For a moment I was tempted to leave him there. But my oath came back to haunt me. First, do no harm…
“You help Prince Morbain,” I told the last guard who was staggering by now. “And then all of you get out and seek medical attention. Now!”
I rushed out the door as I finished delivering my last order and went to crouch beside Kristoff, who was laid out, still face down, on the ground. Doloroso, his other hand now a pulpy red mess, was being dragged away screaming and swearing and bleeding profusely everywhere.
I paid him absolutely no attention. Instead I knelt by Kristoff and motioned to the guards, who were at the end of their strength.
“Turn him over, please.”
I tried to keep my voice calm and collected but I could hear the edge of hysteria threatening to take over, just under the surface.
No, I told myself. No, I have to keep control. I have to do this—have to save Kristoff. I can’t do that if I lose my head. Keep it together, Charlotte!
“I’m here, your Majesty! I brought my kit!”
I looked up to see the young female Majoran doctor rushing to my side.
“Oh, thank goodness!” I held out a hand to her—it happened to be the one with Doloroso’s still glued to it.
She recoiled. “Your Majesty—what—?”
“It’s glued on,” I said quickly. “It’s not important right now. I mean it’s awful, but what matters is Kristoff. He just fell on a bomb to save me. Help me!”
“Right away, your Majesty!” She knelt beside me, her long blue hair pulled back in a hasty ponytail at the nape of her neck, her long white robe getting dirty, though she didn’t seem to notice or care.
At the end of their strength, the guards turned Kristoff over and I saw…nothing.
His face was slack and unresponsive but though the center of his golden breastplate was splattered with blood, the metal wasn’t broken or corroded in any way.
“Oh, thank God,” I whispered. “He must just be unconscious.”
But when I looked at the Majoran doctor, she had a grim expression on her pretty features.
“You say he fell on a bomb, your Majesty?”
“Yes,” I said. “It was…one of the guards called it some kind of…um…”
“A nano-lacerater, your Majesty,” one of the guards who had helped drag Kristoff out said in a hoarse voice. “Nasty piece of work, those are.”
“Help me get his breastplate off,” the Majoran doctor snapped.
“I know how it works!” I tried to help but Doloroso’s disembodied hand, still glued to mine, impeded my progress.
“Here, your Majesty.” Reaching into her kit, the doctor took out a small aerosol can, like the one Doloroso had used in the first place, and sprayed it to the place where my hand was gripped by the dead one. It slid off at once, as though she’d greased my hand with baby oil.
“Thank you!” I shoved the awful thing away and wiped my slippery hand on my rich gold gown, heedless of the bloody smear I left on the priceless fabric. It was good to be free of the damn thing—I felt a momentary sense of relief, quickly quenched when I looked at Kristoff’s slack face.
“Hurry!” Quickly I helped the doctor lift the heavy top of the golden breastplate. It felt like I was having a flashback to the first time I had ever seen Kristoff, when he lay on the ER gurney, out cold after delivering his strange message. But I hadn’t known then what he would mean to me—hadn’t loved him so much it felt my heart might break trying to contain all the emotion I felt for him.
“There. That’s their entry point.”
The Majoran doctor was pointing to a bloody, ragged hole in the white undershirt garment that Kristoff wore under his breastplate.
“What entry point? What are you talking about? How could anything get in? His breastplate was fine! There wasn’t a crack in it.” I protested, hearing that edge of hysteria in my voice again.
But I couldn’t help remembering how it had been fine before, too, back on Earth when the nanos had gotten to him. Then he had needed a transfusion of my blood to make it through—here I didn’t have any ready to go. No pre-drawn bags to hang. What was I going to do?
“A bomb like this is filled with lacerating nanobots,” the doctor explained. “They’re small enough to go through almost any substance without harming it. And they do—because they’re programmed to wait until they find flesh to start doing damage. Once they start, well…” Grabbing the ragged edges of the hole in Kristoff’s blood-splattered white shirt, she ripped it completely apart, baring his chest.
