yours.”
“How are you here then?” I demanded, burying the burst of debilitating emotion under the gruff demand.
“This place is between realms, so it’s easier for those of us existing in other forms to meet with the living.”
“You still … exist?”
She gestured at herself. “Clearly. Though usually we only watch, not speak.”
“You’ve been watching over me?” The thought both pained and warmed me.
“Always, my son. I like Lia. Bright and noble, with a generous heart. You chose well.”
“I didn’t choose her,” I replied reflexively.
“Didn’t you?” She gave me a reproving look, like when she’d caught me in a lie.
Was it a lie? It seemed the truth water should’ve stopped me from saying it, if so. Then I realized both things were true. “I didn’t, and then I did.”
She nodded. “Everything in our lives is a choice, even if it doesn’t seem like it at the time. Even love.”
I laughed, a little bitterly. “Yeah, well, falling in love with Lia was an accident.”
“Love is never an accident. We choose to love. It’s not a wave that overtakes us and sweeps us along. Love comes from our deepest selves, not some outside force. Love is active, something we do.”
“Even if it’s not returned?” I asked, sounding hollow.
“Does Sawehl’s sun cease to shine if Ejarat’s earth ignores him? No. Love as the sun shines, and you will be warmed by it, too.”
“Love can be a weakness,” I argued. “Anure uses it against people.”
“It can also be a strength. Again, these are choices that belong to you.”
“I didn’t choose Anure,” I retorted harshly. “Or choose to lose you, and Oriel, and Father, and Rhéiane. I didn’t choose those stinking mines.” At the thought of all that, the helpless black rage rose up, the bloody thirst for vengeance.
“We can’t choose what the world does to us, but we can and do choose what to make of all those things,” she replied sternly. “You’re not a little boy anymore, Conrí.”
“I know that,” I bit out. “Are you telling me I shouldn’t be angry? That I shouldn’t want Anure dead?”
“I think you should ask yourself the price of anger, of vengeance.”
“I gave up on vengeance. I know my blind need to kill Anure with my own hands got Lia captured and killed. I learned my lesson.”
“Have you? You no longer wish to destroy Anure and his empire?”
“I know that freeing Rhéiane and the other captives is more important.” There, I’d said it under the influence of the waters, so it must be true.
“Knowing a truth and acting on it are two different things.” My mother shook a finger at me, fond exasperation in it. “You are willing to rescue the royal captives because you also hope to kill Anure. There are no secrets here, not even from yourself. Especially from yourself.”
“Killing Anure will destroy the empire and liberate everyone. That’s why I’m doing this,” I answered stubbornly, ignoring the false ring to it.
“And what if restoring the many orphaned kingdoms requires you to let Anure live—will you be able to do that?”
“Are you saying that’s what it will come to?” I demanded. Ejarat take me, how I hated the vagueness of prophecies. Either tell me a solid prediction or don’t tell me anything. “Because I don’t see Anure just walking away. We have to destroy him if we have any hope of a lasting peace.”
“Do you? I would carefully consider what you hope to accomplish—and the cost to yourself. You’d be risking your own life.”
“Maybe my life is worth that,” I answered bleakly. I’d never planned to survive killing Anure. “Killing Anure is what I’ve lived for all these years.”
“Maybe you should change that,” she countered. “Dying for vengeance changes nothing, but living well, giving your life to creating a world worth living in, that changes everything.”
“I don’t know how to do that.” I thought of how I’d felt, sitting beside Lia’s throne, pretending to be a king and knowing myself for a fraud. “I know how to kill. Not how to make things live.”
“Dealing death is easier,” she agreed. “Just as it’s easier to destroy than to create. Death is always there, waiting for us, but life is not. Which is more precious?”
“You want me to say life,” I answered when she paused expectantly. “But I still don’t get what you’re telling me.”
She shrugged a little. “Think it over. Maybe you will. And now I must go.”
“Wait!” I reached for her but couldn’t move. Figured. “Sondra thought—I thought that I’d learn something I needed to know to win this battle. What is it?”
She shook her head, smiling still, but with that exasperation. “So like your father. It’s not always about winning. Sometimes enduring, surviving, is enough. Hasn’t your Lia taught you that yet?”
“I guess I thought this truth thing would bring more clarity.”
She laughed. “Clarity. Ah, yes. I’m not sure anyone gets to have that, much as it seems desirable. There are layers beneath layers, and it takes a great deal of scrubbing away to get to the core. Consider this a first layer. I love you, Conrí. Give my love to Rhéiane when you see her.”
“Then I will see her? She is in Yekpehr?” I felt like I was yelling down a long hallway as my mother’s image faded. “Don’t go yet! Mama, I love you, too.”
Love you too. Love you too. Love you too. Our voices, intertwined, echoed around, making a harmony with the endlessly tinkling fall of water.