The Living God, page 14
Was her only option really to wait until Keleir returned? To hope that her father would gift them the key? She doubted any of that would come in time, and even if it did … Keleir would finally know the truth of what she’d done to save him.
NINETEEN
“SARAN, IF YOU don’t sit down, I’m going to strap you to this chair,” Rowe muttered, looking up from his book. He sat in the overstuffed chair by a dead fireplace, reading with the help of a tall candle on the tiny table next to him.
Saran kept pacing. “I’m exercising the muscles. I’m tired of being stiff.”
“You should rest.”
“I don’t want to rest!”
Rowe clamped his mouth shut, turning a page. Several long minutes passed, with the silence of Saran’s room accented by irritated huffs as she strained to exercise her healing leg.
“He’s coming back,” Rowe muttered.
The princess scowled at him. “What if it works? What if he can stay there and be free of the Oruke?”
Rowe pursed his lips together and glared at the book. “Then I assume you will abandon this place and go to him. That is what you do when you love someone, right? He’s been gone two weeks, not a lifetime.”
“Mavahan is a Deadland. What I did to save him shouldn’t hold there. If by some miracle it does, why would he return?”
“Well, it is easier to follow him to Mavahan than the Third, isn’t it?”
“I should have gone with him or in his stead. I’m the princess.”
“You couldn’t travel in the state you were in. Infection still affects you, just like all the other mortals in the world. Mavahan is desolate, hot, and horrible. Sure, getting to the outskirts is easy, but you can’t Port across the desert. You’d have to ride in the hot sun and frigid nights for three days, and that’s if you don’t get caught up in a storm. Sand in that wound wouldn’t be pleasant, I imagine.”
“You should have gone to Mavahan with him.”
“Keleir asked me to stay behind and keep an eye on you. Odan’s out of the medical ward, finally recovered from his blood loss, and you were in no shape to deal with him should he be foolish enough to seek retribution a second time.”
“Is it wrong of me to wish he were dead?”
Rowe glanced up from his book. “Odan clearly deserved whatever he got, but I don’t think a good person wishes death or pain on anyone. It seems Keleir is rubbing off on you.”
“And you are innocent?”
“I am reformed.”
Saran scoffed.
Rowe chuckled, but he did not turn his attention away from the book.
The princess fell into the chair across from him and began to drum her fingertips over the wooden arm, watching the Lightning Mage stare at his book. “You aren’t reading, are you?”
“I’m trying,” he said, turning the page.
“Is everything all right? You’ve been irritable for days.”
The lord looked up from his book, closed it slowly, and rested his hands across the top. “A lot has happened in the last few weeks. A lot of things I need to digest. My brother got married, and he’s losing his mind. He attempted suicide. My best friend, who is married to my brother, has been battered and is being held captive in her own home. Meanwhile, I have a rebellion to finish, and the two people I need help from the most are incapable of delivering. When the rebels come to kill the king, they will also kill my friend. My brother will lose his soul to the Oruke, and I will have to kill him. The two people I love most in this world are slipping through my fingers, and I’m unable to do anything about it. I’m torn between saving them and saving my own soul.”
Saran blinked at him, swallowing his words as quickly as he let them loose. “Saving your soul?”
Rowe’s jaw tightened. “Nothing. Go back to your pacing.”
She didn’t. Instead she sat quietly and watched as he opened the book and began to read again. His eyes scanned the page quickly, flipping pages far faster than someone indulging in reading for pleasure.
“Reformed,” she whispered after several seconds of observation. “That’s why you’re angry … You’re upset that the plan isn’t coming together, that we might not be able to fully pull off this upheaval? You are still convinced that the only way to redeem yourself from the things you did is to liberate the people you tormented? If you don’t, will you consider every act since you reformed a failure?”
