He laced his fingers together and set his clasped hands between his knees. “Ollianna will try to take your Lila friend. And the witches, despite your agreement with them, will eventually turn on you, which Maks can handle. Which leaves you facing the falak alone.”
Well.
That did not sound like a party I wanted to go to. “And if you’re wrong?”
He shrugged. “Then, of course, the three of you can tackle the falak together.” His eyes were sad.
I stared hard at him, wanting nothing more than to shake him. “And why should I believe any of this?”
“Because despite our rather rocky history, you do indeed remind me of the one child that I loved beyond measure. I chased her from my home to keep her safe from the darkness in me, and Ishtar tried to corrupt her as punishment. Her own mother didn’t want her because she was a reminder that she’d loved a man she should have hated. Through it all, her heart—your mother’s heart—was true, she was . . . she was a good person.” He looked at me with such sadness in his eyes that I wanted to believe him. “I couldn’t save her. Maybe I can help keep you alive, something she would have wanted.”
Again, my jaw wanted to drop. Not because of his nice words, but because they were so out of line with so much of what I’d dealt with. The urge to take his hand flowed over me.
The hand that had rested on Balder’s side.
I put down my knife and held my hand out to him, not knowing what I was doing, not really.
Goddess of the desert, Balder had given me a gift.
And I was about to use it.
32
The dark of the night held as I stood in front of my grandfather, thinking that this was a turning point for us. Knowing Lila and Maks weren’t far back at camp helped me center myself.
“I believe you,” I said as I took the Emperor’s hand. His eyes shot to mine, shock filling them, but I didn’t let him speak as I gripped him tighter, pulling him close enough that I could see the shadows under his eyes. “I believe that your mind has split. I believe that you think you are the only one to stop the falak. I believe that you think you can take Ollianna.”
There was only the slightest flicker in his eyes, like a partial blink that he couldn’t quite control, or a flinch around them. Like he thought he had me. I put my other hand over top of the first, pressing into his flesh. “I believe you loved my mother.”
He closed his eyes. “I did. So much.”
“I believe you believe all of this. But I see you for who you are,” I said, digging my nails into his flesh, pinning him to me. “I see you for the monster you’ve become. That you will turn on me and mine when we are injured and open to being killed easily.”
The Emperor’s eyes flew open and he tried to drag his hands back, but I dug my fingers in. “You won’t beat them without me!” he growled.
“That is what you believe.” My voice was strangely calm as the new gift Balder had given me flowed through my body, the image of the flail thrumming in my veins. “I believe we will win.”
A pulse of energy tried to roll out of him, like a shock wave to blast me back. I saw it as if it were a living weapon and I sidestepped it.
He reached for the weapon strapped to his back, then his arm slumped, and he held it trembling at his side. “Take the flail and kill me quickly. I can’t hold that other side of me back. He would have turned on you mid-battle. He would have tried to rule with Ollianna and take control of the falak. Do it quickly, for the world depends on you now, guardian of the desert.”
I reached across him and took the flail from his back. The handle warmed to me and I stared down at him.
“You knew it would come down to this, didn’t you?”
“Suspected,” he whispered. “I suspected.”
I held the flail out, the spiked balls hanging toward his hands. He lifted one palm and cupped the side of the flail without so much as a whimper.
“Take it all,” I whispered, and the power of the Emperor coursed through his body and into the flail. He fought it, three heartbeats in.
The Emperor tried to yank himself away, but the flail dug in, and I held fast to the handle. “Drink him down, all of him!”
The flail shivered and pulsed, the twin balls glowing with a soft silvery light as they swallowed down not only his magic, but his life.
And it was then that I considered what had made him mad. What had turned him into a monster.
The magic.
“Only the magic!” I yelled. “Only the magic, Marsum!”
His body bent backward, his one hand still holding the flail, gripping it, blood dripping from his flesh.
