I reached for Tisaanah’s bleeding hand. I could have sworn I could feel her, even though as a Solarie, my magic wasn’t well-suited to such things. But I knew her. I had memorized the sound of her silent movements and all the thoughts she didn’t say.
This was her. She was still there.
Eomara let out a little gasp.
My gaze flicked down. My blood was a thread of crimson, now floating in the air of its own accord, like a thread suspended in water. And Tisaanah’s was, too, rising into the air and reaching for mine. For a split second, they dangled there, like two fissures about to collide.
And then I slammed my palm against Tisaanah’s, clutching her hand so tightly my knuckles went white—
And I didn’t let go.
Not even as I doubled over in pain. Not even as the room went blindingly hot and bright as my flames flared in a wild burst. Not even as my blood itself seemed to rebel against me, like some noxious poison was invading me and draining me all at once.
I didn’t let go.
Because through all of that, through the pain and the black that I could now see crawling up my skin, I felt it. Distant, and fading farther still, but unmistakable.
Her.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Tisaanah
Living as I did, one had to become comfortable with the possibility of death. I was so young when we fled Nyzerene. Don’t look, Tisaanah, my mother had told me as we ran, my face buried in her shoulder. Don’t look. And I didn’t.
If I had, what would I have seen? My home destroyed? Steel buried in flesh? Would I have seen my father’s body, or the dying that we left behind? Would I have understood death, then?
But my mother told me not to look, and I didn’t, and so it remained intangible for a little while longer. I was seven years old when that illusion of safety shattered. My mother told me, as she always did, not to wander too far from our village. But this time, I did not listen. So my friend and I crept away to explore. We came across an encampment of Threllian soldiers. It was dinnertime, so they were gathered around a fire. Their food was left lazily unguarded by their tents — there was fruit and meat, even blueberries, which I loved and had not had in nearly a year. We’d take it, we decided, utterly certain in our quickness and cleverness. How many times, after all, had we played this game of theft with each other? That’s all it was to us. A game.
We crept from beyond the rock and stole one piece of meat, then two. I was the one that got greedy — I was the one who wanted the blueberries. So we lingered, just a little longer than we should have. The soldiers saw us, and we ran, the game suddenly real. I ran so fast that by the time I got to the encampment, my legs could barely carry me. I made it all the way to my own mother’s embrace before I realized that my friend’s mother stood alone, her arms outstretched for a child that would not come back.
Her scream was cut short by her own hand clamped over her mouth — even in such grief, she understood that we couldn’t be heard. We needed to move the encampment that night, swiftly. I was tucked safely into bed the next night when some of the men went back to see if there were remains or if the child had been taken. My friend, apparently, had not been worth the trouble. I remember the shape of his shadow-wrapped little body as I peered from the slit in the tent, and a cold truth settled over me.
A shadow stood beside me, and for the first time, I saw its face. All along, it had been matching my steps. I just hadn’t been looking.
Never again. From then on, I stared death in the eye.
So I thought that when this moment came, I would not be afraid.
Foolish of me. I was afraid. I was terrified.
My last thought, before the noose of Zeryth’s curse tightened around my throat, was a wild frustration. There was still so much — so much that I needed to do. I saw that little girl in the back of a cart, and all the other little girls just like her, chained, gagged. I saw Serel’s smile, and all the smiles just like it that would be snuffed out forever. I saw a thousand mothers with empty, outstretched arms.
There was so much I needed to do.
And there was so much I wanted. Gods, how I wanted. Max’s embrace, his sarcastic laugh, that sidelong glance that I always knew was meant only for me. The sun on my face, the taste of raspberries on my lips, a silly joke that was barely funny. And my life would end like this, right in the middle of a sentence, right in the middle of a word, a half-stroked letter.
I saw my hands in the golden grass of the Nyzrenese plains.
Backwards. Again.
I heard Reshaye’s whisper:
{You do not wish to go.}
“I don’t,” I whispered.
{Why? The world has been nothing but cruel to you.}
Yes. But now, in my final seconds, I didn’t think of Esmaris. I didn’t think of the slavers who had taken my mother away, or the soldiers who had killed my friend all those years ago, or Zeryth. I thought only of all the love I had for everything I was leaving behind, spilling out like nectar wine running over the edge of a cup, with nowhere left to go.
I thought of what Sammerin had told me, sitting in that cafe weeks ago, smoke rolling from his lips.
“Because my love is stronger than the pain,” I murmured. “Because it’s worth it. Always worth it. And I didn’t have enough time.”
Maybe there would have never been enough.
The thread finished unraveling. The pain lit me up like flames. Within them, I saw Max’s face. Gods, I hoped this wouldn’t kill him. He had so much left to do.
The thread kept pulling, dragging me into the darkness, and it didn’t matter if I was ready or not — this was death.
I closed my eyes.
But something stopped me, like a hand grabbing onto mine.
I blinked. A face appeared before me — a face I could almost, but not quite, see, as if my eyes couldn’t grab onto its edges. And yet, I recognized it.
Reshaye’s face was more real, more human, than I had ever seen it before. I could almost make out the color of its eyes. Violet.