The Lightning Mage had spent the last seven years, since she nursed him back from the brink of starvation, attempting to do everything in his power to atone for what he’d done by Yarin’s command. No amount of sacrifice seemed to ease his guilt, and he had always been willing to sacrifice anything, even the safety of those he loved, if it meant salvation for his soul. Rowe could be incredibly selfless, but in this one instance, in this one desire, he would burn the world and everyone in it to fix what he had done in his other life. Rowe’s brow twitched. His cheeks flushed with either embarrassment or anger; it was hard to tell with him. “That isn’t what I meant.”
“What is more important? Redeeming your soul or your brother’s? You had control over your actions. Keleir had no control over what the Oruke did with his hands.”
Rowe slammed the book shut with a loud thump. “Which is exactly why my sins are greater! I had control! I had free will! I used it to torture and kill.” Rowe’s eyes sparked with electric current as he glared across the room at her. “I know very well I’m more of a monster than my brother ever will be. He has no control over what is inside him, but I created my own demon. I must atone for it. Setting this world right is the only way I know how.”
“At what expense?”
Rowe looked away.
“The Prophetess speaks to you. Isn’t that enough redemption? She chose you to carry her words across time, Rowe. She chose to speak to you alone. Doesn’t that mean you’ve been forgiven?”
“She hasn’t spoken to me in months, Saran. No dreams, no visions, no voices. Nothing. I’m forgotten. The most crucial part of our plan is about to unfold and not a single whisper from the woman who set me on this path.” Rowe tossed the book across the room. It slapped against the stone wall, shaking Saran in her seat. “I feel like all of this is unraveling and I’m trying desperately to hold the threads together.”
The princess stood up and went to him, placing a hand at the top of his head. “We will figure this out. We have months before you travel to Salara. I’ll handle this side of our plan. When this is all over, you will find your redemption, and I will save Keleir’s soul.”
Rowe looked up to Saran and nodded slowly. She pulled him in, hugging his head to her belly before she bent and placed a kiss to the top of his head. “It will be fine,” she assured, though the tone of her voice said otherwise.
Rowe shook his head and set his jaw tight.
“The rebels will kill Yarin. They will show him no mercy, and because of that damned Bind they will kill you too. I cannot … that is not negotiable for me.”
“Have a little faith in me, Rowe Blackwell. I may not have magic, and I may be tied to a bag of bones, but I’m not helpless. I’ll handle my part. You handle yours.” Rowe’s disapproving sigh bristled her nerves. She folded her arms, careful of her healing hand. “So if you don’t trust Keleir and you don’t trust me, who do you trust, Rowe?”
Rowe stole another book off her shelf. “I trust you,” he said. “I do not trust those around you, and yes, that includes my own brother.”
“Keleir would never hurt me.”
Rowe turned and placed the book back on the shelf. “I think I’ve read everything in here. I’m going to the library.”
“Just like Keleir, running away when the conversation gets difficult. You two really are brothers.”
Rowe turned to her from the door. “Do you enjoy prodding me? Are you so bored with your confinement that you are taking pleasure in tormenting a friend?”
“I didn—”
“You didn’t mean to. You might hate being a princess, but you sure do have the same high and mighty attitude that all royals carry. You have no claim over me, Saran. I do not have to bend to answer your questions like a servant.”
Saran blinked at him, an ache splintering through her heart. “I’ve never ordered you to do anything. Never.” She took a step forward. “First you try to throw your life away by pretending to love me, and then—”
Rowe laughed, low and deep and with so much malice that her insides squirmed. “I’m going to the library,” he said as he threw open the door.
Saran nodded faintly, sinking down into the chair he’d occupied earlier.
TWENTY
SHADOWS HUNG LIKE tapestries in the lower levels of the palace, far into the depths of the cliff, where the caverns that sailors used as a shipyard met the bay. Water dripped from stone walls, and moss grew thick and heavy in the cracks. Torches lined the left side of their path, a wide hall leading to an old wooden door at the end. At either side of the door stood an armor-clad soldier, his helmet drawn down over his face.
