The Lotus Ascension

by Adonis Devereux

  “Yes, but you love her with that unnatural, incestuous love which the Sunjaa give countenance to.” Konas's lip curled, and he looked Soren up and down in disgust.

  Soren opened his mouth to object. He did not desire Sillara that way. She was his sister, the Ausir Queen-to-be, a woman of singular beauty and grace. No one understood her the way Soren did. They shared one mind, and in his heart, he knew her. The most profound happiness Soren had ever felt was knowing that she understood him with equal clarity. Between them there could be no division, nothing unshared. In a feverish moment, Soren went from not knowing that he loved Sillara to knowing that he always had. His pulse raced; his blood thundered in his ears.

  “You desert people call yourself civilized,” Konas said with a sneer, “but such baseborn desires are the death of civilization.”

  This pricked Soren's pride. “The Sunjaa are the first race of Men, and we have endured cataclysm and far journeying.” Soren touched his golden horns. “And I'm of Ausir blood, as well, belonging to a proud and ingenious race whose history stretches back beyond memory. Even if I denied my Sunjaa right to take my sister to wife, I could call upon my blood, which courses through me with the strength of Gilalion's two mightiest races.” Soren believed his disparate parentage gave him enough of that hybrid vigor to overcome even Ausir objections to brother-sister mating. He swept past Konas and spoke on, though he was walking away. “I thank you for helping me realize my true feelings for Sillara, and your jealousy will come to naught.”

  “I don't need to wield my jealousy against you, Soren,” Konas said.

  Soren stopped and turned back.

  “I've already married her.”

  The walls of the house fled from Soren's sight; the ground shrank away. Soren stood alone, suspended in a single, frozen thought of horror. Only Konas's mocking face floated before him. Sillara had married Konas? The lecherous Ausir had topped her; he had played inside her, tasting every delight her body had to offer.

  “How?” Soren heard his voice, but it sounded far away and disconnected.

  “It was simple,” Konas said, casually strolling around to the other side of the bench. He was putting some distance between them. “I bribed her with thoughts of you.”

  Strength fled Soren's limbs, and he sat upon the rough, sparse grass of the garden. Sillara was married to Konas. Not to him.

  Konas continued his tale in triumph. “I told her, after our first balloon crash, that spending the night in the desert would compromise her honor. My brother would not want her after suspicion was cast on her virginity. Besides, if she went to Duildal to marry my brother, she would have to leave Arinport forever. The duties of being not only Tivanel's wife but being the Ausir Queen would keep her away from her people—most likely—forever. The long centuries of her life would stretch before her, long centuries without you.” With that last phrase, Konas leveled a stare at Soren.

  Soren, who fixed his gaze on the grass before him, looked up slowly to meet Konas's gaze. Something whispered in his brain, but it was not a whisper. It only sounded soft because it was far away. Whatever it was was fast approaching, and the whisper rose to a scream.

  “So, me being the only one around,” Konas said, “and knowing that she liked me more than anyone, save you, of course, we married. I told her I'd stay with her in Arinport forever, right next to you, her beloved brother. You see, I saved her from herself, from uniting herself in damned incest to you. If you had gone to her and spoken your filthy, honeyed words in her ear, she would have fallen enamored of you; she would have given you her love and her body.”

  The scream became a howl, and it echoed across the desert of Soren's anguished soul. Sillara was Soren's life; without her he was nothing, barren and waterless. Konas had stolen her from him, a thief of love unrivaled in any story or song. His soul's love belonged to another. Despair settled over him and thrust him deeper within his own black thoughts. Konas's ploy was perfectly crafted and would be the crowning achievement of his life, for he wrought a marriage with the most perfect woman in the world. No device, weapon, or suit of armor could compare with what Konas had done. But Sillara did not love Konas; Soren would have felt it. Of course she was fond of her tutor. Konas was a dear friend, close enough to have tricked her into marriage.

  The scene of Soren and Sillara's meeting just minutes before flashed through his mind; she had been wearing a bracelet, but so elated were they that he did not notice it was Konas's bracelet. They were married in word and in truth. Konas—mocking usurper of love. Konas—vile interloper intruding between two souls meant for each other.