A sound like a strangled gasp was torn from my throat. There was a hole in Kristoff’s chest—a hole that went all the way down to where his heart should be.
I say should be because it wasn’t there.
I’d seen enough patients lying open on the OR table to know what someone’s insides should look like. I knew the cardiac muscle with its elegant, fleshy curves. Your heart is as big as your fist so Kristoff’s should have been large and visible but there was nothing.
Nothing but a bloody hole and a mass of mangled flesh.
A blood transfusion wouldn’t save him this time. Not even if I gave him every drop in my body—which I gladly would have done. It was too late.
“I’m so sorry, your Majesty,” the doctor said in a quiet voice. “But this…is not fixable. Not even with the latest technology. The nanobots must have been programmed to target the heart.”
“I…I know,” I said numbly. “I can see that.”
“He performed his duty to the last, your Majesty.” The doctor took my hand and squeezed it hard. I wished absently that I knew her name. “He took the blast that was meant for you. And he probably saved everyone in the palace. If the bomb had gone wild, it could have penetrated the barrier which guards the door to the Garden of Death. The whole palace would have been flooded with poisonous gas—tens of thousands who live and work here would have died.”
I knew she was trying to make me feel better—to see what a hero Kristoff was. But all I could think was that it was all my fault. That if I hadn’t turned out to be the Goddess-Empress and he hadn’t come to save and protect me, he would still be safe.
He would still be alive.
“It should have been me,” I whispered. And then the tears came pouring down my cheeks. Hot and wet and so painful I felt like my own heart was shredding in my chest as they came. Gone, he was gone and it was all because of me!
“He’s gone,” I heard a familiar voice say, echoing my words.
“Truly? A pity. He was a good guard. Sundalla the 999th’s favorite, by all accounts.”
“Well, at least this leaves the True Incarnation free to form another bond,” the first voice said. “It’s all to the best—much less trouble this way.”
I looked up and saw who was talking. Head Councilor Tannus stood by, watching my agony with smug satisfaction. Beside him was Doctor Churika, a neutral expression on her face. If she was sorry for the awful death Kristoff had suffered on my behalf, her demeanor certainly didn’t show it.
Rage suddenly filled me at their callus unconcern and at Tannus’s actual enjoyment of my pain. There’s a German word for that—for being made happy when someone else is hurt. I couldn’t think of it then but I could certainly tell he was experiencing it. He thought he would get his own way now with Kristoff out of the picture, that he could pick my consort and rule through him, bypassing me except as a figure head.
No. Hell, no!
I stood on trembling legs, my rage so absolute I could barely see.
“You think you’ve won,” I said to Tannus, my voice shaking with fury. “You think with Kristoff out of the way you can do anything you want.”
He smirked at me. “Well, the death of Captain Verrai is, of course, most unfortunate. But now that he’s gone, I think it would be best if you allow yourself to be guided by the Council in the matter of choosing a consort—”
“I don’t want a Consort—Kristoff was my Consort! My fated mate—th
e man I was supposed to be with the rest of my life!” I shouted at him. “Don’t you understand?” My voice dropped almost to a whisper. “When we joined—when we bonded—I felt her presence and her power. I felt the Goddess of Mercy’s approval. Kristoff and I were meant for each other.”
As I spoke, I felt a tingling run through me. A tingling that became a rush of power. It was the same power I’d felt when Kristoff gave me his vow, and when he had bonded me to him so beautifully the night before.
The Goddess, I thought, feeling light-headed and giddy. The Goddess—she’s here! Right here!
“Yes, Child, I am with you,” whispered a voice inside me. A strong, feminine, powerful voice that seemed to be made of pure sunlight—golden and perfect and unbreakable. I remembered Zoe saying the Goddess was real. I had felt her power before, but I hadn’t really internalized the idea. Now it came home to me with a shock of recognition so deep it was like a blow to my heart. She was real and somehow, she had always been inside me. Waiting, like a seed waiting to grow and blossom. Waiting until I was ready to acknowledge and receive her.
