The Living God, page 28
Swirling, gold light tangled around her ankles and stretched up her legs to coil round her outstretched hand. Her injured arm bled heavily where she pressed it against her clothes, pouring in red rivers to the earth at her feet.
The Time Mage stretched her fingers out to the ash cloud and forced her will upon it. Saran knew no words to control it, no spell to undo it. She used her will and her will alone to change what could not be stopped. The cloud morphed and struggled, raging silently against her power.
Behind her, Keleir gripped Rowe’s hand and struggled to watch. He shook his head fiercely at his brother and snatched a handful of Rowe’s long black hair, pulling him low enough to whisper, “Stop her.”
Liquid black stretched across the whites of his eyes as the Oruke grappled for control. Keleir struggled to hold it back, but he grew tired of fighting. He’d fought it for so long already. He couldn’t keep up. The Oruke would win and, if Saran stopped the curse, it would be free to slaughter as it wished. Keleir’s grip on Rowe’s hair eased, and he wrapped his hands around his brother’s protective arm. “Let. Me. Go. Let me die. Please.”
Rowe shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“Please stop her. Protect her. Love her, but let me go. Please let me go.” Keleir settled into the mud. “Please, Brother, let me die. I want peace. I beg you. I beg you. Before it’s too late.”
Rowe had never seen his brother cry, never heard him beg for anything in his life. Not when their father beat him, not when the village elders carted him off to be tortured. Keleir accepted pain with pursed lips and cruel eyes, but he never begged. The look of fear and agony in his eyes tore a hole in Rowe’s heart.
The Lightning Mage nodded to his brother, wincing at the pain of agreeing to such a terrible thing. With one hand, he squeezed Keleir’s. He rested the other atop the Fire Mage’s white hair. “As you wish.”
Keleir smiled through pain. He dropped his hands to the mud and stretched his body upon the earth, where he accepted death and freedom as one. The black stole his eyes, swarming around the red, which lit with orange embers. The black swept over that, too, and passed away like a storm. The red burned as bright as fresh blood, and Keleir Ahriman was no more.
Rowe jumped to his feet and ran for Saran, calling to her over the roar of the ash storm. She turned her attention to him briefly and, with a voice like a choir of women, ordered him to stop. His feet planted into the mud against his will. He couldn’t blink, couldn’t breathe, even his heart stopped in his chest. He froze, while time carried on around him.
Saran struggled to hold back the cloud. It bore down on her in an arch, stretching out tiny ash tendrils in search of Keleir.
“I won’t let you have him!” The world blurred before her, not from tears but the blood now covering her clothes.
The ash cloud opened its mouth and snapped at the air. Saran pushed forward, screaming, and plowed her foot into the earth. Blood ran from her nose, and her brain boiled in her skull. The world grew dark around the edges. A roaring started in her ears, so loud it blocked the rattling of her Bind as it wiggled angrily of its own accord near the steps where she’d left it.
Her vision failed her first. She went blind, and her knees buckled. The hold she kept on Rowe snapped, and he grabbed her before she fell. She fought to hold the ash back but ultimately lost the strength for that too. Her power snapped like a stressed rope. The cloud dove down and wrapped around Keleir in the same instant. It soaked into every part of him, his mouth, nose, and eyes, until it disappeared within his body, filling and destroying what life he had left.
The power Saran exerted over the cloud had built around her, like a pail too full of water and running over. The energy needed to go somewhere.
It exploded, reverberating out over every surface of the castle, city, and out into the grassy fields yards beyond the wall. It raced down corridors, over walls, windows, and roofs, turning ancient ruin into newfound glory, restoring the worn and broken city to a form it had not resembled in centuries.
Saran could not see Rowe, nor could she see her magic fix her broken home. She felt the Lightning Mage’s arms tighten around her, heard his throaty roar of defeat. The pain she felt ebbed to nothing, and a cold metal band settled over her wrist.
FORTY-SIX
SARAN KNEW NOTHING of time or how much passed. Her eyes were too heavy to open, so she stayed in the darkness and half listened to the world around her. Voices jumbled together, indiscernible both in content and origin. They distracted her from the confusion. The days blurred together in shades of pain and fear, and she couldn’t remember if she had died at the end or not. She felt dead.
