Why!
Ask yourselves this: did you understand love before he died? Did you truly? I didn't. I thought I did. I thought I felt it with him on our last night together, and a shard of me might have. However, it wasn't until he left us that I truly understood.
Love doesn't judge. It doesn't curse or bite or snarl.
It simply is, and it's to be accepted.
There was a part of him that none of us saw. We only felt it through the deaths of our loved ones. That part of him was ugly and dangerous, and I'll admit it craved the sight of a corpse. It knew nothing else.
Yet where would we be without that last part? Would we even exist? I suppose that's another question that will be asked for years to come. We'll ponder at it, poke and prod at its meaning.
In the end, the answer will be different for each of us.
All of you are the beloved. Know that. Beloved of him, beloved of ourselves, and beloved of each other. Accept it as he wouldn't accept himself, for you are more than a simple human. You're Parched, and that means something.
He gave you life.
He gave you love and sadness and every emotion in between. More than that, more than I can even fathom, he gave you something mere humans don't have: a sense of peace, true as the dirt beneath my feet and wild as the wind in my hair.
We're more than we thought we were.
We're the Parched Empire.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Villeen stood at Abennak's side, waiting for him to order the march.
He bobbed his head up and down as if listening to an imaginary tune, and he drummed his fingers on bloodstained leggings. Except for a few tortured servants and ragged soldiers, they were alone outside his half-deconstructed pavilion. Ropes and stakes littered the ground, and a bald, scarred man scurried to pick them up and stuff them into a rough canvas sack.
"Brown and brown," the king muttered. "And a melon or an ant or a butterfly."
Villeen sighed, unable to think of a suitable response.
Her father's book of notes bulged beneath her robes. She ran a hand over its rough cover, then jerked away. Answers never came as startling revelations, as grand "A-ha!" moments. Rather, they oozed from the pages like syrup from a trunk.
Last night's revelation?
She was a fool.
Kipra waited a dozen paces away, and the assassin, Wisk, stood close to her side, watching with an unconcerned gaze. The woman's hand, once so wounded and bloody and painful, now gleamed in the sun. Three golden fingers, each of them crafted by the Mad King, sparkled as she shifted her weight, and she covered them with her unmarred hand.
Villeen squinted to get a closer look. How had he connected gold to flesh? Gentahl. The difficulty of that alteration must have been enormous. He hadn't simply attached the fingers to her palm with glue or a knot; he'd fused them.
And the fingers could move. They could clench and grasp.
Villeen shuddered and glanced away, but her gaze was drawn back within an instant. This woman, Kipra, had evaded her for more than a decade. She'd always been hidden within her father's notes, a hint here, a promise there.
'Nothing is more important,' he'd written. 'Blackness and smoothness and harshness, they're all rolled into a bundle of fury. The flames of malice are fed with hate, and she'll hate until the end of her days.'
Villeen hadn't understood what it meant until yesterday. Kipra's hair, darker than the sky on a moonless night, her smooth skin and harsh eyes—this was the woman the Prophet had written about. Her hate was obvious; she despised her sister.
Villeen had never searched for Kipra, had never even given it a second thought.
I'm a fool.
Fier had once told her, 'Watch the little things. They're often more important.'
Had she listened? Of course not.
"Spickle and sparkle and spackle," Abennak said with a giggle. "You miss him."
She stiffened. "How can you—"
"Know and know that?" He shuffled closer. "I once asked and asked you to step and step to my side. You did, and yet you didn't. You never hovered beside me, did you? Never saw from my eyes."
"I—"
"Did what you thought better and best. Brother does the same, though you must trust him. He hunts seeds, and he'll have to hope and they're not too gristly or prickly or tough."
Villeen thrust her chin at Kipra. "And the woman? Her sister? How do they tie into this?"
"A knot to be unknotted."
