“You carry a bloody dagger,” Merieke said behind Soren. “Did something happen to you, too? Are you hurt, my love?”
“My love?” Soren spun around, though he kept one arm still around his sister. He would never let her go, not now that nothing stood between them. “I've killed Nathen for his crimes.”
Merieke gasped, and her eyes widened.
“Guards, bring her. And summon Lord Kesandrahn. I have something he's going to want to hear.”
The guards seized Merieke, and Soren led Sillara back to their house. By the time Soren had bathed, all were assembled.
“What's this?” Darien asked. “You bring me out in the night?” He saw Merieke held fast by the guards, and his eyes flashed with anger.
Soren explained quickly. “Your daughter had a hand in killing my father and mother.”
“What?” Darien roared.
Soren could not see where the old Admiral's anger lay, and he feared Darien would snap the neck of the man beside him and lay waste his entire household guard before Soren could explain. Soren stood and raised his arms. “You're a man who will listen to reason. My father always trusted you. For his sake, hear me. Trust me.”
Darien mastered himself. “Speak, boy, and quickly.”
Over the next several minutes Soren laid out point by point exactly what Nathen and Merieke had done, how they had laid their plot for Konas and had snared Kamen and Ajalira in the process. And when the monstrous siblings had learned what their evil had wrought, they were unrepentant, unremorseful. Nathen had brought to the oasis a poison Merieke had concocted for the sole purpose of murder.
Merieke denied everything, calling on her father to free her. Darien shifted in his impatience.
“Nathen confessed to me,” Soren said, “and if that's not enough, Admiral, trust your judgment. How else could Kamen be poisoned? His slaves loved him, and doubtless he had brought with him only the handful he implicitly trusted.”
Darien stared at his daughter. “Why?”
Merieke, realizing she had lost, hardened her gaze. “You wouldn't understand, father. You got mother far too easily. You've never had to fight for love.”
Darien fell back and tore his hair out in handfuls. “Bring Nathen before me!”
“That no power in Gilalion can do, save Nistaran himself surrendering your son's spirit into your hands.”
Darien howl was the sound of a father's ultimate grief, of a noble heart breaking forever. He had lost his beloved wife, the light of his eyes, and the image of her beauty had turned murderess. And his son, the slayer of Darien's best friend, was dead in the flush of his iniquity. “Has no man's dagger here a point for me?” The old Admiral fell back against the wall and slumped down, his indomitable strength broken. His face lost all expression, and Soren never heard him speak again.
“Chief Priest Vaelus,” Sillara said, stepping up before Soren.
Vaelus came forward and knelt before her.
“Do you still look with an eye of favor on Merieke? For though her guilt is plain, her hand did not strike the blow.”
Vaelus's gaze shifted over to where Merieke stood under guard. “I do, for other than yours I have never seen such beauty in all my life. But she is the King's.”
“No more,” Soren said. “She was my concubine, and I may cast her off if I wish. I give her to you under that same relationship.” He did not have her executed to spare Darien's wits, and partly to fulfill Nathen's dying wish.
“Then I will take her.”
“Father!” Merieke cried out, but Darien lay insensible. She looked to Soren. “Soren, don't do this. I love you.”
But Soren would not meet her eyes. “Vaelus, if it like you, I will send you to Arinport as my ambassador. You will speak for me before the throne of my friend, King Jahen. And with you I’ll send a deed of gift, making over to Orien all the Itenu properties, titles, and privileges.”
Vaelus bowed. “As you command.”
“We'll never see her again,” Soren whispered to Sillara, and she squeezed his hand. To the guards, he said, “Take Merieke away. She will go to Arinport with Vaelus, and let her know that the day I see her face again, that day she dies. Vaelus, take tidings to King Jahen and King Tivanel, and tell them all that has transpired here. Let them know what dark deeds unrequited love has wrought.” He looked into Sillara's beautiful eyes and found that his love, however, was requited. “Remove the body from the bedroom.”
The whole assembly filed out of the room and out of Soren and Sillara's house. The guards helped Darien to his feet, but he stumbled away like a man already dead.