  Soren rose to his feet like a dust storm rising off the dunes, and his wrath whirled about him. Konas took a step back. If Sillara had married anyone else, Soren could have outlived their relationship. But, no! She had to marry a full Ausir. Soren wished damnation on the Seranimesti House, on all their line, from now until the world's ending. The Desertmasters had brought the Sunjaa tradition of brother-sister marriage with them, so what would be fit and proper not only here in this strange city but also back home in Arinport was denied Soren. Denied him by the machinations of the damned Ausir tutor.

  Soren stalked toward Konas, though he came slowly, one foot at a time, crouched, his arms out before him, every muscle taut, every fiber of his being screaming in rage. His fingers bent like claws; he drew his breath through clenched teeth and exhaled in growls.

  Konas took another step back. “She's mine, and nothing you can do will alter that. Murdering a lawful spouse in order to marry the widow is expressly forbidden by Sunjaa law. Any marriage between you two after my murder would be invalid.”

  Agony packed upon agony until Soren thought his soul would shatter. Konas had always wanted Sillara; he had planned this for years. All their life Konas had been Soren's friend; it was all a lie. All lies. Soren stalked forward, and Konas retreated before his wrath. Sillara was forever denied Soren, and Soren could be satisfied only by Konas's blood. Treachery deserved death, and Soren was all too glad to be the executioner.

  “You've deprived me of my love,” Soren said. “Now, behold! I deprive you of your life.” With no weapon save his hands and teeth, he leaped at Konas, hungry for his false friend's death.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sillara blinked vacantly at Nathen. Their houses joined more closely? They were already too close for Sillara's liking, with Merieke being Soren's concubine.

  “Yes, we can be real sisters.” Merieke hugged Sillara again.

  Nathen smiled, and as he spoke next Sillara heard an unusual timbre in his voice. “There is so much love between our two families. Our fathers friends—lovers, too, of course—Soren and I friends and lovers. Now Soren and Merieke.”

  Sillara narrowed her eyes. She had heard of such Lotus-tricks. Nathen was attempting to influence her mind. She had suspected that Saerileth had begun training both Nathen and Merieke in Lotus-skills before her death, but now Sillara was sure of it. And Nathen, being two years Merieke's senior, had been more thoroughly trained before their mother's death. “What do you mean, Nathen?” Sillara had no Lotus-training, no mental tricks to use, but she had the blessing of the Rose-goddess on her, and she whispered the word from a spot right behind Nathen's ear.

  “I mean, Sillara, Fair Star—” He broke off, smiling. “I can speak your mother-tongue, you know.”

  Sillara heard again that strange timbre to Nathen's voice, and she could perceive that, were her own hearing less keen, her own will less strong, that her mind would be inclining toward Nathen, would be growing malleable, suggestible.

  “What do you mean?” Sillara took a step away from Merieke's clinging arms, moving almost without thought to the garden of her inner courtyard.

  “I mean, Sillara, Fair Star, that you are the only star of my life, the only Queen of my heart.” Nathen stepped toward her. “I speak with your brother's favor.”

  Sillara knew that was a lie. Soren would not want her to be with Nathen. He would have told her if he had
. But she did not speak of it, for at that moment a great pain filled her, an agony too great for any word to express. Sillara dropped to her knees, overcome by the anguish. Her breath came in short, harsh bursts. What was wrong with her? No, not her. Soren. Soren was suffering, and his soul itself was crying out.

  Sillara forced herself to her feet.

  “What is wrong, sister?” Merieke spoke a word Sillara hated to hear from any lips but Soren's, and Sillara did not answer her.

  She ran. Soren was not far, and she would go to him, help him.

  “Sillara, tell me! What is wrong?” Nathen's words no longer held the note of influence, but Sillara did not care one way or the other about it. Soren needed her.

  The Desertmasters did not bar her way, of course, and Nathen, trained sailor though he was, could hardly keep pace with her. Sillara ran, fleet as a deer, through the dusty street to stand before Konas's door, and she pushed on it. The door was locked, but Sillara did not care. She screamed out and thrust her shoulder against it.