"Damn you, Abennak, answer my—"
"Oftentimes, the best way to open a knot is to slice and slice it. And yet, it must be tightened first, to get the cleanest cut. Otherwise, it frays. Otherwise, it resists and resists, and nothing works. Those two girls must do what I never could."
Silence, long and heavy.
"I'm not a mighty man," he admitted in a small voice. "I'm an afterthought, a shard of guilt, and I'm rolled and rolled into myself as if I'm myself. Think of that. What is it? Why and why do we miss the ones we love? Why and why do we hate them in that same instant? Does your father truly deserve what you've done?"
She opened her mouth, ready to spew the reasons her father deserved every horrible scenario she'd ever imagined. Torden hadn't deserved death. This island hadn't deserved war and fire and decay. Even Abennak, steeped in madness, hadn't deserved to lose his family.
Yes, the bastard deserved it!
Abennak smiled a knowing smile. "It's not worth or worth it, is it?"
Maybe he was right, but she couldn't say it.
"No and no," he continued. "These things, all in the name of vengeance, are a puff of smoke. You should've paid attention to the blue sky. Clouds and clouds. They smile and giggle and laugh."
"What do I do?" she asked.
He pointed to Kipra. "Let her slice the knot."
They watched as Kipra clenched and unclenched her golden fingers. She ran a finger across the metal, and winced as they clinked together. Yet it seemed as if she stole a type of strength from her new fingers, and she flexed her jaw and glanced at Wisk.
The assassin smirked—confident, cocky.
"Vill," Abennak said, his madness receding for an instant. "Trust me."
"You've given me no reason to."
"I'll do terrible things, but I'll also do the greatest thing of all. I'll look your father in the eye and forgive him. For that is what we are, at the end of everything—we're horrible and terrible and great. We're his."
The Mad King pivoted away and flung his hands high. In a wailing, screeching tone, he shouted over the army. "Ants and ants, scrape and scurry to my side!"
Parchment men formed wavy, undisciplined lines, and their commanders strode up and down the ranks in an attempt to straighten them. Their shields glowed with a subdued, silver hue, and their spears wobbled.
Kleni's voice lifted high and true. "Straighter, you sons of goats!"
Villeen shook her head. This wasn't an army of trained soldiers. It was parchment men playing at war, with a whore to lead them. A war Villeen had started. If Abennak planned terrible things, it was no worse than what she'd already done. It didn't mean she must trust him, but maybe, just maybe, she could understand him. After all, she'd also hoped to do something great.
After several more moments of Kleni's shouts, the army settled. Their spears were arced in uneven angles, their wagons poorly placed, and archers nervously dropped their quivers onto the muddy ground.
The Mad King swept his gaze across it all and shouted, "Ants and ants, behold Renek."
High atop a bluff, Renek towered behind the army. The city's walls, though not high to begin with, had been reduced to rubble. Some few houses still smoldered, wheezing black smoke into the sky, and silence lay over the remaining buildings. This was no silence of tranquility, however; it was one of anticipation, deep and sour, powerful enough to shake the gut.
"Renek isn't pretty, is it?" Abennak murmured, and a breeze carried his words to the army. "No, it needs a dash and a splash of something. Like
a salt or a pepper, but neither of those. What and what?"
Unease built in Villeen. Gentahl was powerful, yes, but it was restricted by how many minds witnessed the alteration. Not only that, but certain ideas were more difficult than others. Changing an entire city was impossible.
He pointed at Kipra. "What would you like to see or saw, my dear?"
She scowled.
"Ah, but that's not an answer or a dancer." He nibbled on his fingernail. "What if I were to paint and paint a flower. Kara loved flowers, did you know that? She planted them in the gardens and sprinkled and tinkled them."
Silence.
"No and no, that won't work." Abennak turned to Wisk. "And what of you, my stabbing man? Would you see a bucket of blood where Renek's walls once stood? No, that's about as imaginative as a flock of sheep. Baaaa!"
Again he nibbled his fingernail, then faced Villeen.