Sillara removed Konas's wedding bracelet and let it clatter to the floor. Soren removed his own bracelet and slipped it on her wrist, and as he did so, all his cares flew away. His soul, now unburdened, soared in its love for his sister-wife, and he scarcely breathed, lest he break the spell and wake from his fantasy.
Sillara responded to the thought Soren did not speak. She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him. “No dream, no fantasy. I am real, and I will be by your side loving you until I breathe no more.”
“Your last breath is my last breath.” Soren kissed the top of her head as he had so many times in the past, first in innocent brotherly affection, now with a rising passion they could at last share.
Sillara looked up into his eyes as she had all her life, but this time Soren knew she would not be content with a mere peck on the forehead. He took his sister in his arms and pulled her close, relishing the moment of wrapping her up in his embrace. Sillara’s tongue traveled across her bottom lip, and her gaze never left Soren’s face. He felt her thoughts as close to him as his own. And now her body lay against his, almost nothing separating their skin.
Soren brushed his lips against hers, testing her sweetness, and all the tension in her muscles melted away as she fell into his kiss. The world’s mind opened to Soren, and he understood clearly what all his life he had only perceived dimly. He knew the world as he knew Sillara’s mind.
Sillara broke the kiss, and her eyes stared in wonder. “The glass is no longer dark.”
“You sense it, too?” Soren explored his new mind in an instant, understanding deep mysteries that his mortal mind could not have grasped.
Sillara nodded. “This is what we were born for.”
Epilogue
“Soren.” Sillara laid her hand on her brother's shoulder. The sunlight was bright in their room, and the scent of roses—flowers she had had shipped in from Arinport centuries ago—pervaded the chamber.
Soren's eyes opened, and he sat up, wrapping his arms around her. “Happy birthday,” he said.
Sillara laughed. It was their five hundredth birthday, but they knew well that death could not touch them, not since they had tasted their immortality with their first kiss. “The Burning is not coming for us, brother. We are not mortals.”
“We are not. Nor are we subject to mortal limitations, not even death. And Prince Kamen shows no sign of it.” Soren leaned his brow against hers. “But is it right for him to be an eternal Prince and never a King? I mean, of course, of our people, for he has been King of the Ausir for centuries now.”
“He, like us, partakes of Abrexa’s gift of divinity.” Sillara smiled. She knew Soren's desires as she knew her own; his desires were her own. “We have long since fulfilled the prophecies of Abrexa, and our Tamari—do you remember how they used to be called 'Desertmasters'?—would be glad to have our son as King, even if they must share him with the Ausir.”
“So it is today then?”
“Today.” Sillara kissed Soren's shoulder. There was no need for further speech. As the years had passed, they had transformed the uncouth, if proud, Desertmasters into the new Tamari, a race of mixed-blooded humans who lived by Sunjaa law augmented with Tamari honor. Over the centuries, they had built up relations with Arinport, and now the Tamari were a rich people; but still Soren and Sillara insisted that they keep the attitudes of the original Tamari, never growing soft in t
heir wealth.
“How long do you think it will take Kamen to answer our summons?” asked Soren.
“We should be free of the city of Tamar within four months,” said Sillara.
****
Three months after the dispatch of Soren and Sillara's messengers, Kamen, King of the Ausir, Kamen, Prince of the Tamari Desertmasters, stood before his parents on the steps of the temple-tomb in the heart of the desert.
Soren and Sillara, hand in hand, faced their son and their subjects. Soren was the first to speak.
“Nearly five centuries ago, I became your King. I came down from the sky in fulfillment of Abrexa's prophecies. I brought law in my right hand and justice in my left. For longer than any of you have lived, I have served you and ruled you. I am your Queen's King, and I am weary of my days.”
Sillara caught Soren's glance. He was weary only of the city, only of the company of others, for as the years had worn on, Soren and Sillara had grown ever closer, ever dearer to each other.
