Hive Magic (Empire of War & Wings Book 2)

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  The man in gold clapped his hand on Juste Montpetit’s shoulder, his grip tight on the other man. And fast as lightning, a snake poured from his ear and darted into Juste’s ear, linking them somehow. The man in gold’s eyes widened and a look of bliss settled over his face. I shivered as his expression was mirrored in the crown prince. They were sharing something beyond words – something brought on by the snake. Revulsion rolled through me like a mudslide.

  “I, Ixtap, leader of this Tentacle, speak true,” the tall man said. “We have found the Adder. We will bind him to us today in sight and clarity.”

  “Bind him!” the crowd called.

  There was a sound like stone grinding and the center of the platform began to move, sinking very slowly, inch by inch.

  The snake linking the two leaders remained in place, glowing a sickly greenish-yellow. Juste stumbled slightly, his hand on the pillar slipping more.

  “Do you have a healer? I am mortally wounded.”

  The woman who had yelled at me before emerged, running her hands over his body. She offered him a drink from a flask and looked to Ixtap as he drank, shaking her head.

  “I cannot tend him here.”

  “The binding is too urgent to wait,” Ixtap said. Beside him, the platform continued to sink.

  “What is the nature of this binding?” Juste Montpetit asked, his chin tilted up arrogantly. There was a glassy look in his eyes as he swayed slightly. “Does my manifestation not mark me as your chosen one?”

  My eyes widened. He was going to get himself killed.

  Ixtap’s face became stony. “It marks you as the Adder, most certainly. The prophets are not wrong. But our tradition tells us, ‘All who bring forth the snake must be brought to the heart and must suffer.’ You have brought forth the snake. You will now suffer.”

  “I am honored to be among you.” Juste Montpetit’s words were honey even as he swayed, pale and feverish, against the pillar. “It is as if I am seeing clearly for the first time. I envision a great rule over all the earth – benevolent and generous. No one will be in need for the Emperor will guard and guide them into truth. I envision no more need for war, for all those with violent hearts will be censured and taught humility. I see peace and prosperity for a thousand years.” He paused, scanning the crowd. “After a brief burst of violence, of course. The snake must first strike if his juices are to fill the prey.”

  “Strike!” the crowd cheered from their knees, raising their fists. Of course, they liked that part.

  The center of the platform had lowered a hand span now. I watched them, nervous by the gleam in their eyes. They had not liked the talk of peace and prosperity. Perhaps they would have liked it more if they knew what that meant for Juste Montpetit – peace for those who bowed to him and conformed to his every whim. Prosperity for himself in his palace. But they did not know that, and they only seemed excited by the prospect of striking. A dangerous people. And they had me in their grip.

  Where had they come from? This temple appeared ancient.

  Juste Montpetit tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing in thought. His hand slid a little more down the pillar, his knees wobbling.

  “Your prophecy also stated that wisdom would pour forth from my mouth. Hear, now, my wisdom.” He paused dramatically, his face filling with a beatific smile that suited his wide eyes and flushed cheeks so well. “I am greatly weakened, struck down by the sword, these pitiful bees the only things holding me together. Unless you have a great healer here, the healing properties of the bees must be maintained.” He looked around but when no healer was offered, he continued. “And yet, the keeping of your tradition is valuable to me. I respect all traditions. I honor them in my soul.” It was all I could do not to roll my eyes at that. “Therefore, it is my wise judgment that a way must be found that will preserve the health of your Adder but also honor your traditions. I choose the way of the substitute. I offer you my property – Aella of House Shrike – to take this suffering in my stead. She will bear it for me, even as her bees bear the weight of my life.”

  Wait.

  What?

  There was silence as the crowd waited for something. Ixtap’s expression turned to a frown, but the snake glowed brighter as he looked Le Majest up and down. He must have seen as easily as I did that Juste was barely holding himself conscious.

  “This breaks with tradition, Adder. What is seen in the heart is a sacred thing for the minds of the Hissan only. How can we give such a thing to a stranger?”