{I do not understand,} it said. {I have never understood any of it. I was always searching. I do not have what you do, or feel what you feel. But I have had time. More of it than I have ever desired.}
I was fading. Reshaye’s words floated into the air like smoke. The only thing tethering me to the world was its grasp.
Far away, I became aware of a familiar presence stretching toward me — a presence that I would recognize anywhere. A thread of magic that ran as deep as mine, and diving deeper still, reaching for me.
Max.
My heart leapt. But he was too far away. Too far to get here before death did.
Reshaye, I knew, felt it too. Its grip tightened around me.
{Always, I was searching for something,} it said. {I never knew what. But perhaps I would have found it if I had not been so quick to take time from others.}
I saw Max’s family, their faces twisted in confused terror. I felt Max’s grief in the time after. And I felt Reshaye’s confusion and regret, stretching between us like a sea.
{The curse demands a life. I do not know if this thing that I have is a life at all. But if it is, I give it. I give it for yours.}
I was almost gone. But whatever was left of me recoiled in surprise.
Reshaye pulled me closer. Perhaps it smiled.
{You promised me death.}
A promise I had always intended to fulfill.
“Why?” I choked out. “Why did you choose me?”
{Choose? Is it a choice, for a warm body to search for shelter from the storm? You are so many pieces. I have seen so many others, the space between their fragments filled with ice or iron, so hard they can pretend they are not broken at all. But you…}
Its fingers reached deeper, caressing my mind as if in a final farewell.
{What a perfect shape,} it murmured, {for a lost soul.}
And we were out of time.
{Goodbye, Tisaanah.}
“Goodbye, Reshay
e,” I whispered.
It happened fast. With the last of my strength, I drew my magic across the threads that connected Reshaye to me like a razor, slicing it from me. In the same moment, I felt Reshaye release me — felt it throw itself towards the ravenous pit.
All while the thread of light consumed me, and the draining magic released me, and suddenly, life came roaring back.
The air hit my lungs so hard it felt like a brick had been thrown onto my chest. My eyes flew open. My blood went rushing back into my veins.
I was in an unfamiliar room, lying on a cluttered table. But my eyes fell only to the person beside me, his hand clutched around mine. I did not look at our bloody hands, or our skin, which had turned black and rotted, dark veins reaching nearly to our elbows.
I looked only at Max, who was leaning over me, eyes open and dark and wet with tears. His second eyelids slid closed, and his magic withered away, and we fell upon each other, his forehead pressed to mine — weak with exhaustion and delirious relief at the way our pulses felt pressed against each other, beating the steady, miraculous song of a second chance.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Aefe
We would, of course, go to the meeting. That had been decided quickly. This was, after all, exactly the sort of information that I was hoping that we would gain here. Now we knew the motive behind the humans’ sudden aggression, and had a possible path forward for how we might meet it in kind.
But an important question still remained. We would go. But what would we do once we got there?
I hated the idea of negotiating with these people — hated it down to my bones. I wanted blood for what they had done.
And yet…
Killing their leaders, surely, would not avoid another war. Others would rise up to take their place. It seemed equally likely that we would find ourselves on the opposite end of a vengeance as we would find ourselves facing a scattered army that collapsed without leadership.
And even with that aside… would we be able to win such a battle? The five of us, against who-knew-how-many humans, with who-knew-what-kind-of power?
“We will crush them,” Ashraia said, after long hours of discussion wound in circles. “I do not understand why this is a debate. What else is there to do with a group who has done such things?”
“If we do that,” Caduan murmured, “we’ll only be instigating another war. Right now, we’re incidental to them. If we do that, we become their enemy.” His thumb was tracing the curve of his lower lip, eyes lost in thought.
“I would think that you of all people would be ready to slaughter them,” Siobhan said.
“I want to win more than I want revenge.”
“Noble thought,” Ishqa said. He went to the window, face hard. “But soon, I fear, we will have lost so much that the two will become the same. There will be no revenge without victory, and no victory will be meaningful without revenge. And that is a dark, dark place to be.”
After so many hours of discussion, it soon became clear that we would not reach a conclusion that night. We retired, but I didn’t even bother trying to sleep. My mind was too loud. Instead, I slipped out into the streets of Niraja.
The liveliness that made the city so beautiful persisted even in the middle of the night. It was too late for even the latest of night owls, and not yet close enough to dawn for the earliest of risers. Still, the birds chirped persistent, mournful songs, and the wind through the ivy sounded like breathing.
It seemed strange to think that this place was thought of by so many as dangerous and sinful. It was beautiful. I paused at a blossom growing on the vines. I thought I had seen the same one earlier that day, then closed up as if sleeping. Now, it was wide open, cerulean blue petals so bright they seemed to glow beneath the moonlight. I brushed its petals and thought of what Ishqa had said of the people here — that they were born already dying.
The blossom would be gone tomorrow. But did that make it any less beautiful?
Behind me, a twig snapped.
My awareness narrowed to the sound. This was the third time I had heard it. The first two, I had dismissed as the wind.
Not anymore. I was being followed.