But it was her turn to speak, and she tore her gaze from Soren's face. “Nearly five centuries ago, I became your Queen. I am gold-horned as Abrexa is gold-chained, with Veirakai's craft in my hand and his Abrexa's passion in my heart. I am your Queen, and I am weary of my days.”
The Chief Priest Vaelus, descendant of the Vaelus who had taken Merieke as concubine, now spoke. “And for more years than we can recall, you have been our Queen and our King, our mother and our father. Will you now leave your children desolate?”
“I am Kamen.” It was his turn now to speak, and Sillara's son turned from them to face the gathered Tamari Desertmasters. “I am gold-horned as Abrexa is gold-chained. The craft of Veirakai is in my hand and his Abrexa's passion in my heart. I have come down from the sky with law in my left hand and justice in my right. I am the son of your gods, and I can rule in the full measure of their divinity. I will take the crown of my celestial father, and I will be to you your King. I will comfort you for the loss of your heavenly mother, and this city shall be mine.”
Chief Priest Vaelus cried aloud. “Shall we release those whom Abrexa sent us?”
Sillara then lifted up her voice, and in many tongues from many places around the square, she sang her reply.
The goddess gave, and the goddess takes away.
Blessed be Abrexa, gold-chained Abrexa.
Soren spoke over Sillara's mournful melody, crying out to the people to whom they had given more than a lifetime. “Sillara and I—no more your King or Queen—have given to you more years than we should have had. Would you have us die here? Will you not let us find our own rest?”
“My father and my mother have served you, O Tamari, have given you their lives. They must rest. They swore to you to be your King and Queen until their heir should take up the crown.”
Chief Priest Vaelus bowed his head. “What can we say? For the Queen and her King have been as gods to us.”
“And so they have deserved to be.” Kamen turned back and looked at Soren and Sillara. “I will take up the crowns that have grown too heavy for your heads, and I will add them to my own.”
Sillara removed her crown and placed it on Kamen's head. She leaned down and kissed his brow. “Farewell, and may all the gods watch over you. We, too, among them shall hold you ever in our thought.”
Soren then removed his crown and placed it on Kamen's head, where it clicked into place with Sillara's. He, too, kissed Kamen's brow. “I have been a King for even longer than you have, Kamen, but I have never desired it. You shall rule this people as you rule the Ausir, and when the line of the Sunjaa Kings fails—as Abrexa has told us it will within the century—you shall take up that crown, too. You, Kamen, shall be the undisputed ruler of all the west.”
Kamen smiled, and Sillara thought her heart would burst with joyful pride. “Farewell.”
Soren took Sillara's hand again then, and they passed through the crowd of their one-time subjects. They walked unescorted to the edge of the city they had not left in centuries, and there they climbed into an Ausir balloon and set out for the west.
When they finally set down, after many days of journeying, they crossed a high mountain range and passed into the uttermost west. There they saw a veritable sea of trees, and they knew that they had reached the Brien Amir, fabled forest where the Ausir had awoken in the deeps of time. Though none had ever been able to pass through its tangled paths since the Ausir had left it, for Soren and Sillara the paths seemed to open before their feet. They passed through the forest, and when they stood in the heart of it, there they found the bower of roses of their long-ago dreams.
“Shalar grows here,” said Sillara.
Soren nodded. “It was placed here by the goddess herself.”
“For us.” Sillara understood, and she knew that Soren did, too. The goddess Abrexa, like themselves, had had a predestined mate, but she had had to endure much to obtain him. They, too, had had to endure much to have each other. But they had endured. They had proven the purity of their love by keeping the oaths that had kept them apart, just as Abrexa had. And the goddess’s reward to them was to set the eternal crown of godhood on their love.
So Soren and Sillara dwelt together, in a bower of bliss, a cradle of roses, innocent as the first beings to awake in the world, and there their love grew day by day, hour by hour, until when the final battles came upon the world, when King Kamen of the west fought against Arixus, Emperor of the east, the love of Soren and Sillara had long since raised them up into divinity, and their son could call upon their power.
Yet even the breaking of the world could not break their love, and the world itself ended first.
The End
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The Lotus Ascension Page 27