  “Soren!” She pushed again, and the door gave way. She ought to have been amazed, she knew, but she could not care. She ran through the house, Nathen hard on her heels, to Konas's own garden. There she saw Soren, his hands curved up like claws, leaping at Konas's throat.

  “Soren!” Sillara ran to him and put her arms around him. Soren's agony did not lessen, but his rage calmed enough for him to speak.

  “Sillara.” Soren enfolded her in his arms.

  “What's going on?” Nathen, panting and breathless, came to stand by Sillara.

  “Take Konas outside,” said Sillara, not looking away from Soren's face. “I need to speak to my brother alone for a moment.”

  “Sillara.” Konas put his hand on her shoulder, and for the first time Sillara disliked the touch. “I should stay—”

  “No. You were fighting with my brother.” Sillara looked over at Nathen then. “Please, Nathen, make sure that Lord Seranimesti is well attended for this while. Take him to your sister, and have her do the honors of my house. The Desertmasters can scarce object to his presence in my house if I am not there. Please, Konas, just go.”

  “Yes, Sillara.” Nathen was the one who spoke, and Konas, obviously not wanting to either be dragged out bodily or else shed blood in Sillara's presence, followed.

  “Soren, Soren.” As soon as they were alone, Sillara took her brother's face in her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes. “What is wrong?”

  “Sillara.” Soren's eyes were clouded with agony, and fear clutched at Sillara's heart.

  “I felt your pain, brother, and I came to you.” Sillara tugged on Soren's hands, and they sat down on a bench, side by side, with their hands clasped in Soren's lap, just as they had done since they were children. “Tell me, Soren.”

  Soren's eyes did not clear, but he leaned his brow down to hers. “Konas told me—told me what I only wish I had realized a month ago. I love you, Sillara, not only as a sister. I love you as our father loved our mother.”

  The doors of Sillara's heart opened, and she understood everything. She had come home, home to a place at once familiar and yet strangely glorious. She was home, and she would never want to leave it. She could spend all her days here with Soren, and his company would be all she would ever need, all she could ever want. She would never weary of his presence any more than she could weary of her own. She had in him the gaiety of worlds of company and the freedom of the most absolute solitude. The scent of roses and shalar filled her nostrils, and she threw her arms around Soren.

  “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Sillara could not stop the words.

  Soren whispered his words into her hair. “But I realized this too late, sister. You're married to that damned Seranimesti.”

  Sillara's throat constricted, and she pushed away from Soren, looking up into his face with horror. “Kanfiran eat his eyes!”

  Soren pressed his lips to her brow, and she babbled on.

  “I did not know, Soren! Oh gods, I did not know. I never loved him—and he knows it! You are the only man I have ever loved. I married him so that I would not have to leave you.” With the clarity of despair, Sillara saw all Konas's machinations.

  “I know, my love.” Soren's voice was gentle. “He told me.”

  “But did he tell you—oh, Soren!” Sobs shook Sillara's frame. “He faked the first balloon crash. He put me in a position where I could break our father's betrothal of me to King Tivanel, and then he promised me you! He promised me that if I married him, I would not have to leave Arinport—leave you. He arranged the whole thing.” Hate filled Sillara, hate for her husband. “He gained my troth by deceit.”

  Soren's arms tightened around her. “Damned Seranimesti. Honorless, worthless, monstrous deceiver!”

  Sillara saw now the endless pain of her life, a pain of being forever divided from Soren. “I wish I were dead, brother. I wish I had perished in the desert rather than have to live this way.” Her despair tasted like ashes in her mouth, and she knew Soren understood her.

  “No, Sillara, no.” Now it was Soren's turn to force her to look at him. “We are Tamari. To take our lives in despair is cowardice.”

  “Cowardice would damn us.” Sillara knew it perfectly well. “And for us, damnation would be separation.”

  “It would be the worst punishment the gods could inflict on us.” Soren stroked her hair. “So no suicide.”

  “We would disgrace our mother to do it.” Hot tears still burned Sillara's eyes. “For if she had given in to despair, we—”

  “—would never have been born.” Soren completed her thought. “We are Tamari, and we must face our trials bravely.”