  “She is no stranger to me, Ixtap. I can see you are a man of honor. That when you call, warriors assemble. That when you say ‘go’ they go and when you say ‘stay’ they stay. And so I call on you to see that this girl is my substitute in these things, hands for me, feet for me, eyes for me. She will go as I say ‘go’ and stay as I say ‘stay’ and what revelations she is given will be for my heart only.”

  There was a murmur in the crown and nervous shuffling. Ixtap frowned, his eyes turning inward. A woman broke from the crowd, her golden chains jingling as she rushed to Ixtap’s side and whispered in his ear. It was the healer from before. After a moment, he nodded. He made a swirling sign like the letter “S” in front of him.

  “We will accept this claim of substitution as our traditions confess, ‘he who takes on another’s suffering is that man for that time,’ so we allow the substitution of this girl for the Adder.”

  There were more murmurs and no one sounded happy – though they weren’t nearly as unhappy as I was.

  Ixtap raised his arms again. “By your honor, I call you to this. She will serve in his stead.”

  The crowd responded with a grim roar. “IN HIS STEAD!”

  My stomach dropped. No, no, no. I did not like this at all.

  “It will not kill you,” a voice said beside me so quietly that I almost missed it. I glanced down to see one of the snake warriors who had brought me here looking up at me. His snakeskin vest and snake-leather belts marked him out. “Probably. But it will hurt a lot. The mind rejects what is done with it and it fills the body with pain in defense.”

  Oh, great. So they were going to do something to me that was so awful my own mind would rather be in agony than in whatever they were going to do.

  The snake binding the two leaders vanished.

  “Most people survive it,” the helpful voice offered.

  “What a heartfelt assurance. That’s so good to know,” I replied, dryly. I fought the violent urge to be sick. Only Juste Montpetit would cheerfully sign someone else up to suffer for him – and of course, it would be me.

  He raised his arms with enormous effort – more sweat breaking out across his brow as he did – and smiled at the crowd, turning so he could see them on every side and then strode toward me, carefully skirting the center of the platform which had lowered as deep as my knee.

  When he reached me, he leaned in close and his grin turned sadistic.

  “What a tidy solution to two problems, don’t you think?” He whispered to me. “You shall secure me a powerful ally and it won’t cost me a thing. But know this, property. If a single bee leaves me while you suffer, I will kill your friends here – the little Hatchling with the bird, the fool Ivo, maybe even my own guardian. So – no flinching. No losing focus. Keep your healing bees on me or they’ll pay the price.”

  I felt as if all the blood had rushed from my head. I swayed slightly.

  “I see you understand,” he said, his eyes narrowing with malice. “I shall enjoy what happens next.”

  His hand shot out so fast that I didn’t even flinch before it was wrapped around my throat. With a powerful wrench, he threw me into the center of the platform. I stumbled over the lip, falling into the center of the platform and skinning my knee and palms on the snake carvings. I clambered to my feet just in time to see Osprey stir, his eyes opening and a look of horror filling his face.

  Chapter Eight

  “OSPREY,” I WHISPERED as the platform began to descend even faster. It was
waist deep, then shoulder deep, descending so quickly that I couldn’t find my bearings.

  He straightened in the grip of the spirit snake holding him and his mouth opened at the same moment that my stomach dropped and the platform fell from underneath me. I clawed at the air, a scream ripping through my throat, and then something slammed into me, wrapping around me, and bearing me upward.

  I looked down, hoping beyond hope that Osprey had sent his bird to help me.

  Horror filled me instead, as I realized a giant spirit-snake – larger than the carved ones holding up the pavilion roof – had me in its grip. It rose from the dark depths. I stared down its coils, realizing that I could not see where the snake ended. It could be miles long. It could eat me in a single gulp. Sweat slicked my forehead and back at the thought. I leaned over, heaving up everything I’d eaten over the last day. It didn’t matter. The snake’s coils rose upward, bringing me with it.

