“I’m inclined to agree,” Ishqa said. “They are clearly not cooperative to our cause.”
Caduan frowns. “I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” he said, and Ashraia let out a scoff, throwing his hands up.
“Of course it is. Why are we surprised by this? A bunch of heretic half-breeds wouldn’t understand or care about our plight.”
“But they know why this is happening,” I said. “I know they do. Did you see Athalena’s face? She knew something. It was Ezra who didn’t want to talk.”
“Can we blame him?” Siobhan muttered, and Ishqa let out a small noise of agreement, one that was almost a wry laugh.
She was right. I couldn’t bring myself to think of Ezra and Athalena’s family as — as Ashraia had put it — “heretic half-breeds,” but it was undeniable that they had little reason to help us. A knot of guilt that I couldn’t quite untangle formed in my stomach. Perhaps it had been foolish to come here, and the sooner we left, the less chance we had of our ill-judgement being discovered.
“We gave up a lot to come here,” I muttered. “I hate to waste it.”
I wandered to the window and looked out. The city cascaded below us in steps, the flickering lights of lanterns illuminating windows and moving figures in the streets below. If I looked closely, I could still see people laughing and chatting in the streets below. In one of the nearby balconies, I watched two old men smoke pipes and drink wine.
“It’s different here,” I murmured, “than I thought it would be. It’s…”
“Nicer,” Caduan said.
I shot him a curious glance. All day, I had been watching him, waiting for a reaction that didn’t come. “I thought it would be hard for you to come here. To see all these humans.”
“Don’t you hate them?” Siobhan asked, quietly.
Caduan’s eyes did not leave the window.
“I thought I would. But I got here and...” He gestured to the scene outside. “I look at this, and I see a world absent of the hatred that destroyed my home. There’s a certain… hope in that.”
“It is a fantasy,” Ishqa muttered. “I knew Ezra, once, long ago. He was a good warrior and leader. But he is living in a dream world now, and he knows it, even if his wife and children do not.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” I said, and Ishqa gave me that look — that kind that was ever-so-slightly pitying.
“Perhaps it is a nice fantasy. But a fantasy nonetheless. Nature was not made for such a union. He will watch his wife grow old and die, and his children, and his children’s children. The garden he is tending may be beautiful right now, but he will have to watch it wither. And that’s if he doesn’t have to watch others come burn it first.”
His words hurt more than it seemed they should. I pressed my fingers to the glass and looked down at the city. “But isn’t having built something worth more than the fear of it being destroyed?”
“I think it is.”
The sound of the voice had us all whirling to the doorway. Athalena stood there, a single flame hovering at her fingertips. She was a Wielder, I realized.
Her gaze flicked to Ishqa. “You should feel very lucky, now, that your wife has a kinder heart than you do.”
Ishqa only bowed his head. “My words were rash and cruel,” he said. “I apologize, I only—”
“You were speaking the truth as you saw it. I can’t pretend that many others don’t see it the same way.” She glanced to me, and to Caduan. “But I’m glad to see that some of my guests don’t look at my family and see nothing but nature’s mistakes.”
“I—” Ishqa started, but she waved him away.
“I don’t need your apologies.” She turned to Caduan and stepped closer, searching his face.
“You meant your offer,” she said. “Didn’t you?”
Caduan inclined his chin. “I did.”
“If I tell you this, I need your assurance that my home will be protected if the humans come after us.”
“If you tell us what we need,” I said, “the humans won’t be coming after anyone anymore.”
She winced. “I hope that is true.” Then she went to the table in the center of the room and knelt down, producing a piece of parchment from her pocket and unfolding it. The paper was so large that it covered nearly the entire table. It was a map — a very old one, painted in now-faded ink. Near the top, I recognized the Fey lands — the House of Nautilus, the House of Reeds, the House of Roiled Waves. Further north, the boundaries got wobblier and more ill-defined, as if the cartographer knew that there was something there but wasn’t entirely sure what. Towards the center of the map was the island of Niraja. And then further south, there were the human lands, boundaries separating nations that I knew very little about.
“There is a reason,” she said, “why this is all happening right now. The human nations are embroiled in war. I heard only stories, but it sounds as if it might be some of the worst bloodshed they have seen in many years.” She swept her hand over several human nations to the south. “All of these countries are involved. Three large nations are attacking the others, attempting to conquer them. Some of these kingdoms have already fallen. You see, some societies have advanced their use of magic more quickly than others.”
“The return of human magic has shifted the odds,” Ashraia murmured, and Athalena nodded.
“Yes, drastically. Some of these nations were at the mercy of others for centuries, since they had smaller militaries or weaker economies. But now? The power struggle here changed very quickly. Many have lost their homes. And that leaves them with only two hopes. One is to find a new home, one where their conquerors cannot touch them. And the other is to make themselves more powerful than their assailants, and take over once again.”
Make themselves more powerful. That was exactly what Caduan suspected they were doing, when he examined the body of the deformed Fey from the House of Reeds.
“How do you know all of this?” Siobhan asked.
“Some, from our whisperers that still circulate among the human kingdoms. Some, from the traders that pass through. And some…” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was tighter.