Still trying to save the monster, huh? Marsum’s voice was thick with amusement. We aren’t all redeemable. But maybe this one . . .
The flail pulsed twice more and then slid away from the Emperor’s palm with a wet sucking noise.
I took a few steps back, so that I was ready to swing the weapon if I needed to. “Marsum, you took it all?”
Every last drop. It won’t save him, you know. It will only give him a measure of sanity before his death.
I lowered the weapon as my grandfather sat up, his eyes confused as he touched his head. “Then a moment of sanity is what he’ll get. At the very least, he can explain himself.”
Shax turned to me, and yes, in that look between us, I saw him for the first time. Just as a man, not an Emperor, and not a mage.
“How am I still alive?” He held out his hands and turned them over. “Or did you already face Ollianna and the falak and die?”
I snorted. “You are alive. You have no magic. For all intents and purposes, you are a human.”
His face paled, and in the darkness, it was obvious this was not the answer he’d been looking for. “I am . . . powerless?”
“Yes.” I sighed. “It was all I could do.”
“You could have killed me,” he pointed out as he pushed to his feet.
“Well, seeing as I just watched my grandmother die—crazy ass that she was—I didn’t feel like repeating the move twice in one day. Okay?” I didn’t move from where I was, unsure if I wanted to lead him back to the camp, unsure of just what to do with him.
He frowned and scrubbed a hand over his face. “She was before Ishtar. When I’d been powerful, but not the Emperor.”
“Did you really love her? Or my mother?”
His smile was more than a little pained. “Your mother I loved to the moon and the stars. Your grandmother, I . . . I loved her the best I could at the time. I have not been a good man. You know that, I’m sure.”
I snorted but let him go on.
He ran a hand over his head. “Ishtar wanted a child of power. That was why she made me her mate. And I believed her when she said we’d be more powerful together. She gifted me with ability after ability, and they made me dangerous, deadly, and worse, they started to break my mind.” His eyes skimmed over me. “Sometimes those gifts came for what seemed like all the right reasons. To keep people I loved safe. To keep those I was to protect safe. But that power in me kept growing and growing. And then it was too much, and I could no longer contain it all.” He sighed and closed his eyes, squinting as if the memories hurt him.
We stood across from each other and I didn’t know what to say. He was no longer the Emperor. The falak was out there waiting, as was Ollianna.
“You should probably go,” I said. “There’s nothing you can do to help now, and if you try, you’ll likely get killed.”
Shax sighed and shook his head. “Powerless is not something I’m sure I know how to be.”
“Just stay out of the way tomorrow,” I said, not unkindly, then turned and walked away.
A mile walk passed by far quicker than I wanted it to, and when I finally found my way back to the campsite, Maks and Lila were both wide awake and waiting for me.
“So,” Lila cleared her throat. “You want to tell us what happened out there?”
I looked from one to the other and then took n
ote of where they were looking. Reaching up, I touched the handle of the flail. “He’s dealt with.”
I had no doubt the Emperor had come early to set up a trap for me, Maks, and Lila. No doubt this would give us a better chance.
I went to Maks and leaned into him, pulling him into a hug. Lila flew up and I pulled her in between us. “Everything in me wants to leave you two behind, to make sure you’re both safe,” I said softly.
Lila opened her mouth and I shushed her. “But that’s not how it works with us, not anymore. Where I go, you go, and where you go, I go.”
Maks kissed my forehead. “So glad you finally realize that.”
A smiled ghosted its way across my lips. “Which means we are going in tonight, undercover. It will give us a better chance. All three of us are small enough, and I know the way.”
Maks tightened his hold on me and then gently let me go. “You have a plan?”
I nodded. “The witches will keep Ollianna busy, giving us time to kill the falak.”
That was the deal I’d made with them. Of course, Etheral thought we were going to let her keep the emerald dragon’s stone once Ollianna was dealt with.
Balder butted me with his nose and I circled an arm around his head. “Unless you can shift, you aren’t in this battle, my friend. Stay here with Batman.”
