by L M R Clarke
Emmy took in heavy swallows of freshness, trying to quiet her hammering heart. The unsullied air caught in the back of her throat. If their saviors had been anyone but Althemerians, she might have had more joy. Unfortunately, that was not to be.
Alongside the captured Masvam ship was a long Althemerian rig, complete with flags streaming in the sea breeze. They bore the entwined serpents of the Althemerian gods. It was the same sigil found on the chests of their “liberators.” Emmy had seen it long before, struck onto the backs of foreign coins. Remembering Krodge’s words, the image didn’t fill her heart with joy.
Neither did the sight that greeted her when she looked at the deck.
Hewn bodies littered it, a garden of murder. Kelom was there, his insides spilling out, death’s scream on his face. Yamor’s head was at arm’s length from his body. Another commotion came from up the deck. Emmy and Charo followed the noise, pushing their way through the crowd.
It was Pesmam, struggling in the grip of his Althemerian captors.
He was brought before a striking female with dark skin and armor and sparkling green eyes. Her uniform was richly embroidered with serpents in greens and blues and silver. There was something about her that commanded attention. Charo and Emmy couldn’t look away. She wielded a heavy sword, and her arms were bedecked with hundreds of sparkling bracelets.
“As captain of this slave ship,” the Althemerian female said, her voice regal, “you have committed a grave crime. I, Princess Valaria of Althemer, condemn you to death for your wickedness, on the authority of my mother Queen Valentia and the balance of Ethay and Apago.”
Emmy and Charo looked at one another, sharing the same thought. A princess?
Pesmam’s struggle grew stronger as he was forced to his knees, but he was no match for his captors. The Althemerian princess, Valaria, raised her sword.
Pesmam was held in place. He had no final words. His last gesture was to spit at the princess’ feet.
The blade was sharp and swift. Pesmam’s body slumped to the deck of his ship, while his head was held aloft by the princess.
“So is the justice of the Twin Gods, and of the Queen of Althemer!” said Valaria. Then, all grandness gone, she handed her sword and Pesmam’s decapitated head off to an attendant. “Put that somewhere. I’ll need it later.”
“Yes, Princess.”
Pesmam’s headless corpse was tossed into the sea. The princess turned and disappeared. The atmosphere was one of unabated elation. Althemerian sailors brought supplies from their rig, taking charge of the Masvam ship. The injured were transported to the other vessel, the Althemerian sailors’ feet light on the planks slung between the ships. They have to take care of Zecha, Emmy thought. No matter what Charo said before, surely it was better to be a captive and alive than dead and free.
Regardless, she was certain he wouldn’t die.
Emmy thought of the coldness in her hands and the voice in her head. It was madness, but she couldn’t help but hope that she’d helped him somehow.
Despite her assurances that life was better than death, a niggling doubt was at the back of Emmy’s thoughts. Charo’s earlier words echoed back.
I’ve lived as a slave, and it’s no life at all.
Charo’s current words were tinged with the half-delirium that swept across the deck of the ship. “We’re free now. Once Zecha’s better, we can make our way back to Bellim, or what’s left of it. Or we could go somewhere else. Or—”
Emmy grabbed Charo and pulled her aside. She kept her hand clamped on Charo’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” Charo asked, her eyes searching Emmy’s face.
“I wouldn’t be so hasty.”
Emmy’s expression bore no joy, and Charo’s grew pained. “What do you mean?” she asked. “We’re free from the Masvams.”
“We’re free from one slaver,” Emmy said, gesturing at the flag of two twined serpents flapping in the breeze, “but we’ve been saved by the hand of another.”
Charo’s eyes went wide and glassy, and she shook Emmy’s hand from her shoulder.
“No,” she said. “They’ve saved us. They’re not slavers, not like the Valtat...”
Emmy chuckled, but the sound was dry.