  “Even if those trials have been brought upon us by our own—my own—folly.” Sillara could hardly speak past the lump in her throat.

  “And I cannot take you away from him.” Soren's teeth ground together. “For that would be worse dishonor even than cowardice.”

  “Oath-breaking.” Sillara nodded. “No one of Ellon Tamar's blood has ever broken an oath, and we shall not be the first.”

  “We are in the best situation we can be,” said Soren. “For we can still see each other. We can still be to each other brother and sister.”

  “It is the best situation we can be in.” Sillara repeated her brother's words. “But it is still misery now, now that we know the truth about each other.” Her mouth twisted wryly. “It was such an obvious truth, my beloved, but we did not see it because we are Ausir as well as Sunjaa.”

  “Sunjaa. It is commonly accepted for a brother to take his sister to wife,” said Soren, pulling Sillara back against his chest. “And we are Sunjaa. Had I, oh blessed Abrexa, ever thought to ask our father to give you to me, he would not have denied me, despite your betrothal to the Ausir King.”

  The thought of being Soren's wife filled Sillara with a joy so great that only the misery of knowing it was impossible could counterbalance it. “I wonder what our mother would say.”

  “She is Ausir, Tamari even, but she has turned her back on much of her Ausir heritage.” Soren's heart was racing beneath Sillara's cheek. “I do know that if our father gave his consent, she would learn to accept it. And she would have been glad to keep you in Arinport.”

  The pain of that thought, the thought that their parents would have rejoiced in their union, was so great that Sillara's mind recoiled. “Soren, forgive me for marrying him! Please!”

  Soren laughed bitterly. “My love, there is nothing to forgive. He maneuvered you into a compromising position and then bribed you with … me. His betrayal rivals Veirakai's when he slew his own brother.”

  “I hate him.” Sillara could not stop her tears. “And I am bound to him. I shall be his wife, for I have sworn it. But my heart beats only for you, brother.”

  “I hate him, too,” said Soren. “I hate him for stealing you from me. I could have accepted it better, though, if you loved him, even if it meant my greater suffering, my greater loss.”

  “Love him? N
ever. But I do not hate him so much for wanting to wed me,” said Sillara. “And had he and I ended up crashed truly by chance, though I should have regretted marrying him until my last breath, I would not have blamed him for it; I would not have hated him. I would have blamed myself more. But, oh Soren, he did it purposely.”

  “I know.” Soren laughed again, a brutal sound that cut Sillara's heart until it bled. “Nathen and Merieke did much the same to me to make her my concubine.”

  Jealousy choked Sillara. “Brother, I cannot endure her, either, but yet we both have … duties to those to whom we have, however blindly, bound ourselves.”

  “The Desertmasters call you Queen and me King.” Soren continued to stroke her hair. “But we are trapped by our given word, kept apart from our own souls.”

  “You know that you are my soul.” Sillara lifted Soren's hand and kissed his knuckles. “You know that I love you.” She laughed, too, despite her still-flowing tears, and she heard Soren's own bitterness in the sound. “Oh, I know that you love me, and you know that I love you. I can feel your heart, your emotions, as if they were my own.”

  “We are truly one, in a way that we cannot be with any other.” Soren tilted her face up to look at him again. “There is this much of comfort then, for we know that we are still bound to each other in our souls.”

  “And in the afterlife, we shall be together.” Sillara leaned up toward Soren, and their breaths commingled. Their lips drew closer, and at the same moment they both pulled back, their chests heaving.

  There was no need for words. They each felt the burning need, the intolerable ache, to make themselves one flesh. And they could not do it because of Sillara's oath. Sillara was another man's wife, and even one kiss was more than they could dare to take.

  “We would not be able to stop,” said Soren.

  “And then how could we live apart?” asked Sillara.

  “At least this way, we shall not lose each other.”

  Sillara swallowed the sob that rose in her throat. “My life is now simply a waiting for death. In the afterlife I shall be yours, and that I may be your true wife there, I shall have to be your sister merely here.”