“Why the guards, Father? Are you worried your old friend may murder you?” Saran asked, her green eyes flickering to the back of the old man’s head as he hobbled before her.
“Nonsense,” he said.
Saran paused, her lips tugging with a smirk. “Ah, you’re being the showman again. What is it we are bragging about today?”
Her father didn’t reply. Instead he gave a harsh crack of his cane against the wall, and the guards opened the door for him.
The dark room had long stalactites hanging from the ceiling, dripping calcium upon the dank floor. At the back of the room, upon a metal podium with rusted grated stairs, sat a large metal ring, eight feet in diameter. Affixed to the old, worn ring was a metal box with corroded knobs and rusted red dials.
The contraption did not belong to the First, a fact made more prominent by the red wires stretching from the metal box to the base of the ring. Long ago, the president of the Third had gifted the technology to his friend, the newly crowned King of Adrid, so that they could visit and easily trade goods.
When Saran was little, Yarin often made several trips throughout the year, sometimes staying several days. At first they went for casual visits, but then they returned for healing. Yarin used their science to prolong his life until it became clear that no amount of science or magic would save him from the inevitable.
Time magic was one of the most powerful elements known to man. It was also the most volatile and taxing on the body. Magic came with a cost even with the most basic of elements. All Mages needed a short recovery period to renew the lifeforce spent using their power. The more power used, the longer it took to renew.
The power to control time was rare and not written about or studied. No one knew what it did to a Time Mage over the course of their usually short lives. Saran knew because of her father, his illness, and the fact that he had dragged her along to the Third for every treatment. When a Time Mage used their power, they recovered their stamina, but the hidden toll never repaired. Tumors had grown thick in her father’s brain, and even when he had them removed they inevitably returned with each use of his element. He’d finally stopped using his power altogether, or perhaps he had lost it in his treatments.
Saran tried not to think about the ache in her skull whenever she pushed herself too far. She tried not to imagine that she, too, had those things growing in her head, threatening to drive her as mad as her father.
“Lord Brenden,” Saran greeted as her father took his place at the foot of the podium steps. Lord Brenden, an old Lightning Mage, had a thick gray beard and long, thinning hair. His blue eyes crackled with the same electric intensity that Rowe’s possessed as they looked the princess over.
“Lord Brenden is here to open the Gate, as Lord Blackwell seems to have disappeared for the past two days,” Yarin muttered, waving a careless hand over to the Lightning Mage standing near the metal ring.
Saran forced a smile. “Thank you, Lord Brenden. Your services are appreciated. My father has a hard time expressing his gratitude.”
Lord Brenden’s lips drew up into a smirk, revealing a row of rotted teeth. For a lord, he had little personal hygiene. His robes were tattered, for he had no wife to mend them, and his nails were overgrown and cracked, with dirt caked beneath them. Once, he’d been a great noble in her father’s court, but when Blackwell came along to replace his Lightning Mage skills as a better user of the element, he became irrelevant to the king.
Yarin stood, all his weight heavy upon his wooden cane. He glowered at the empty wall beyond the metal ring for several minutes and then tilted his head ever so slowly to the old Mage near the console box. “Yes, my daughter is beautiful. Yes, she addressed you. Now that the shock has worn off, could you be good and do your job, Mevog?”
Mevog Brenden’s smirk twisted into a snarl. His eyes glowed bright blue, and his fingers crackled. He directed them over the metal box and touched the surface with his nails. Electricity crackled down through the red wires. Cold blue lights flickered to life at the bottom of the ring, igniting one by one on either side, from bottom to top. Mevog twisted a dial, keeping his electric hand upon the console. A soft whir rippled through the room, and electric waves flicked along the interior of the ring with an ever-increasing pace until they collided, tangled, and weaved into a tight white netting.
The edge of a wide, low metal contraption emerged from the feathering light, and Saran stepped to the side as a morbidly obese man upon a floating chair squeezed through the ring and into their world. Yarin took a hobbling step to the left as the hovering chair breezed down the steps to the stone floor, followed by three wide men in plastic suits and two very thin men in chains.