“Don’t they know anything in the north?” she asked. “The Althemerians have saved us, but by their laws, we now owe them a debt. They’ll keep us until they decree that debt is repaid.” She choked out another laugh. “Don’t you see? We haven’t been given our freedom at all.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mantos
He tugged the hem of the bed shirt over his head and smoothed out its creases. For a moment, Mantos of House Tiboli stood in the middle of the strange chamber, listening to unfamiliar sounds. Far-off bells tolled in high towers. Ethereal chanting rose from the temple of Ethay and Apago, just like it had every other day since he’d awoken in this strange place. He clenched his fists, the skin tightening, growing pale. The rings he still wore were like jaws around his talons.
Mantos Tiboli had returned from the dead.
The last thing he remembered was standing in his mourning whites on the grand balcony, listening to the sound of anguished cries from below.
“The Emperor is dead!”
Candles blossomed in the courtyard. Long tendrils of light spilled out, winding around the city he called home.
Then he couldn’t breathe. He had fallen on one knee and felt the thread of his life grow tight.
Then there was nothing.
Now Mantos wore a stranger’s clothes, stood in an unknown chamber, and didn’t know if he was alive or dead or somewhere in-between.
He brought one hand up to the divot at the base of his throat, talons closing around the crossed lightning strikes and shield that were the symbol of his house. His name. His family.
He scoffed, pressing the pad of his thumb into the gold. The pendant was a symbol of what he used to have, and what his brother had sought to take from him. He should have wrenched the chain from his neck and cast the pendant into the fire. But he didn’t.
For some time, he remained on the woven carpet with his claws around the pendant, waiting.
For what?
Eventually, he released the chain and flexed his claws, rolled his shoulders, swept his tail back and forth. He felt the roughness of the weave beneath his feet and the coolness of the linen on his chest. He felt the breeze wafting in from the open window, bringing with it otherworldly chanting.
He had returned from the dead.
I wish I could remember something, he thought, drumming his toes on the ground. Every sensation was strange, as if he’d been encased in ice for a thousand cycles. The world felt off—a perception beyond being in a new place and wearing clothes that weren’t his own.
He was on Althemer. Fonbir was here, his beloved of so many cycles. Finally they stood on the same land, breathed the same sweet air. And when Fonbir snuck into Mantos’ chamber, his trusted guards standing watch at the door, they could be together. It was like a dream had come half-true.
Mantos rubbed his hands along the length of his arms. Only a half-truth because while they were together, it wasn’t what Mantos had dreamed of. It was strange, like an image in a warped plate. His ability to touch his beloved Nabi, the nickname reserved for Fonbir alone, shocked him like lightning. They could lie in each other’s arms, simply exist in one another’s company, but there was something else, something strange, that dwelt in Mantos’ chest, even as he stared into his lover’s strange white eyes.
It was a thought that made his blood run cold.
He had returned from the dead.
Mantos curled his toes into the rough mat and closed his eyes. Nothing made sense. No matter how he tried to wrap his mind around the thoughts that plagued him, he couldn’t shape them into any sense. He’d been dead, and was now alive. He’d been in the Masvam Empire, and was now on Althemer. He’d lost his life, but he couldn’t remember what came after. He couldn’t remember the Light.
<
br /> Perhaps there is no Light, he thought. Perhaps there’s nothing after death.
That thought frightened him to his bones.
Mantos walked to the window, pulled open the shutters, and stared into the courtyard. A great fountain rose from its center, and the sound of temple chanting drifted on the breeze. Althemer, the island of serpents with their two-headed god, maintained constant devotion with chants hour after hour, day after day. Everything in their architecture was a tribute to Ethay and Apago, with winding lines like a serpent’s body and twin symmetry everywhere. Mantos cast his gaze into every nook of the courtyard and shuddered. Being here didn’t feel real, yet it was. He rubbed his arms once more.
Another strange occurrence stunned Mantos, something he never thought possible. Especially not on Althemer, so far from home.
His mother was here.
The moment he met her eyes, Mantos’ heart had stopped. For his whole life, Phen of House Yru had been enclosed in a tower. He’d never seen her eyes so clear, her face so full of life—and terror. She was alive and well, dressed in strange clothing, talking to him. Touching him. Crying over him. Mantos shuddered. Nothing made sense.
