by EF Joyce
"I meant I don't understand why he would tell you that," Ronan clarified. "He's writing his own execution order. If you tell Sebastian–"
"He didn't admit to anything, not directly. But he's up to something and I want to know what it is, if only to ensure his plans won't interfere with ours."
"Alright, fine, I'll follow him," he said hesitantly. "But how long can this continue? The risk runs higher every moment we linger in Yeraz."
Should they be exposed handing their own empire to Alaric Eide, oh the things that would be done to them both. But she needed more time, more information, or else Eide would not deliver. Anaka would risk anything, everything, to bring down Stellan, to change the world, to save her daughter, and Ronan would follow her through the very fires of the Underworld if that's where she led him.
"I know," she said, the weight of the words reflecting in her dark eyes.
"Ok." He paused, adjusting the dagger on his belt. "You love him, don't you?" he asked her, jaw clenched, those beautiful green eyes swallowing her whole. Oh, Ronan, don't do this to me now.
She stared at him, letting the silence grow heavy. She could have told him sorry, that she'd never meant for this to happen, but words were useless things that no one ever heard, so she stayed quiet until Ronan tore his gaze away and walked out.
When Elixa had commanded Anaka to become her father's lover, to spy on him for her, she never dreamt she'd fall for him. But she had, and now she would have to destroy him. All of life seemed a battle between her head and her heart and every decision made had the potential to destroy a piece of her, but as long as the piece that remained was the one that had done right, there would be no regret.
Only pain without guilt, sorrow without shame. And that she could live with.
Chapter 4
I
"I heard my father rejected the peace treaty," Elixa said to her Handmaiden over tea in the tower's tea room. The pastel blue and pink wallpaper had always bothered Elixa, and her eyes avoided contact with the hideous pattern. The queen despised that room, but her tower only held so many options. Each room was circular, a staircase curving upward on the inside of the stone walls. The bottom floor her throne room, the next this ugly room and her office one wall over, the next her servant's quarters and the top two floors her own suites.
"Yes, My Queen," she replied, her eyes downcast. Anaka was in a dark mood, as usual. She'd always been like that; silent and watchful, filled with righteous anger or utter indifference, Elixa never could tell. Her former friend was hugely pregnant now, waddling around the palace carrying Elixa's little sister, the future queen. She'd be trained in magic, pampered and catered to, trained in war and politics until the moment Elixa passed from life into history. Shortly after the princess's birth a new Handmaiden in waiting would be chosen also. Anaka wouldn't like that very much – proof that her position in the world was a mere transitory shadow, a cloud shifting moodily over a stormy sky.
"There was nothing I could do. You know I do not get a vote."
"So the treaty was voted upon?" the queen pried. Anaka shifted, looking embarrassed.
"No. Sebastian overrode the council before a vote could be taken," the Handmaiden admitted.
"As I thought." Elixa examined her former friend and ally, the woman who was supposed to be her eyes and ears, her spy, her confidant. She had slipped away from her, her loyalties now favoring Elixa's father. The queen was well aware his beauty and commanding coldness had the women of the palace falling all over him, but she'd believed Anaka was different. The Handmaiden carried her own harshness and ruthlessness, traits Elixa had hoped she would use against him, to fight him for Yeraz, for her queen. Those traits the very reason she had insisted Anaka apprentice as an assassin and become the Ilahi's lover. Instead they had fallen for each other.
"Anaka, there is one thing I would like you to remember," Elixa added, leaning forward suddenly and tightly gripping the Handmaiden's wrist, imploring her to hear her words. "Do not ever trust him," she whispered, recalling the latest from Grayna; that her father and Anaka never spent a night apart, that they were always in each other's company, that they were by all appearances as in love as Lilana and Romond in the ancient Arzuian epic. The fact Elixa knew above all others was that her father could love no one, that every emotion he expressed was little more than a game, a chess move, and she would not sit by and watch Anaka be played, and played against her.