She dreamed in dim colors of the Saharsiad beating her, Darshan wrapped in water and earth, and an angry cloud of ash. Within the ash, she saw a face, rage ripping its mouth open and snapping its jaws shut. She wanted to wake, to leave the darkness around her, but she could not move. Her limbs lay heavy at her sides, and the lids of her eyes wouldn’t lift. Her lips wouldn’t part. She groaned and cried from behind clenched teeth, begging for someone to shake her alive.
A hard hand grabbed her and shook until her eyes snapped open. She sat up too quickly and melted into warm arms. For a long time she lay there, wrapped in that warmth, staring at the blankets covering her lap, far too weary to lift her head. Eventually she gathered the nerve to look at the one who held her.
Rowe waited patiently, his gaze appraising her face with a deep frown. Her pale skin appeared nearly translucent, and deep, dark circles hung under her eyes. Her green gaze locked on Rowe, her lips parting to speak, but her mouth was too dry for words. They came out harsh and cracked. “K-Keleir …”
“Shh,” he whispered, placing a cup of water to her lips. She drank slowly, choking at first. She lifted her hands to the cup when he attempted to draw it away.
Hands …
She stopped drinking and looked at the two hands in front of her, shock running cold down her spine. She had both her hands back, and the Bind dangled from her wrist. Had that all been a horrible dream? What was real? Where did the dream start? When she fainted in her room? When the Saharsiad beat her?
Rowe grabbed her hand gently and twined his fingers around hers, perhaps too unsettled by her shaking to let it hover in the air much longer. “Yarin’s fail-safe, I assume. He might have guessed you’d try that eventually. As soon as you lost the power to hold time, it returned to your hand, with your hand. It actually saved your life. Even though you’d lost so much blood, it kept you from bleeding out.”
“Keleir? Please tell me …”
Rowe froze, growing quiet. His lips parted, and he tried three times to speak, yet no words came out. His face hardened before he finally forced them free. “He went. You did all you could. Ultimately it is what he wanted. He begged for it. The Oruke won, and death saved Keleir.”
Saran shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. She choked on a sob and buried her face against Rowe’s shoulder. “After you blacked out, your magic changed the city and the castle. You wouldn’t recognize it. I definitely don’t. Odan and a few of the men who were left in the area overtook Darshan. He’s Bound and waiting in the dungeon for judgment. It takes every fiber of me not to kill him for what he has done to us. His people retreated to the outskirts of town when you stood to fight the curse. I sent a messenger to tell them to wait there until their leader finished with his negotiations. They were allowed to keep the messenger as insurance.”
Saran wiped her cheeks harshly. “Who is the messenger?”
“Odan.”
“He listened to you?”
“He listened to Madam Ophelia.”
Saran nodded. “Of course he did.” She pressed her forehead to his shoulder and knotted her fingers in his tunic. “I need to see Keleir, Rowe.”
The Lightning Mage nodded. “When you’re strong enough.”
“I’m strong enough.”
Saran wrapped herself in a robe, and Rowe carried her down to the dining hall. This late at night, it lay empty and dark, save the candles lit on the tables surrounding a long body draped in blue linen. Even before they reached the body, Saran began to shake. Rowe set her on her feet so that she could lean against the table while he drew back the cloth, revealing Keleir beneath it. The servants had cleaned him, left him naked beneath it. The fumes of heavy spice stole the air, and she knew then that they’d already performed the burial rights. She traced her fingers over the star-shaped scar around the intricate Oruke mark, a mark his village had attempted to remove over and over. It had always been a beacon of their failure and his ultimate doom.
“He’s warm,” she whispered, finding no shame in the tears that fell to splash across the tabletop.
“His element was fire,” Rowe whispered, brushing his hand soothingly down her back.