He leaned out of the window, pressing his palms to the wide sill, and stared at the long drop below. So far he hadn’t been allowed to leave this chamber. Phen and Fonbir visited him, both always flanked by guards. There were more guards at his door, standing watch to ensure the Masvam prisoner did not escape. Mantos knew they didn’t know who he really was. It wasn’t the sort of information a wise leader shared with those who didn’t need to know. To them he was a prisoner: high-ranking, no doubt, but there was nothing to indicate he was a prince. An emperor, Mantos corrected himself.
Even servants were denied access to him. They left food at the door and didn’t enter for his slops.
“Queen’s orders,” the surly guards had said.
Those were the only words they spoke to him. And rightly so, Mantos thought. The guard shouldn’t consort with the prisoner. It was dangerous and foolhardy. Conversation slipped so easily, and information could be gleaned that the speaker never meant to share. A clever prisoner knew this. A clever prisoner would do anything to find a foothold to help spring his escape.
Mantos knew this well, and so did the guards. Thus they remained silent, not even looking him in the eye.
The only stranger to grace his presence was the creature of strange colors. The Stranger, they called her. Bomsoi. A magician. A life-giver. Blue and purple, what Mantos would call a Moon Rogue. When she visited him, she asked how he was, how he felt, was he well? Mantos responded in monotone. He was fine. He felt fine. Everything was fine.
It wasn’t, though. His waking moments were filled with contemplation. He thought of his death and the lack of Light. The lack of anything. Distressed, he tried to bury his musings by concentrating on feeling: the texture of the rug, his clothing, the gentle pass of his hands over his soft skin and the roughness of his armor scales.
The days were easier than the nights. In the darkness it was difficult to banish the brooding wonder of whether there was life after death, or whether the Light was real or not. Worst of all, his sleep was poisoned, filled with strange figures and faces—and white-hot agony.
When he dreamed, his body was torn in two. Fissures opened, pulling and stretching skin and muscle and bone until he was ripped apart. Nothing stopped it. The torture came night after night.
A reluctant weariness overcame him, and Mantos forced his body back to the bed’s soft embrace. He tucked an arm under his pillow and lay on his side, curling his tail between his legs. He breathed slowly, willing his mind to grant him a semblance of peace. He tried to think of anything but the terrible splitting, the tearing in two, the invasion of his body by something...
Then he was watching himself from afar: tiny, isolated, adrift on a sea of loneliness. Clanking surrounded him and unseen chains bound him, all undercut by a whine that rang in his chest. Then the figure spoke, and he knew it was not himself.
“Mantos! Mantos!” The creature turned in circles, calling out, whirling into nothingness. “Mantos!”
No matter how he tried, he couldn’t move forward. His arms and legs were leaden as he struggled and flailed.
There was no warning for what happened next.
A howl erupted from his throat as Mantos split from head to tail. It was like a hot knife slipped through him. All he knew was pain. Reality swirled as he screamed, desperately trying to put his body back together. The figure that wasn’t himself shuddered towards him. This time, it wasn’t crying out. It was grinning.
“Mantos, Mantos...”
Bandim!
And yet, it wasn’t. Something was strange, as if the creature was a reflection of his brother in an unpolished plate.
“Dear brother,” Bandim whispered. “I will find you...”
In a whirl of heat and dust the voice distorted, whining and stretching until Mantos could bear no more. He pressed his hands to his ears, chanting in vain protection.
“Stop! Stop!” he cried. “Leave me be! Leave me be!”
Uncountable hands were on his body, touching and grabbing and pulling him apart, and—
“Mantos, Mantos!”
He jerked upright, bed covers tumbling from his soaked skin. His eyes roved, trying to find the owner of the hands. When he caught Phen’s gaze and felt the softness of her skin, tears flowed. “Mother...”
Phen took him in her arms.
Mantos fell into the embrace. Before, his mother had been a pitiable figure, caged in the prison of her mind. She was someone his father never spoke of. She was the wretched waif in the Grieving Tower, someone he was forbidden to visit, though that never stopped him. But he never expected to look into her eyes and see recognition there.