"Elixa, there is no reason for you to be concerned. I still promote your interests throughout the palace–"
"Do you?" the queen interrupted. "My interests lie with the people. I will not be remembered as the empress who let everyone starve to death because she was too proud to sign a treaty. My father has some sort of personal dream or vendetta or something that he wants to fulfill and he's willing to lay the world to waste to get it, if that's what it takes. He's past the point of seeing reason, at least on his own. If you really care about him and this empire, talk to him. Make him understand the stakes, because if he keeps to this path I can't promise amnesty to either of you."
The Handmaiden sat silently as the queen's threat sunk in, staring gloomily into her tea. Elixa hadn't wanted to draw lines between her and Anaka, but she'd had no choice. And if she couldn't influence her father and wouldn't stand against him, then she would go down with him. "I understand, Elixa. I will speak to him. On another subject, may I ask you a personal query?"
"Anything," she replied, curious.
"About your dreams..." she began, absentmindedly twisting her long, black hair around her fingers and staring down at the lush carpet. "How do you choose where to go? I mean, how do you control the destination?" Elixa frowned. Had her father asked her to bring it up, frustrated that Elixa had yet to dream of Dalga? That was the only logical conclusion. He had sent Anaka to spy on her, to pry out the secrets he was convinced she kept from him. Her former friend had slipped even further than she'd imagined.
"I think of the place I wish to go, that is all," she snapped, furious he had dared to send her own Handmaiden to question her. She would make sure he would not like her answers. "I have little control over the process, in all honesty," Elixa continued. "More often than not, the dreams I require never come, and you can report that to my father, since he dares to send you in his place, since you dare to spy on your own queen. This meeting is finished."
"Believe it or not, I do not require a spy to determine what my daughter is up to, and if I did I would not send Anaka," a cold voice interrupted. Of course he would be there; he could not let her have one moment of peace, especially not in Anaka's company.
"Anaka, leave us," he commanded, his eyes flickering toward her Handmaiden, her friend, her only confidant, stolen from her by The Ilahi, the thief of her existence. Anaka rose from her chair.
"Don't you dare leave!" the queen shouted. "You follow my command, not his!"
"Did you not just inform her that your meeting was concluded? Out, now," he said, voice calm and unshakable. The Handmaiden left, the door clicking shut behind her.
"You think you can take whatever you please? My friend, my freedom, my empire? Perhaps your other daughters offered no resistance, but I will not let you burn my empire to the ground! I'm through doing things your way. I am the queen and I will act my part."
Her father stepped closer, his icy aura seeping through to her bones, no challenge burning in his black eyes, instead only vague disinterest, as if she were a corpse he was stepping over. A chill lanced down her spine; he did not think for an instant she could touch him, that she could do a thing against him. She'd already been conquered, defeated. But no, just because he saw her that way did not mean it to be true. She would fight back, and win. Yeraz belonged to her, and she would make certain everyone knew it.
"You do not want to make an enemy of me, darling," he said, his frigid tone laced with terrible promises.
"There is nothing more you can take from me," she answered, resolved. His reply was a half-smile, glowing with triumph
that was not yet his, and he left her to her plans, whatever they were, as she hadn't yet thought of any.
The queen could afford to fight; the only thing he could take was her life, and he would not dare, at least until his next child was old enough to replace her.
II
The roses were white as her skin and pink as her lips. Elixa lifted one from the vase her servant had brought in and stared out one of her many windows at the streets below. Her capitol. Her empire. Flower pots lined the cobbled streets, people rushed about their business. The city looked the same as always from her cold window. As a child, she had walked down them with her mother, the air vibrating with notes of laughter and shouts, the mingling scents of flowers and sea salt, hot and humid with life. She missed those moments. That life. Every day in her tower she was bombarded with petitions and meetings, war councils and responsibilities. There had never been time to get out, to rest, to stop being queen and just be Elixa.
Had it really been ten years since she'd last walked through the streets of her own capitol? Since before she'd become queen? She had been ten-years-old and the spring festival had been in full force, complete with fire dancers and sugar cake salesmen.