  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and looked up. Its head – powerful and massive – was just above the spot where it gripped me in its coils. I felt darkness press on me, threatening me with unconsciousness, but I didn’t dare let it. If a single bee winked out with me, my friends would die.

  I tried to reach for my belt knife, but my arms were pinned to my sides by the snake’s coils.

  Don’t panic, Aella. Don’t panic.

  Anxiety welled up in me, threatening to overwhelm thought.

  Hold on. Aella. There will be a way. Don’t lose your head.

  The invocations I was saying to myself weren’t working. My breathing sped.

  The snake rose slowly, as if stretching out the drama of the moment. As my head cleared the pit again, I met Osprey’s gaze. Relief flooded his icy blue eyes as they locked on mine.

  “Be strong,” he mouthed and winked, which was not at all reassuring given what had happened the other times he winked at me. But I met his gaze and refused to look away, hoping that somehow, just by watching him, he could give me strength.

  Something purplish-white flickered beside his head and then was gone again. Os. His bird. Was something wrong with it? A look of pain flashed across his face but before he could respond, I was dragged further up by the snake and I lost sight of him.

  The crowd clung to the steps of the temple on every side and spread like spilled molasses into the Forbidding tangle beyond. What had been two hundred before was at least a thousand now. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of all these people in gold scale and snakeskin, masks pushed up onto their heads and pale eyes staring up at me.

  My dry throat ached. My fingers itched for action. The buzz in my chest grew so powerful that I could hardly hear anything else.

  “Today, we witness your clarity and pain on behalf of the Adder. You shall be his eyes and his conscience from this moment forth!” Ixtap cried.

  The snake squeezed around my middle and my eyes bulged as all the breath was squeezed from my lungs. Panic rose in me as I reached for my bees, reached for the buzz that was fading by the second.

  Relentless, Aella. Be relentless.

  Darkness shuttered over my vision and with it a burst of agonizing pain.

  Then light.

  A great tower soars up through the trees. It is spindle-thin, but it widens at the top to form a shelf where a man sits in a cage made of white snakes. Ravens fly to him with food in their mouths. Satisfaction fills me. With their general caged, they must leave our shores. All the death has not been in vain. I have not spent my magic too freely. I am growing old. Another will need to pick up my mantle.

  Darkness flooded over me, erasing the vision and I was back in the grip of the snake. Stabs of pain rippled up through my arms from my fingertips. I bucked against the bonds of the snake, a scream tearing from my lips.

  Something hisses in my ear. I look out over a seaport with dozens of white sails in the distance. Behind me the Forbidding crawls, whispering to me with the hiss of the ages.

  “The land rises against them. They cannot stay forever,” Malit, my right hand says from beside me. His eyes are red-rimmed, aching from all this exposure to the sun. “Come, General Tavit. Let us retreat into the earth. It is almost time for the seasonal slug-run and my mouth waters. Besides, your first child is expected. There will be time for conquest when he is born.”

  Darkness again. This time it came from my eyes and pounded through my head. I wrenched one of my arms free, tearing at my own eyes. Please, make it stop! Please!

  I am watching people pouring off a boat. Two of them hold birds aloft as if they are falconers, but these birds glow in a way only snakes should. Revulsion rolls through me and I begin to hiss.

  “We must tell the elders, Tavit.” The voice is behind me. Sesra. I know her voice like my own. She has enchanted me utterly and one day I shall convince her to bear my children. Malit says I’m a fool for hoping, but he is wrong.

  “We’ll tell them tonight when they give me my belt,” I say quietly. They will be pleased with the results of our first scouting mission. We’ve found something so odd that honor will be ours.

  Darkness. Pain. Pain so deep there was nothing else. Nothing but the spark of a melody sizzling into the pain, soaring like the flight of an eagle, dipping like the plunge of an osprey to the sea.

  I am deep below the earth. A sense of wellness fills me. I hold my child, Tavit, in my arms. He is so tiny, born only yesterday. Around me, my snake Grenor slithers happily, tangling through the room and around my chair. Tomorrow we begin the At’ap’pur. Tomorrow we cleanse this land of all manifestations except the Great Snake we worship. And after that, who knows?