“We had visitors, around four months ago. A group of humans seeking refuge after their home was destroyed. We had never accepted so many humans into our walls at once before, but none of us could bear to turn them away. They were here for two weeks before I realized…their intentions were not what they claimed.” She swallowed, eyes going distant — then cleared her throat and gestured to the map. “They attempted to steal this map from us.”
I looked closer at the map. Different nations had different symbols on them. I realized, slowly, that many of the symbols corresponded with nations that had been attacked. The House of Stone. The House of Reeds. Even Yithara.
“What do these mean?” I asked, pointing to the marks that adorned each of those nations.
“Even my husband is several hundred years too young to have ever known the true purpose of this map.” Her brow furrowed. “But myths claim that it marks hidden pools of magic, specific places where it is stronger. Or perhaps, where magical artifacts are hidden. The stories vary.” She shook her head. “To be honest, I suspect that they are all more fiction than fact. But I’m not certain how much that matters. All that matters is that the humans are desperate, and they believe it could be true. Even a sliver of a chance is enough to drive them to…“
“Genocide?” Caduan said, quietly.
And Athalena was so still, so silent, for such a long moment that I wondered if perhaps she wouldn’t answer.
“Heinous things,” she whispered, at last. “Heinous things. The humans that we welcomed into our walls…” Her voice broke. “They murdered one of my children. I heard the screams, and I ran into my daughter’s room to find them pinning her to the ground. There was blood—”
Here, she choked, as if her words were too sharp to swallow. Still, she did not lift her eyes from the table. “There was blood everywhere. They c
ut open her wrists. There were two Wielders, a Valtain and a Solarie, and they were doing some spell, something to— to harness her, to turn my sweet child into something—”
She stopped herself, abruptly, and I had to blink away a memory that assaulted me all at once — my father holding me down, his hands at my throat. I fought the sudden, overwhelming urge to vomit.
Athalena turned to us. “I made them talk,” she spat, her mouth twisted into a sneer. “I made them tell me what they were doing. And they told me of the legends that they were following — unfounded ones, like those etched into this map. Stories of Fey blood having powerful magical properties if Wielded or eaten or… or changed. They said that they were told that half-blood blood was the most powerful of all. That it could be used to enhance the power of its Wielder. That my halfbreed child’s life was worth so little when weighed against that of their nations.”
Her voice was raw with pain. Human or not… I felt it, too. And I was so lost in it that I didn’t even think about the implications of what she was saying. Not until Ishqa said, quietly, “Like an Essnera?”
I could feel his stare. I felt as if all of the blood had suddenly left my hands. Beside me, Caduan stiffened.
“I don’t know,” Athalena said. “I don’t even care. To me it sounds as if it all could be a pile of storybook horse shit. Humans have unparalleled ability to believe in things. It’s what makes us powerful, makes our society advance as it has.” Her gaze went far away. “I always thought I was so lucky to have found Ezra. A Fey man who believes in things with his whole self, just as humans do. It is a beautiful thing. But it is also dangerous. Humans will follow a sweet lie to the ends of the earth. They will die for it, and they will kill for it.”
Her eyes found ours again — brighter, sharper, deadlier.
“And this is what I know. The humans are desperate. They have nowhere else to go. And they will not stop. They will never stop. And I know that you may think humans are small and weak, but they will never stop adapting, never stop innovating. A true war between the human and Fey nations will be catastrophic. Millions of people will die. I know this in my bones. But…”
She reached into her pocket and withdrew a heavily creased piece of parchment. This she laid on the table. It was a letter.
“What is that?” I asked.
“This is a letter from the leaders of a coalition of human nations,” she said. “My husband does not know that I have this, and I would like to keep it that way.”
I picked up the letter and unfolded it, skimming it.
“They will be meeting, soon. On an island to the south, off the coasts,” she said. “I took this letter from one of the people who came here. The leaders will all be there, including those leading this mission.”
“Why didn’t you tell Ezra about this?” I asked, and for a moment, Athalena looked so overwhelmingly sad.
“My husband wears his smile with ease, but the death of our daughter has bled him dry. Even for the stone, it hurts to watch the garden wither.”
Ishqa’s gaze slipped away, ashamed.
“He didn’t want to accept the humans to begin with. I will bear that guilt for the rest of my life. But now, he is even more fearful of losing his family. I am, too, but I know that it will happen if we don’t take action. I want you to do it, even though I cannot.”
“And what do you expect us to do at this meeting?” Ashraia asked.
“I know that some wish for peace, not endless war. You could convince them, bargain with them. Broker a treaty. Right now, they see you as fauna, not people.”
For a woman who had appeared so reasonable, this seemed like the suggestion of an optimistic child.
But then her face hardened, rage rising in her eyes. “Or you can slaughter the leaders where they stand, and watch their headless armies fall apart.”
Killing the men who had done such terrible things did not seem like a bad idea at all.
Athalena stood. “All I ask is that Niraja remains protected. And that we remain out of this.” Pain rippled across her face. “We have already made such painful sacrifices. And I hope that no one, not Fey nor human, has to bear another.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Max
I felt as if I was watching myself from the outside.