"Mama, I want a rose," she'd said, one small hand clasped around her mother's. Anaka had stood on her other side, silent and serious even then. Elixa had spent the winter months choosing the perfect fabric, the brightest purple and most dazzling silver, dashing to the seamstress's quarters every day to watch its progress, adjust the fit, her excitement for the spring festival growing with each visit. Her attempts to convince Anaka to have a dress made were in vain; her handmaiden and friend had always preferred to be plain, on the sidelines, unnoticed.
"Watch, Anaka, watch!" she'd said, taking the rose her mother had handed to her and releasing her magic into it. The petals had transformed into tiny birds that fluttered around them like living halos until she'd gotten bored and sent them off, watching their tiny forms vanish into the sunset. Elixa's skill in magic had reached beyond anything that her elders could control at that point.
"They are beautiful," her Handmaiden had replied, dark and quiet.
"Promise you'll always be with me," Elixa had said, gripped with sudden terror that her dearest friend would vanish.
"Always. Under storms and starlight."
"And darkness and death," Elixa added, smiling. A saying they had made up years ago when Elixa had been afraid of the storms outside, and the darkness of the night. Anaka had feared nothing, always staying by the princess's side during the storms, promising even death could not separate them. Anaka had always been quiet and strange, removed from emotion, but she loved Elixa and Elixa knew it.
The present-day Elixa glanced past the city, to the tiny square of gleaming water visible from her position, the rose hanging limp in her hands, rendered sinister by her recollections. She let it slip from her fingers, carelessly trampling it with her booted foot. She contained none of that magic anymore, not like she had. Bonding with the Sphere had taken it from her; transformed it into something more concentrated but less malleable. Now she could fell nations and recreate them with a thought, but only when the Sphere allowed.
The queen could feel the place her magic once resided, like a dark hole in her being, an emptiness unable to be filled. Her father had always chastised her for using it; you're going to hurt someone, you're going to strain yourself, you're going to use up your powers.
But now she wondered if those had been excuses for his fear of her magic, a force beyond his control. Her mother had been the opposite. Even now she could see her, lounging on the sofa in their quarters, her gray eyes always full of humor.
"Make me a pet," she'd said once, just before Elixa's tenth birthday.
She had shaped it from her mind; stripes like fire and coal, eyes bright as gold rings and claws that glittered like silver necklaces. Deeper she pushed her magic, forming its core, its soul, from the love she had for her mother, that strong beautiful woman who Elixa so much resembled – gray eyes, sand-colored hair. She'd clapped with excitement like a child, laughing her musical laugh and favoring Elixa with her secret smile, the one meant just for her. The vivaciousness of the current handmaiden had won her numerous admirers, so many smiles given, but not the secret one, never that. She saved it only for Elixa, for moments when she was most proud of her; her mouth curving up to one side, her eyebrow raising, as if they were co-conspirators in a covert plot.
"Oh she is lovely! I shall call her Shadowfire and we will never be apart, just like you and I, my darling." She had let Elixa sleep in her bed that night, only because it's the night before your birthday, and she'd slipped in between the crisp white sheets, inhaling her mother's hidden scent of lilacs and dew, a smell only noticeable when she got close enough. Shadowfire had slept at the foot, her sleek feline form curled into a puff of red and black. She'd watched that fur expand and contact with breath, frozen in awe at her own magic, able to feel the string of Shadowfire's life like a tingle in the back of her mind, a string that could be pulled and manipulated, or not.
The cat was her creation and she could control its movements, influence its actions. But she could also choose not to, to let it follow its own path as an independent creature. Unlike the birds and rabbits she'd made in the garden, which were nothing more than shells that traipsed around for a few moments before vanishing, Shadowfire possessed a spark, a will, a soul, and that knowledge terrified her. At age ten she could not say why, though perhaps deep inside she had realized her magic could make people with wills and souls, personalities and destinies. People whose strings she could pull anytime like a god, molding their thoughts and actions, dancing them through life like dolls.