“Shouldn’t he be cold?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Saran sniffed and pressed her hands to her eyes, collapsing against the table. Rowe grabbed her and lifted her off her feet, dropping her back down on the bench next to Keleir. She curled her hands around the Fire Mage’s arm and held him tightly. For half an hour, she didn’t move and barely blinked. Even when Madam Ophelia entered the room, followed by three of Yarin’s councilmen, the healer’s shoes clonking heavily across the floor did little to call Saran’s attention away from her dead husband.
“We heard you were awake, my queen,” Madam Ophelia whispered, bowing her head with a placid and unmoving gaze, the look of a woman bored with the view.
Saran continued to stare at Keleir’s warm, tan hand. She traced her fingers over his skin. It felt so alive, such a cruel and horrible trick. “I am not your queen … not yet.”
“Of course.” Madam Ophelia sighed, rubbing her hands together. “We’ll make it legitimate with a coronation. We’ll invite the people on the outskirts of town to it. Darshan will agree and supply the needed goading for peace, with the proper incentive, of course.”
Saran frowned. “Of course.”
Rowe gave a deep, throaty growl, rather like a dog that disliked someone getting too close to his food. “He deserves death.”
The healer ignored Rowe as if he hadn’t spoken, as if he didn’t exist at all. “Shall I make the arrangements?” she asked, an all-too-gleeful smile on her face.
“I’ll make them,” Saran replied, slowly releasing Keleir’s arm to the table. She trembled as she pushed herself up with Rowe’s guiding touch and placed a kiss on her husband’s dead but warm lips. She drew the blue linen over his head. “We will have the coronation tomorrow. Afterward, Keleir will be put to the pyre as a king.”
“What about King Yarin’s body?” one of her father’s advisers asked.
“Throw him in the pits with the rest of the unwanted,” Saran replied.
“But he was the king!”
“I don’t care,” Saran said, acid in her voice. She lifted her green eyes sharp enough to cut his tongue. “He ran this country into the dirt because of superstitions about Living Gods and Equitases. He can rot with the worms, and the crows can have his eyes. He’s left us with an unimaginable mess. He doesn’t deserve the burial of a king. He doesn’t even deserve the worms.”
“You dare!”
“I dare!” Saran slammed hand down on the table near Keleir’s body. “I have endured enough lectures from my father to last me all the rest of my days. I will not hear them from spineless weasels like you. You and your ilk allowed him to ruin the kingdom because you were too cowardly to do anything else. You enjoyed the limited luxuries of this castle while your people starved. You gave no voice to those who tilled your lands, who were in your keeping. You should count yourself lucky that I do not offer you to them like chum to sharks. Perhaps I could use the gesture to win the favor I need without resorting to making deals with Darshan!”
The three advisers who accompanied Madam Ophelia clamped their mouths shut, and the two quiet ones distanced themselves from the third. The healer, for her part, smiled, cold and proud, at her creation.
Saran sighed, leaning her weight against Rowe. At the moment, he supported her more than her legs ever could. “As much as I would like to think the people will fall in line and accept my rule without question, I know better. The proper arrangements will be made with Darshan to ensure his allegiance. I will discuss those arrangements with him.”
“Shouldn’t you build a collection of advisers to discuss this with you first?”
“No,” Saran replied. “I will have none. You are relieved of your post, the lot of you. If I require your help in the future, I will be sure to find whatever rock you’ve crawled under.”
“It’s a dangerous thing to rid yourself of us,” the adviser warned.
“Really? You’ve alienated yourself from the people who would have supported you. You’ve got no one to back you, and if by some miracle you were to find someone, I doubt you’d ever have the courage to do anything about me. If you could, you would have shoved Yarin from his throne long ago. I will be in touch when I require your droning voice, Lord Reland. Until then, I suggest you go find that rock, quickly.”
The three advisers bowed deeply to Saran and excused themselves from the room. Madam Ophelia almost applauded. She lifted her hands and cupped them together over her heart. Her already tight skin pulled tighter with a smile. “It pleases me to see you accept your role. You were truly meant for it, whether you wanted it or not.”