He snorted and bobbed his head, and an image floated through my mind of him and me facing Ishtar together, a sandstorm billowing around us. Chills flickered up and down my arms making the hair stand on end. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
I kissed him on the nose, stepped back and shifted to four legs. Four very small legs. Lila swept down to the ground beside me and trotted along the cliff edge. Maks was on my other side and kept pace easily as a caracal.
“You know,” Lila said, “it’s pretty here. Maybe we could come back sometime.”
She wasn’t wrong, the scenery was stunning, and I really had barely noticed it with all that we’d been dealing with. The sound of the ocean waves washing up over the beach, the cries of the sea birds as they settled in for the night, salty crisp air and a hint of magic in every breath I took. Pretty, and I could understand why Ollianna had come here to birth her little monster.
I took the lead, hurrying, finding a way down the side of the cliff, using ledges that switchbacked. Where we got stuck, Lila helped out, lifting us down one at a time.
There was no banter between us like normal going into a fight. No last Shakespeare quip.
Too much was riding on this fight, and we needed it to be over quickly.
I took us into the castle built into the cliffs through an upper window. I hopped through, and they followed, silent. Maks’s tufted ears swiveled and then he nodded.
All clear. Again, I led, finding my way through the huge structure easily. It was exactly as I remembered from the dreamscape. I had to ask Shax when I saw him next if him breaking free of the prison had broken the dreamscape, or something else.
Something like the birth of the falak.
I shivered, sniffed the air and then flattened myself against the wall. Lila and Maks did the same, hiding in the deep shadows as a trio of witches hurried across our paths. If they’d been looking for us, they would have found us easily, but their heads were down and bunched together and their voices were thick with worry.
“Does she really think to take on the Emperor? How can she?”
“We have to be ready for anything.”
“But if Etheral—”
That was all we heard and then they were gone. I waited for a solid minute before I bobbed my head and started out again, navigating our way to the bottom level of the castle. There, I turned and took us away from Ollianna’s sanctuary, sniffing the air as I sought out another witch.
I found her in a communal room with four other witches. Stopping at the doorway, keeping Maks and Lila behind me, I let out a yowl that made the women jump. But not Etheral. Her eyes found me, and she gave a slow nod. “Daughters. We welcome a new child this night. Let us go and celebrate with our young queen.”
The other witches startled and then slowly nodded, smiles on their faces that were not smiles really but the mere baring of teeth. Feral. Wild.
Deadly.
Etheral turned, her long green skirt flaring. The other witches were already turned, and I hurried forward, setting myself right behind Etheral who motioned for the others to precede her.
Lila and Maks were at my side in a flash.
Etheral made a movement with her hand and a light spell settled around us. “They cannot hear us speaking now. Where is the Emperor?”
“He sent us in first,” I said, barely above a whisper. “I have the flail and Ollianna will not expect us tonight.”
“She does not expect you at all,” Etheral drawled. “She announced your death yesterday at the hands of the Emperor.”
“I’m a cat,” I said. “I’ve got a few lives left in me.”
The witch laughed. “Well then, try to use this one to kill the child. It is growing already. There is little time.”
“Does it look . . .”
“Like a monster? No, it does not.” She sighed. “Already her beauty makes eyes tear up, and she charms all those who see her. They cannot see through her.”
I swallowed hard. “You saw through her? To what she really is?”
Her eyes were wide, dilated, as though she were hunting. “I did. She is monstrous to look at, cat, and more than that, she is hungry for this world and all it holds. I can see it in her face, even while she tried to coo at me, tries to make me believe she is not to be feared.”
She was also technically a cousin of mine, family. Fuck me upside down and sideways, this was not going to be easy, even if the child was easy to kill. I had to remember what Maks had told me, what his memories had given us in terms of understanding the falak’s nature.
We paused at the top of the stairs that led to Ollianna’s sanctuary.