Slowly, I turned. There was no one behind me, nothing but moonlight-dipped cobblestones and ivy-covered garden walls.
I was still wearing Wyshraj clothing, wrapped in swaths of chiffon. But now my hands were around my blades, which I had carefully hidden in the gathered fabric at my hips. As soon as I withdrew them, I felt a warm voice in my ear.
“I know those blades.”
I was surrounded by rolling smoke. I leapt back and whirled around, bearing my blades, pressing the tip of one beneath the throat of my attacker.
There, with my steel pressed at his jaw, was Orin. He looked utterly unmoved by the weapon at his throat and lifted his chin, peering down at me. A single drop of violet rolled down his throat.
So I hadn’t been imagining things. He had been watching me at dinner.
“Why are you following me?” I snarled.
His stare sparked with anger. It came on quickly, oddly familiar, in a way I couldn’t place.
“Get the knife off of me. I don’t give answers to people who are threatening me. Nor spies who lie to me, and my kingdom, about who they really are.”
It was only then that I realized what I had done. I wielded black obsidian blades — there was no weapon more obviously Sidnee, or more clearly not Wyshraj.
Slowly, I lowered my blade, though still remained ready to strike.
Orin took two long steps back, wiping away the drop of blood on his throat and frowning down at his fingers. Then his gaze lifted to me, lingering at my weapons, and then traveling slowly up to my face.
It was strange, to be looked at that way. It wasn’t lecherous. But it was… thorough.
“You are a Sidnee,” he said.
I cringed.
“The blades were only a gift.”
“Because the Sidnee are so known for giving gifts to the Wyshraj.”
“It was—”
But he looked as if he barely heard my argument. “You are Sareid’s daughter,” he said, quietly, “aren’t you? You so resemble her.”
Shock careened through me. “What?”
“Why are you here?” He stepped forward, and I thrust my blade up.
“How do you know my mother?”
He froze, raising his hands.
“She never spoke to you, then,” he said, at last. “About her time here.”
Her time here?
I nearly dropped my blades.
“What are you talking about?”
“Would you put down the blades first, please?”
I wasn’t about to stand here unarmed in front of a magic speaker who had just learned I was his sworn enemy — and whatever else. Orin sighed, muttered something beneath his breath, and lifted his hands. A burst of smoke furled around me, and the next thing I knew, my blades were clattering to the ground and skidding halfway down the pathway. On instinct, I almost lunged after them, but Orin shook his head.
“Not necessary,” he said. “I don’t have any intention of hurting you. Do me the honor of a conversation without weapons between us. Please.”
I didn’t like that idea at all. But what choice did I have? I scowled and turned back to him, making a show of dropping my empty hands.
“No weapons,” I said, sweetly.
He almost smiled. “Thank you.”
“How do you know my mother?” I asked, yet again.
“First, I need to know what a Sidnee Blade is doing here. With Wyshraj, no less.”
“It was an innocent deception,” I said. “Everything else we have told you is the truth. The Sidnee and the Wyshraj have forged an alliance to investigate and fight the human threat. But considering the history of the Sidnee and Nirajans…” I cleared my throat, resisting the uncomfortable instinct to check if my tattoos were still hidden. “We thought you would not welcome Sidnee.”
“
An alliance?” Orin let out a bitter scoff, muttering as if to himself. “The Teirna of the House of Obsidian forming an alliance. We shall see how that turns out.”
I was growing impatient. “And what about—”
“Your mother.” Orin’s lips thinned. “Sareid was a childhood friend of mine. Long ago. And she lived here, for a time.”
My mouth fell open. Orin said this statement — this ridiculous statement — so simply, as if it were some unremarkable fact.
“She did not,” I said, before I could stop myself, and Orin’s brows lurched.
“Yes,” he said. “She did.”
No. Absolutely not. There must be some mistake. He had to be talking about a different Sareid, because my mother — my graceful, half-mad mother — could not possibly have lived in Niraja, of all places.
I started to shake my head.
“Sareid did not agree with the exile that was handed down to Niraja,” he said. “She did not agree with many positions in the House of Obsidian. She fought them for a long time, but then she got tired of fighting. So, she came here.”
“She couldn’t,” I rasped. “She was a Teirness. She wouldn’t leave.”
“She did indeed. She could have made the House of Obsidian a whole new kingdom, if she wanted. Perhaps one that coexisted with… all of this.”
He gestured out, towards the Nirajan skyline, but I shook my head.
“She wouldn’t do that.”
Orin gave me a curious look, a hint of sadness on his face. “Tell me,” he said, softly, “how is Sareid now? Is she someone who truly seems so at-odds with what I’m telling you?”
“Yes” wasn’t a strong enough word. “She wouldn’t do that,” I said again, and that response seemed to make that sadness wrench deeper into the lines of his expression.
“Sareid was nothing less than visionary, Aefe. She had such dreams for what the House of Obsidian could be for so many people. I’d never— I still have never known anyone as…” Words seemed to elude him, and yet, his eyes had gone far away, as if so lost in memory that they seemed insignificant.
Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) Page 37