Saran smoothed her hands across the table, twisting the blue linen between her fingers. “Deep down, I think I always knew I’d end up in this place, cursed with this title. No matter how many times I told myself otherwise, when I spoke of the future to anyone but Keleir and Rowe, I was Queen of Adrid. I always thought I was acting, but now I know that I had accepted this fate, even unconsciously.”
Madam Ophelia stepped forward. “Child, it isn’t a death sentence.”
Saran straightened. “No, it’s a life sentence. One filled with decisions I’d rather not make. And speaking of those, I need you to take me to Darshan.” Saran turned her head to Rowe, who remained a quiet perch for her to lean upon.
“Maybe you should rest a bit more before dealing with him?” Rowe muttered.
Saran scowled. “I want to show him that I am impervious, that not even blood loss can stop me, that I am stronger than death. He thinks me easily toyed with, after toying with me for so long. I will face him, weak and strong at once. You will take me, and you will not say a word of protest to whatever you hear. Do you understand?”
Rowe pursed his lips together, cocking his head back questioningly at her. “Is that an order?”
Saran set her teeth tight. “For the first time, Rowe, yes. That was an order.”
Very few guards stood at the dungeon doors. Most of them waited inside, in a line down the halls of the dungeon, or stood outside Darshan’s cell door. They bowed to her, one by one, as she passed with Rowe’s aid. The door to the Water Mage’s cell groaned open, and Darshan turned from his dark corner to step into the light. He waited with a cold smirk turning up his salt-and-pepper beard.
“I see you got your hand back,” he mused.
Once inside the cell, Saran nodded to the guards, and they shut the door behind them. A heavy silence settled as the Water Mage began to pace. “My people?”
“Waiting on the outskirts of the city. I suppose the Core’s curse and the rapid change in the city spooked them.” Saran sighed, taking a slow, quivering seat on a wooden stool along the stone wall.
“They won’t like it if they find out that you locked me in here, you know. You’re treading on very dangerous ground.”
Saran leaned heavily against the wall, turning her gaze on Rowe. He stood rigid, his hands clenching so tight that his knuckles turned white. She reached out and brushed her hand over his arm. “Step out.”
“No.”
She pursed her lips together but possessed little energy for arguing. Instead she turned her attention to Darshan. The Water Mage and rebel leader smiled, but the longer she sat silently waiting for him to stop his prideful pacing, the more that smile faltered. When he settled into one spot, she clasped her hands over her lap and began, “I will be crowned queen tomorrow. You will stand by my side. You will accept my reign.”
“What do I get in return?”
“Your life?”
Darshan laughed. “I’ll need a bit more incentive than that.”
Saran had many years of practicing a facade, but tonight she had little patience for it. The distaste wrote itself in the hard glare she wore. She wanted to kill him, but her soul felt too guilty from the deaths by her hand the day before, and her heart too heavy with grief. She pressed on with what needed to be done. “My husband is dead. You will allow me my year of mourning, as is custom. You will support me in all that I do. You will turn your people to me, and in return, after my year of mourning, I’ll make you king. Just as you always wanted.”
Rowe jerked away from her touch. “Are you mad? You will do no such thing!”
“Stay out of this, Rowe,” Saran snapped.
“No, I will not! I’ll never let you marry him. I won’t let him get what he wants, not after what he did.”
“This is our chance to finally bring peace back to Adrid, Rowe. We can stop everything that has plagued this kingdom. I don’t want this life, but it is mine. These people are my responsibility now.” Saran ignored the pleased smile on Darshan’s face. “I should have taken the throne from my father long ago. If I had, I wouldn’t have to resort to this. I have no magic with this Bind. The Mages will only support a ruler of power, and the rebels will only accept Darshan. He has both power and respect. It is the reasonable and responsible choice, albeit one that makes me ill.”
“Saran … we’ll find the key to your Bind.”
“No, we won’t. Father said so himself. It is nowhere that can be seen, which means he destroyed it.”
“Then let me be your power. Let me be by your side. It is what Keleir wanted.”
“Keleir has no say in this matter. He’s dead.” She hated the words as soon as they left her mouth. She winced at them and tried a warmer tone. “Sometimes we must do what we hate to do what is right.”