When Tisaanah hit the ground, someone shouted — was it me? I watched myself scramble across the floor to her, stumbling over Zeryth’s body, slipping on his warm blood. I gathered her in my arms, feeling for a pulse, for a breath, for anything.
She didn’t respond.
I watched myself clutch this lifeless body, shout at it in increasing panic — Tisaanah, can you hear me, Tisaanah, open your eyes, Tisaanah, what were you fucking thinking, you insufferable woman, why did you do that — and a single thought solidified:
This is the end. The world will be different after this.
Because every time I thought of a future, it wore Tisaanah’s face. If she died, it would die with her.
Tisaanah did not move.
And then the world snapped back into focus.
No. I was not ready to let her go.
I scrambled for my ink and parchment, buried in my pocket. Unfolded it. Scrawled a Stratagram, somehow, with shaking hands, and held Tisaanah close as the world dissolved around us.
It was a bad land. A chair and a coffee table crashed to the floor where I had fallen on top of them. Several voices let out shrieks or horrified gasps — of course they did, because two bloody figures had just shown up in the middle of this seedy Meriata coffee shop.
“What is all of this Ascended-damned—”
Eomara threw back the curtain to the offices. Her eyes went round.
“Help me,” I ground out.
“Max, what in the—”
“Now, Eomara. Please.”
She looked at my panicked face, then the body in my arms.
“Get in here.”
There was a cacophony of crashes as Eomara unceremoniously cleared her desk with a burst of magic, then motioned for me to put Tisaanah there. Immediately, the dark mahogany was bright with blood, mine and Tisaanah’s and Zeryth’s all smeared together.
Distantly, I heard Erik utter a curse and some frantic question that blurred in the background, and Eomara snap at him to be quiet.
I could look at nothing but the stillness of Tisaanah’s chest.
“What happened? Is it— move, damn it, I can’t look at her if you insist on standing in my way.” Eomara leaned over Tisaanah, nudging me aside. Whatever she saw in Tisaanah’s face made her give me a grave glance.
“This is it, isn’t it? What you came here to talk about.”
Erik hovered nearby, one of Tisaanah’s wrists in his hand. “Oh, this doesn’t look good.”
“Enough, Erik. Max, is it?”
My mouth was so dry I could barely answer. “Tell me what I can do.”
Erik dropped Tisaanah’s wrist. “Ascended above, she’s dead.”
“Erik, enough!” When Eomara pushed up one of Tisaanah’s sleeves, her eyebrows lurched at the scars that now adorned the insides of her forearms.
“You said it would be an energy pit,” I said. “The curse. And Vardir said something about mixing our magic— that it would be possible to— to give her what it’s taking—”
She shook her head. “No. Not possible. It’ll kill both of you.”
“I don’t give two shits about what’s not possible, Eomara. And you don’t, either. That’s why I came here.”
Eomara gave me a long, hard look, her mouth thinned to a stern line. Her hand was still around Tisaanah’s wrist, thumb pressed to her pulse, a pulse that I knew was not beating, and every second that terrible silence went on, the farther away Tisaanah slipped.
We didn’t have time for uncertainty.
I opened my second eyelids, and power roared through me like sparks taking to a pile of kindling.
Erik cursed and leapt halfway across the room, and Eomara’s eyes went round.
/> “Maxantarius, what have you—”
“Don’t tell me what’s not possible, Eomara.”
After a slight hesitation, Eomara reached for my arm. I felt faint magic pulsing at her touch — her magic reaching out for mine, testing it, examining it.
When her gaze met mine again, the decision was made.
“The curse that’s taking her demands life itself,” she said. “Maybe… this magic you have can go deep enough to help displace that cost, but the cost will be fucking high, Max. I need you to understand that. We might not know exactly what you’re giving up for years. Decades, even.”
No hesitation. “I’ll do it.”
A certain softness flickered across Eomara’s face — perhaps pity. She gave me a sharp nod, then whirled back to the bookcases, rummaging through packed drawers. Then she shoved a small bottle of blue liquid into my hands. “Drink. All of it. It’ll either kill you or keep you alive.”
The stuff tasted like poison that someone had already pissed out and re-bottled. Two gulps in, and a shock of ice pierced my mind. Three gulps, and I could barely make my thoughts form a straight line. By the time I finished, the world was vibrating.
Eomara leaned over Tisaanah, pulling a knife from the desk. She opened a slit across Tisaanah’s palm.
“I wish you’d thought to bring your healer friend,” Eomara muttered. “That handsome one.”
Then she took my hand in hers, and pulled the dagger across my glowing skin. Even as I drew upon this magic, even as my body was coated with flames themselves, I still bled the same. My blood was bright red over flame-touched skin.
“Fascinating,” Eomara muttered. She picked up Tisaanah’s hand, too, so she held us both, and leveled a serious gaze at me.
“When you do this,” she said, “you could feed her your magic. Give her enough of it to grab onto and replenish what the curse is taking from her. That’s the theory. Or—”
I didn’t care about the or.
Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) Page 36