He smirked a vile smirk. "What or what if it became your father? That would please us all."
He jerked his gentahl tight and thrust out over ten thousand threads.
"No!" Villeen shrieked, not because she wished him to stop or because she feared the face of her father, but because he attempted something beyond anything she'd ever dreamt of.
So many minds, coupled with such an absurd idea.... It was impossible.
At first, only sand shuddered. Within seconds, larger rocks jerked and hopped, smacking into each other to create a dull roar. Boulders groaned and rumbled, shifting within their craters.
Renek convulsed.
Rubble from its walls skittered to the base of the bluff, and they stacked upon one another until they formed a slab of flat stone. Buildings disintegrated into fist-sized rocks, and those rocks also skittered to the slab. They congealed like drops of water. Up and up the slab rose, thicker than any three houses, wider than the city itself, higher and higher, until its tip caressed the clouds.
"A canvas," Abennak said with a giggle.
The strength of his gentahl numbed Villeen, and she clenched shut her eyes.
"One upon which I may paint a face or place," he said.
The slab rippled.
The Mad King's power stabbed deeper and deeper, feeling like a nail of tar. One second it was steel; the next it melted and dripped. Then it was steel again, piercing Villeen's mind as though driven by the largest of hammers.
Abennak's gentahl vanished.
Villeen cracked an eye open, winced at the brightness, and forced herself to open the other. She, along with the entire army, gasped.
"Not and not bad, eh?" Abennak said.
A man's face was etched deep into the slab, taller than a hundred men. Not a face she knew. It was young and angular, with wispy, stone hair across the forehead. He grinned an absurd, wide-mouthed grin, and he was forever frozen in an exaggerated wink.
To the side of his face jutted a giant fist, its thumb lifted to the sky.
"It's perfection and deflection!"
Chapter Seventy
Kipra swallowed past a tightened throat, and saliva burned down to singe her stomach. She gazed up at the slab that once was Renek. Its appearance made her head ache, and many of the Parched Ones also rubbed their temples. The slab was gorgeous and ugly and confusing.
It was Ark.
A dozen paces away, the Mad King lifted his arms. "Behold your enemy and savior. He'll cuddle and coddle you with a knife to your neck, but not if we slay or slice him first. Ant! Melon! Crispy crusty seed! We'll slap and whack him until he falls."
Wisk snorted. "Fool."
For once, Kipra agreed.
However, that fool had repaired her hand, and she absently stroked newly formed golden fingers. They were cool to the touch, like a mountain stream. Refreshing. Real. She felt them, as if they were a part of her, as if nothing had ever happened.
They clinked together, startling her from her thoughts.
On the trail from Farren to Renek, she'd spent days feeling sorry for herself, feeling worthless. Then the king gifted her with something she'd feared lost forever—the ability to hold a blade. Once again, she held the strength to uphold her promise and hack the assassin to bits.
Avenge Bran.
"You're lucky," Wisk said in his superior, raspy tone. "I didn't think anyone was strong enough to change another's body. Not the way he did yours, at least. He put two pieces together that should've never been fused."
She turned away, clenching both fists. If only she held a blade....
"No," he continued. "But you're special, aren't you?"
She ignored him and peered at the countless ranks of Parched Ones. The sound of Lerrin's violin wafted through the air, lofty and pointed, like the faraway peaks of the Dull Crest Mountains.
Kleni's voice followed his violin, soft and gentle, a lover on the edge of a whisper.
"Now that," Wisk said, and he chuckled, "that is a special woman."
"Burn on a pyre," Kipra spat.
Kleni roved the army's ranks, touching a soldier's arm here, caressing a cheek there, always speaking in that soft tone, always accompanied by that violin's song. Her expression hardened as she moved closer to Kipra. She still coerced and cajoled, but the briefest hint of annoyance creased her forehead.
She stopped before Kipra, and Lerrin's song surged to its pinnacle.