And if she could make people, perhaps some other mage had made her, and maybe she did not really exist as more than a loose thought in a god's mind, a thing breathed to life on a whim, whose actions and emotions were not her own. Of course Elixa had not thought of all this, her mind was too young to grasp such concepts, but the fear lingered, a fear of a knowledge she could not rightly express or define.
The following day had been her tenth birthday, and confident in her newly found mastery of her magic, she'd imagined a dress for herself so elaborate in its embroidery that it would have taken a year for the seamstress to complete. Her papa had arrived in the afternoon, cold and hard as he'd always been, but he gave her a necklace, a deep blue gem set into silver, which glowed and rippled with life as if it were an eye into the ocean's depths. He'd hugged and kissed her, almost smiling at her joy of his gift, almost happy, almost loving her. And then his black tar eyes darkened as if crossed by a sinister shadow, his smile fell away and he transformed; cold as shattered glass, sharp as knives, deadlier than either.
"What have you done, Elixa?" he said, shaking her by the shoulders. He'd crossed the room and picked up Shadowfire, who had howled and cried at his touch, scrambling to escape. "Undo it!" he'd yelled, and her papa never raised his voice, not even once, always calm, always cool. Fury ignited his dark eyes from within, his beautiful face suddenly terrible, like a smiting god or avenging angel. Shadowfire's gold eyes had quivered in terror, real fear, an emotion belonging solely to the animal.
"You cannot create life!" he'd roared at her and she'd trembled, cowed and defeated, hoping her mama would stop him, but she herself was shaking, half hidden behind the curtains, naked fear in her eyes. "Undo it!" he yelled again, his voice reverberating inside her core, shaking her into nothing. Maybe he is pulling my string, a thought she had not been fully aware of.
Shadowfire vanished as if she'd never been, though Elixa could still feel the cat's presence lingering in her mind, waiting to be resurrected; she had not undone the life she'd made, she could not bear to. Instead she'd only hidden it until the day she was big enough and strong enough to stand up to her papa, and on that day Shadowfire would be reborn.
But the cat would never live again, not now, not ever. The Sphere had absorbed her magic, making it a part of her and her
part of it. After that, she could not feel Shadowfire's life string anymore, she could not imagine trees and birds and dresses into being, she could not do anything at all unless the Sphere gave her a dream and even those were short lived.
After her father had quit her rooms, taking away her pet and ruining her birthday, her mother had collapsed onto the sofa, sobs racking her body like seizures. "Mama, what's wrong? Mama? It's ok, I can remake her, I will, I promise." Her mother hadn't answered, only held her tight in her arms, and in that moment a flame of hatred for her father had been born, not for Shadowfire but because of her mother. He had done this to her as much as Elixa and for that he would not be forgiven.
And now, all these years later, that flame had been kindled into a bonfire, one so fierce it burned away her last traces of fear.
He had taken her mother, her magic, her freedom, and now her only friend and confidant. If Anaka had been willing to interrogate her about dreams and magic on his command, then she belonged to him completely and could not be trusted; but she still had Grayna.
Somewhere under that fuchsia-orange streaked evening sky, across cobbled roads, beyond marketplace and the fishermen, lost somewhere deep in the crowd a peace treaty was being smuggled through the boundaries of Yeraz. Once it reached Dalga, she would unseat her father, discredit him in every possible way, relegate him to servitude and rule as she was meant to.
Elixa may have become queen ten years ago, but her true reign started tonight.
Chapter 5
The noon sun blasted Rozlyn in the face, preceded by the distinctive whir of her Sky Cover opening. She rolled upward, her naked skin sliding on her Martin Faraguay original, one-of-a-kind, custom made silk sheets. Her head was like a cracked egg, the yolk slowly slipping out, pulsing with the beat of her heart. A slender blonde woman stood in the doorway, a single manicured nail holding down the Sky Cover button.