  “The world awaits our dominance, Fa’al,” my wise woman says.

  “So let it be.”

  Darkness. My bones felt as if they were breaking within me. My throat was raw with screaming. But still, the song was there, carrying me upward toward the skies with loving waves rippling over each other. It reached a crescendo at the same moment that I felt I would break apart. I closed my eyes, abandoned the pain and sank into it. Another voice joined the song, soaring upward, upward, upward.

  Light.

  We look upon the earth. It crawls now in a terrible tangle of what once was, perverting it, ruining what was once beautiful and right.

  “It rejects us,” Va’at says bitterly. “Our own land rejects us.”

  “There are ways to make it bend to our will, to make it part for us,” I say, determination thick in my voice. I’m not so eager to retreat beneath the ground as my brothers are. “We have discovered them. We will discover more given time.”

  “Why fight a battle we’ve already lost?” Va’at’s bitterness is contagious. “Our own land has rejected us. We are nothing now. Nothing but those who creep beneath the earth.”

  “It labors like a woman with child and one day, it will produce something new,” I say. But I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything anymore except my need for revenge.

  Darkness and pain. I sought the melody and found it immediately, clinging to it, clutching it in both hands and with all my soul. It carried me, tucking me under its wing. I leaned into it.

  The tree in front of us was moving. Little shivers played up and down my spine. This couldn’t be.

  “The Land itself is manifesting,” Ha’vat, our wise woman is saying. Her snakes ripple up and down her arms, their tongues flicking.

  “Manifesting what?” I ask as my son Fa’al plays around my feet. He tugs at my boot, his baby face smiling up at me.

  “Not snakes,” she says. “Something else. Something I’ve never seen before.”

  “Will it harm us?” I ask, looking down at my little son.

  “Who can say?” she shakes her head. “But I have a prophecy. A time is coming soon that will leave all parents sad they bore children. All the old look back on hard times thinking they were soft. It comes on eagle’s wings. But do not fear, for I have another word with it: Out of the adder, something to eat, out of the snake, something sweet.”

 
“How delightful,” I say.

  Darkness. But this time, the pain has lessened and there is only the song.

  Chapter Nine

  I GASPED IN A LONG breath, clutching my throat with my free hand. My throat was ragged and agonized as if I had been screaming for hours. My vision returned slowly from the darkness. First, just as shapes and then slowly colors that wobbled and ran together like berry juices mixing.

  The snake began to lower me, and a spike of panic rolled through me. I did not want to go back to the center of the earth. I did not want to be swallowed up in a world of snakes. But I had no strength to fight. My whole body was wrapped by coils of snake except one arm and it felt like jelly, wobbling and formless.

  I clung, still, to the melody as the colors began to solidify and clarify. The snake people were still kneeling around the temple, but the sun was sinking low on the horizon, only a faint orange glow was left. The melody soared as I was lowered to platform level. I could finally make out who was singing. My eyes met Osprey’s as the melody tumbled from his soft lips, soaring again as his gaze met mine with determination and strength behind it.

  Had he sung all this time? Had he sung me through the pain?

  I kept my eyes on his, lapping up the strength in them, pulling it into myself as the coils of the snake released me to the platform floor. I tried to push myself up, but my strength was gone. Everything was thick and heavy. I couldn’t grasp my own thoughts. My emotions ran through my fingers like water.

  The song faded on a last, lingering note and a sense of deep loss filled me as it fled.

  Osprey bit his lip, his eyes still locked on mine.

  Ixtap cleared his throat and lifted his arm above me. “The suffering has been met. The clarity has been given.”

  Juste Montpetit stepped forward, so close to my prone body that all I saw was belt and chin. He lifted his fist in the air. Ixtap’s face went stony and he paused for a heartbeat before taking the crown prince’s fist in his. It mattered to him that Juste Montpetit had not taken the test himself – that much was clear. But for some reason, he had allowed it.