Well, I was ready now.
“If you’re here, Goddess,” I said in a low voice. “If you’re with me and I truly am your chosen vessel then help me!”
“Who is she talking to?” Tannus asked nobody in particular.
“Watch out!” Churika looked alarmed. “She’s glowing!”
I looked down at myself and saw that it was true. There was a light shining out of my skin—a golden glow that suffused my entire body. There were actual beams of it shooting out of my fingertips and my scalp was tingling like it was shooting out of my hair as well.
I studied my hands and knew what to do.
Stooping, I knelt by Kristoff’s still and silent form. Pressing my glowing hands to the hole in his chest, I poured all my will to live…all my desire…all my faith…all my hope…all my love into him. It was as though I was funneling a river of healing and life and power directly into his body.
“Live,” I whispered to him. “Be healed…be whole…be mine again. I love you, Kristoff, come back to me!”
I’m not sure exactly what happened at that point. I wasn’t myself—not fully, anyway. It was as though the Goddess took over my body and I was nothing but power and light and love for a moment.
I know from talking to Zoe and Leah—who had just gotten to the palace and saw the very last bit of it—that it looked like some kind of supernova had happened at the end of the small corridor where the Trials of Ascension were held. Zoe told me later it was like a huge, beautiful, completely silent explosion of golden light radiating out from the center where Kristoff and I were joined.
And then the light faded and I felt him moving under my hands. He coughed and stirred and looked up at me, his rainbow eyes confused.
“My Lady…Charlotte?” he asked, his voice slightly hoarse. It was as though he was just getting over a bad cold instead of coming back from the dead.
“Kristoff!” I explored his chest with trembling fingers. It was whole and strong again, without a mark on it. What was more, I could feel the strong, steady beat of a heart beneath his ribs.
“Charlotte?” He still looked confused. “What happened? I had the strangest dream. I was looking down on you from above—you were weeping but I couldn’t reach you to comfort you.”
“It was a nightmare,” I whispered, beginning to cry again. “It was a nightmare but now it’s over. Oh, Kristoff, it’s over! And I love you so much!”
“I love you too, Charlotte.” He wrapped me in strong, living arms and we clung to each other, not caring about the rest of the world for a while. Kristoff was back with me—nothing else mattered.
At last I came back to myself—well mostly, I was still glowing a little bit—and pulled back from Kristoff.
“I’m still not sure I understand,” he said. “The last thing I remember was trying to keep you safe from Doloroso.”
“You saved my life and the lives of everyone in the palace,” I told him. “You’re a hero—my hero. And you’re also my Consort.”
“Charlotte, no—you can’t—”
“Oh yes I can,” I told him. “Just watch me.”
The Majoran doctor who had been crouched beside us, shielding her eyes from my light display, looked up at me wonderingly as I rose to stand in front of the Council and everyone else.
“He…he’s alive,” she whispered, looking at me wonderingly. “My Goddess—you brought him back to life!”
“I’m not the Goddess,” I told her, knowing it was true. “I’m just a vessel for her. A conduit for her to express her wisdom and patience and love…and her justice.”
I glared at Tannus who looked like he didn’t know whether to be confused or outraged but was definitely leaning towards outraged. He had completely missed the miraculous part about Kristoff being brought back to life. Instead of being awed by the miracle that had just occurred right in front of his eyes, he was angry that his plans for galactic domination had now taken a turn for the worse.
A greedy, petty man. I would deal with him later but I had other business first.
“People of Femme One,” I shouted, raising my voice to be heard above the murmuring crowd. The news of what had happened in the Council Chamber must have spread like wildfire because the narrow corridor of the Trials of Ascension and the huge main hallway outside were now packed with people, both Royals and commoners alike.
“People of Femme One,” I said again and somehow my voice carried over all of them with an echo of the Goddess’s power and a hush fell over the crowd. “I stand before you as your new Goddess-Empress, Sundalla the 1000th,” I said.