“Why is it always the deep dark shithole?” Lila muttered as we stood at the spiraling stairs that would take us into the belly of the castle.
“Because that’s where the monsters live,” Maks said softly. “In the deep dark shitholes.”
I hurried down the steps after Etheral and her witches. Five witches to hold Ollianna, five who hadn’t been charmed by the child.
My jaw ticked, and the adrenaline coursed faster as we drew closer to the bottom.
The stairs suddenly stopped and I kept tight to the wide skirts of Etheral, using her as our shadow to stay hidden from the eyes we were dodging. I motioned for Maks and Lila to stay to the wall by the stairs where the dark was thickest.
“Ah, Ollianna, you look tired, child,” Etheral said as she swept forward. I stayed with her, Maks and Lila guarding our rear. I had no doubt that more witches would come when Ollianna realized it was an attack.
Maks had the amber stone, that would help, and though Lila had refused the sapphire stone as I’d known she would, she had Trick’s ability with lightning. That would be a surprise for them.
I reached for the bonds between the three of us, and tightened them, pouring my love for the two of them into it. Because Ollianna would try to take Lila from us, of that, I had no doubt.
“Mother, I thought you would never come to see me,” Ollianna said softly.
Etheral stopped moving and to my left was a child’s bed. A soft coo rolled out of it. The gurgle of a child far older than a few hours.
“You are my daughter, and I will always do what I can to provide and care for you,” she said and leaned forward, blocking Ollianna’s view of the cradle.
This was my moment.
I leapt up and over the edge, landing quietly within the bed in a crouch, unseen by any but the child who stared at me with huge eyes. Eyes of silver and gold, jewel eyes. An angel child fallen from the stars above could not have been more beautiful and I understood that no one could stand against her.
Except that I could see that she was no beautiful ch
ild.
Her image wavered, that child of the stars morphed into a coiled serpent with scales of dark gray and brown flecked with green. The eyes were the same, but the mouth was no perfect cupid’s bow, worthy of a thousand kisses. The falak’s mouth opened and four tongues shot out toward me, one wrapping around each leg, yanking me close.
There was a pull on my energy, and I shook my head. A weak pull, barely enough to do anything to harm me. I opened myself to the flail’s power and reversed the flow, such a simple trick, and one that the child was too young to understand. Or too new.
Or so I thought.
A soft mewl escaped her mouth, the tongues tried to loosen, but I held on. This was not going to be the fight of fights the Emperor had made it out to be. It was not the fight that Merlin or anyone made it out to be. Hell, did Ollianna understand how weak her child was?
She’d believed her child would be a superpower too—we all had.
Yet, it looked like . . . that was just another lie. But why? What was the reason behind making the falak a monster that everyone feared, that everyone wanted to kill or maim? What could it possibly be?
Even as I thought that, the energy exchange equalized. She wasn’t trying to eat me.
Images flickered through my mind, the way they did with Balder, and I recognized the falak’s attempt to communicate with me, even as I drained its life away.
The desire to sleep, the desire to not be afraid, and she was always afraid. Afraid of the Emperor. And afraid of another—the one behind the Emperor.
He’d killed his friends first and then he’d killed her, the falak. She was not a monstrous, oversized demon, but he’d killed her because he’d been afraid of what others would realize.
She was the balance.
Light and dark.
Good and evil.
She was knowledge incarnate.
Not the devourer of all that we cared for, not the destroyer of the world.
She brought the understanding of the past that other oracles wouldn’t give or didn’t understand. The falak understood it all, held all the knowledge, and that was why she was feared.
The best I could wrap my brain around was that she was like a library of the universe encased in a single body when she was reborn. A form of a goddess that was neither evil nor good nor chaotic. The falak, just was. And that in itself was dangerous. Want to know how to end the Emperor’s reign? Consult the falak.
Emperor’s Throne: Desert Cursed Series, Book 6 Page 23