"I'll crush it," Kleni hissed, and she gestured to Renek's slab. "No stone or flesh will keep him safe. I'll burn his corpse with a candle. Imagine how long that will take, Sister."
Wisk fingered a throwing knife at his belt, smirking.
Kleni examined the assassin, a long, slow motion that swept from toe to tooth. He didn't cower beneath her gaze like most men, but returned it. Like two wolves, they grinned.
"Indeed," he murmured. "A very special woman."
Kleni released a peal of laughter. She looped her arm within his, pulled his hand to her chest, and gave a delighted giggle. Kipra frowned. The assassin must've known Kleni simply acted a part, but he smiled wider, and the wrinkles of his face deepened.
Kleni touched his brace of knives. "You're good with these?"
"The best."
She nodded grimly, then turned to Kipra. "You should've let me have Farren."
Abennak skipped to them. White dust puffed around his ankles, and he flicked his finger in the air between the sisters, as if flicking an imaginary length of string.
"Tight or spite enough?" he asked, then thrust out his bottom lip. "No and no, not yet."
A woman moved to his side. Inky spirals twisted across her face and, from beneath her robes, a hand emerged with the same symbols. Kipra knew of this woman, though she hadn't found a chance to speak with her. The tattoos, the haughty set of chin and jaw—this was Fier's sister.
Villeen.
So many answers must've lounged in that woman—why Ark was falling to madness, why he and Kipra were so important. Why Fier attempted to convince Ark to enlist the Kilnsmen. Why and why and why. The questions burrowed within Kipra, aching to burst free.
Lerrin's song ended and another began. This one wasn't soft or sorrowful, nor was it full of angst and tension like the previous one. It lifted and fell with a flippant tone, and the Mad King hummed and bobbed his head in rhythm to the notes.
"Abennak," Villeen said. "I suggest we—"
"Play a game!"
"That's not what I meant."
"But it's what I meant." He pinched his chin, squeezing until the skin turned red, then white. "A-ha! We'll play ring around the Renek."
"What!" Kleni's shout pierced the air. "We've an army to move south, and the longer we linger, the more protection Farren will have in place. We can't—"
"Yes and yes, you and you," the king said, pointing at Villeen and Wisk, "will flip and flop. My stabbing man will watch my general and make sure she doesn't do something silly or willy-nilly, and my dearest Vill will watch the Kipra."
Villeen scowled. "I—"
"Now march. Hyah, my little ants!"
Chapter Seventy-One
>
-We shouldn't be here.-
It's my choice.
Irreor inched open the door to Kipra's house. He should've knocked, given some sort of signal, but, after watching Bran's body taken by the pyre, his muscles felt like a length of soggy rope, hardly useful for anything. The door swung open smoothly, silently, and he waited until Kipra's adoptive parents noticed him.
Haral Steel sat at a simple oak table, and Paien bustled near a tub of water. Their faces were drawn and taut, and Haral rested one hand on his forehead while drumming the table with the other. He stared into the corner, unblinking. The house smelled of steam and vegetables, and a thin, skinned rabbit lay on the table's far side.
They jerked around as the door thumped into the wall.
"You burned the blacksmith?" Haral asked.
Irreor nodded.
"Any news about our girl?" Paien said.
"Still gone," Irreor murmured, and he winced at the lack of emotion. He must've sounded the uninterested fool, but what could he do? Wave his swords valiantly, rush off like a true idiot, and face Abennak alone?
Absurd.
Haral tugged his hand from forehead to chin, then dropped it to the table. He released a massive sigh, stood, and crossed his arms. "What are you here for, then? You've an army to lead and my daughter to find."
Why am I here?
-Kipra is an idea that we meant to provide comfort and direction. Yes, her tongue is sharp and her temper sharper, but that's how she needed to be. She's an echo.-
So I come here to—
-Feel comforted, yes.-
It made sense. To stand here, mere feet from where Kipra once slept, offered a measure of comfort.
And yet, Kipra was gone.
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