At my words, there was a rattling at the door of the first Trial—the Trial of the Orb and Scepter, I remembered. Suddenly it burst open and both of the golden, bejeweled implements flew over the heads of the crowd to land in my hands. They trembled in my grasp, like dogs that couldn’t wait to get back to their master.
There was a gasp from everyone assembled. I raised the scepter high, letting the light reflect off the massive ruby at its head as I cradled the diamond-studded Orb in my other arm.
“I am the Goddess-Empress,” I said, letting my words roll over all of them. “And I choose as my Consort, Captain Kristoff Verrai of the Imperial Guard.”
There was an uneasy murmur at this and Tannus started to say something but I cut him off with a glare.
“Kristoff is not of Royal blood,” I said. “But that does not matter to me or to the Goddess of Mercy. He has protected me with his life, sacrificed for me, and loved me as I love him. This is my first decree as Goddess-Empress—I am abolishing the law against Royal to commoner joinings. From now on, everyone is free to love and join with whomever they feel drawn to.”
The murmuring got louder but it wasn’t all unhappy. I saw several people rush to be together—Royals and commoners who had been kept apart by the foolish, classist law and would now be able to be together openly instead of hiding their love.
But not everyone was happy. Tannus, in particular, couldn’t keep silent one more instant.
“I must protest this ridiculous and improper ruling!” he sputtered loudly. “As Head of the Council of Wisdom, I absolutely cannot approve such a preposterous, illegal—”
“Tannus!” I interrupted him, my voice still rippling with the aftereffects of the Goddess’s power. “This isn’t just my idea—it is the will of the Goddess of Mercy herself. You have seen what she can do.” I gestured to Kristoff, who had gotten to his feet and was standing behind me, as steady as a wall. “Do you really want to pit yourself against her power and authority?”
He lifted his chin, his eyes narrowing.
“I don’t believe the Goddess has anything to do with this—any of it!”
“Are you mad?” Doctor Churika frowned and backed away from him a step. “Didn’t you see—Verrai’s heart was pulped. He was dead and she brought him back!”
“I don’t think he was really hur
t at all.” Tannus crossed his arms over his skinny chest stubbornly. “I think they cooked the whole plot up between the two of them so that they could be together. Which I will still oppose. The Empress must have a Royal consort and if she cannot choose properly for herself then I and the Council will choose for her.”
“Councilor Tannus, your days of choosing anything but the method of your own death are over,” my mouth said. I had the feeling of the Goddess filling me again—less pervasive this time but she was most definitely there and she was working through me to do what was necessary.
“Wh-what?” Tannus looked at me uncertainly. “How dare you speak to me like that, young lady?”
“It is not Charlotte of Earth who speaks but I, the one true Goddess,” my voice said. “Now, Tannus—choose the method of your death. Your life is forfeit as a consequence of your plotting and deception.”
Suddenly the door to the second Trial of Ascension swung open—the Trial of Flame and Scale. I heard a deep, echoing snort and a puff of dark gray smoke wafted from the entrance.
There were cries of fear and the people standing near the door shifted back, scrambling to get clear of it.
I could see why they were afraid—a dinner plate-sized eye as brilliant as pure, melted gold was looking out of the doorway. There was another snort and more hot smoke drifted out into the hall.
“Wha…what is—”
Tannus didn’t get to finish his question because at that moment, there were panicked cries from the area around the Garden of Death—whose door was still standing open. I really needed to shut it—it wasn’t safe.
Before I could make a move towards it, I saw a massive snake slithering out of it. The snake was a vivid, shimmering cobalt blue with a hood like a King Cobra’s but probably three times as wide. In fact, everything about it was huge—except for the coloring and the hood, it reminded me of a giant python or anaconda. It slithered towards us—or rather, towards Tannus—and reared up in front of him so that its head was raised as high as his. Then it stayed there, swaying back and forth, almost as though it was trying to hypnotize him.
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