“Can’t go a minute without slaves, Roshaud?” Saran asked with a sneer, letting her gaze flick pointedly to the starving men with their necks and hands bound in manacles.
“Princess,” the large man replied. “Lovely as ever.”
Saran straightened and gave a sweeping curtsy to the president of the Third. Never had she met a more disgusting human being in her entire young life, even counting her father. Roshaud held a gift for cruelty that Yarin could never live up to. The president of the Third took delight in kidnapping men and women from other worlds to use as slaves on his own, to perform tasks that his people had become too apathetic to maintain or, at the very base of all slavery, for sexual subjugation. They were disposable, and when they grew too sick from the food the people of the Third consumed with years of built-up immunity, they were slaughtered and quickly replaced by another round of kidnappings.
But why kidnap, when you could make pacts with other world leaders, like Yarin, to reap and claim the unwanted? For years now her father had been feeding Roshaud the rebel outlaws that filled his prisons or allowing Roshaud’s men to roll into a village and claim the leftovers after a crushing confrontation.
Along with being a wretched human being, Roshaud was the poster child for his diseased world, a man too sick to walk upon his own legs. It was a curse derived from his appetite for cloned food on a planet that no longer had any source of nourishment from an original species of animal or plant. He and his people had killed their world, and now they survived on artificial sustenance, recreations of creatures that had long since gone extinct, and as a result, as a side effect of their science, it turned their bodies into blubbering, useless piles of tissue. It slowed their metabolisms, increased their hormone levels, and reduced their bone strength and muscle tissue.
The men who followed him, other than his slaves, were only slightly smaller. They waddled on their own legs with the help of metal braces powered by packs strapped to their backs.
“Curious,” Saran said as she rose from her curtsy. “Will you be able to fit through the door on that?”
“I was hoping for a faster means of travel now that I’m here, my lovely,” Roshaud said with a smile, running his hand over his bare, round belly. He sat, dressed in comfortable plush pants, bare feet and chest, with a faux fur orange vest. Hair matted his chest in thick waves and traveled beneath the vest to his back. He had numerous chins spilling beneath his face, and thick sideburns curling to cut a sharp line where a man’s jaw might have been. The top of his head was clean-shaven, and from his ears down he wore a long mane, braided and curled over his shoulder.
His entourage wore plastic seafoam green suits marred by black symbols of their rank across their arms and shoulders, and each had their rank tattooed in black across the top of their shaved heads. The slaves were shaved as well and wore their rank as burns on their right cheeks. Their clothes were dingy gray jumpsuits, and each had a number painted on their left breast.
“I would offer you a Gate to make your travel easier,” Saran said with forced courtesy, each word strained and overtly patient, “but unfortunately I’m not able to.”
Roshaud’s beady black eyes leered at her, and he grinned. “Someone trapped you?” His eyes flicked to the Bind at her wrist. He knew exactly what it was; she could see that in his eyes. Saran wondered how many Bound Mages had been sent to him by her father.
“Come, sit on my lap and tell me all about it, just like you did as a girl,” Roshaud said.
Yarin laughed and smacked his cane against the president’s chair. “Don’t flirt, Roshaud. That is a married woman you speak to.”
“Oh?” Roshaud gasped and turned his attention to the king. “You didn’t invite me! I am appalled at you, Yarin D’mor! We have been friends too long for you to forget me. Who did you give her to, without my consent? Saran has been dear to me since she was small enough to bounce upon my knee.”
Saran’s jaw tightened, and she glowered down at the president. Even after all those years, she remembered the horrible moments she’d spent in his company as a child, no matter the hours it had taken to wish such memories away. Though disgust twisted her stomach, she smiled at the revolting man and proudly proclaimed the name he’d most hate to hear: “Keleir Ahriman Lifesbane.”