Now she was here. Now she held him in her arms. She was real.
“Shh, shh,” Phen cooed. “It’s all right, my sweet. It was another dream. Another terrible dream.”
Memories of sleepless nights came back to him, a youngling wishing for his mother’s embrace, receiving nothing but cold air and silence. He had needed her. Needed her. But now she was with him, truly alive and well. And she held him as long as he needed.
He’d come back from the dead.
It was all too much.
When his tears abated at last, thunder rolled in the distance. Phen touched his face, brushing stray droplets with the tip of her thumb. She traced his armor.
“My son,” she whispered. “I can’t believe you’ve come back to me.”
Swallowing against his tight throat, Mantos mirrored her gesture. “I can’t believe you’ve come back to me,” he said. “All those cycles of secret visits... I never thought I would hear your voice.”
Phen kept her hand on his face. Thunder rolled again, growing closer.
“I’m here,” she said, her voice strained. “I wouldn’t have left you if I hadn’t been forced. But it was my life or yours. There was no choice to make. I had to keep you safe.”
There was a flash in the darkness, but Mantos didn’t flinch. His focus was entirely on his mother. His mother, who for his entire life had been a husk lingering on life’s periphery. Someone with two dead eyes and no voice.
Phen smoothed fronds from his face. “Tell me about your nightmares,” she said, her voice soft as silk. “Please, tell me.”
The words had a pleading edge. Mantos closed his eyes. The air grew heavy, as if the weight of absence fell with the coming storm. Where had she been for every other nightmare? Where were her words of comfort then? The moment of anger passed like a shadow. She’d been in a tower, half-dead to keep him alive.
“It was Bandim,” Mantos said, opening his eyes again. “He was taunting me. Threatening me. And he was...different. Changed. It was him, yet there was something more. Something dangerous and powerful.”
Phen clasped his claws. “He’s not who I expected him to be,” she said. “I never thought my younglings would try to harm me, y
et he did.”
As the words slipped out, Mantos’ eyeridges drew downward. “What did he do?”
He could see his mother curse her loose tongue. Regardless, she answered.
“He told me he would kill me,” she said. “For days, he visited me. Every time, he said he would throw me from the tower. He would say I flung myself out in grief for your father—and for you.” She gulped against Bandim’s bitterness. “I think he would have relished my death.”
A crack of lightning split the sky, bisecting the open window. Phen began to weep. The first drops of rain fell. Mantos brushed a talon under his mother’s eyes.
“My brother cannot understand the world beyond the reach of his own claws,” he said. “Bandim resented me from the day he understood why you were gone.”
Phen leaned into Mantos’ touch.
“I just wanted to save you,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to push him away. But I haven’t given up on him.” Hope shone in her eyes. “He’s sick in his mind, but surely he can be cured. He’s dabbled with the Dark, but surely he’ll return to the Light. Bomsoi brought you back to me, and you were dead. If she can do that, she can do anything.”
The memory of the nightmare and the darkness in his brother’s eyes cut like a knife. Unable to stop himself, Mantos shuddered. It was more than a mere dream. The feelings were visceral. Real.
“But at what cost?” he asked. “This strange power Bomsoi wields, and the power of the novice from cycles ago, it comes at a cost. First, it was your mind. This time, it’s my sleep.”
Phen squeezed his hands. “They’re just nightmares,” she said. “The feelings will pass.”
Mantos shook his head—a deliberate movement, left to right. “No, Mother,” he said. “They’re more than that.”
Phen loosened her grip and tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
Mantos extricated one hand and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm.
“There’s pain, Mother,” he said. “So much pain. When I dream, it’s as if I’m being ripped limb from limb. I can feel everything, every ripping muscle and cracking bone. My body is torn apart and Bandim taunts me.” His voice grew thick, but he beat back the tears. “These aren’t ordinary nightmares. Somehow it feels like the strange magic has bound me to Bandim. I’m not dreaming of him. He’s there in my mind.”