by EF Joyce
Anaka Vilente was the last person living to deserve happiness.
If she had just killed Alaric that night like she was supposed to, none of this would have ever happened. Instead, Yeraz would have encompassed the whole world and her and Stellan would have sat at the head of it, watching over everyone like gods. She laughed again, rough and crazy and choked with sobs.
"Anaka, what's wrong?" she heard the door click shut and then Ronan was there, kneeling at her side, his deep green eyes filled with worry that she'd gone mad. Maybe she had.
"Ronan," she said, taking his hand in her. Her companion, her confident, the only one she'd trusted with the darkest of her secrets, every last one of them. "I'm sorry, Ronan. I'm so sorry. I can't leave Yeraz. I can't. I need you tonight, to be my witness."
"Your witness? Witness for what?"
"I'm getting married!" the sobs returned, cutting off her breath like knives. Ronan pulled her into his arms, letting her soak his shirt with tears.
"Anaka, Anaka. I thought we were going away...I thought you wanted...do you know how hard it is for me to watch you do this to yourself?" he whispered into her hair, his breath warm on her face. "For two years I've kept silent when there was so much I could have said. He'll never love you more than power. More than himself. Your life is just a blip to him. He's had thirteen other daughters and who knows how many wives. He's just using you. Please, Anaka. Don't do this."
Don't do this. Run away to Dalga with me instead, she knew that was what he wanted to say. Like you promised, Anaka. But you break all your promises, don't you? That's what you're best at.
"I know what I promised. Things weren't supposed to turn out this way. I know. But I love him, Ronan, and I'm sorry. He said we won't need the Queen of Dreams anymore," she cried, her voice mimicry of the joy she wished she could feel. "Once we conquer Dalga we'll rule over everything and, and, our daughter will never be bonded to The Sphere."
"If Dalga wins and Alaric comes here, he will use the name you gave him and he'll know what you've done. Will you really stay here and take that risk?" Ronan asked once her sobs had tapered to silent tears.
"It won't matter either way. If we win, Alaric will never use the name and Stellan will never know. If Alaric wins, Stellan will be his slave, unable to harm me. But you can still go. I want you to go. Take the papers and leave me." The last thing she wanted was to see Stellan a slave, but neither could she abandon him. She loved him too much, and now that their daughter would never be queen she could have the both of them. They would win this war. They had to.
"I will never leave you," he said, his resolute tone breaking her even more. I am the last person you should love. I am the worst person in the world. For the first time, she wanted to fill the silence. To tell him how much he meant to her. But she'd never been good with words.
"There is another reason I came to find you, though," he added, shattering their fragile moment. "Grayna's trial is in two days and he's claiming to have proof of the real traitor's identity. He met with Balkin today and rumors are sweeping the palace. He's refusing to name them until the trial. I'm not sure why, but that's what people are saying.
"Also, Balkin doesn't trust the Ilahi's men and got it cleared with the council to swap out Grayna's guard for loyal veterans. He'll be completely surrounded by his soldiers at all times; there will be no getting to him. What if he names you, Anaka?" Instantly Anaka's wild emotions were tamed, her tears dried and she was steel and stone once more; herself again, a skilled assassin confronted with an impossible target.
"There is always a way," she said. "Lock the door. Let no one in, no matter what, not even Stellan. And don't wake me for anything." The Handmaiden closed her eyes and let the magic wash over her. As her daughter grew, dreaming became easier every time. She pictured the dungeons clearly; she had been in them hundreds of times, specifically the highest level reserved for noble offenders. Dank stone floors and walls, dripping with moisture. Barred windows open to the sea, the salt smell clogging her nose, three roomy cells for important prisoners.
When she opened her eyes she faced the center cell, torches flickering in the dying light of the day, the Grand General apparently asleep on his cot.
"Good evening, Grand General," she said smoothly, all confidence. He jolted awake and then glared, standing up, squaring his shoulders and pressing himself against the back wall so she couldn't reach him through the bars. He knew she'd kill him if she got the chance. He knew she was the traitor. But how? Bars could not stop her, but he didn't know that. Yet. Time to find out what he knew. A cold breeze flew in from the waves, the torch flames fluttering wildly.
"I've been waiting for you to show up, Handmaiden. Especially once you heard the rumors of your own impending demise. I have to admit, I'm impressed. You're ten times colder and twenty times more brilliant than I would have ever given you credit for." She smiled.
"How did you figure it out?" Anaka had to know, or else she would have just killed him in his sleep. Where had she slipped up and would Stellan catch it? Grayna was so self-assured, locked in his cell with his men guarding the doors. He'd talk because he believed she was trapped, that he had beaten her, and now he'd want to gloat.
"It was Tibre, and Cyril," he said. "No one tied that initial betrayal to the rest. You took Cyril with you on purpose, as a scapegoat. You probably killed him yourself so that we'd all have someone to blame when they took the tunnel. No one questioned that you'd botched the assassination and gotten a soldier captured. You're a filthy Wakati and we've all been waiting, expecting you to fail. You played right into our expectations, didn't you? But Cyril had been a member of a different battalion in his first year. According to his buddies, he was captured and tortured for two weeks before his rescue. Two weeks and he never gave them the information they demanded. I heard that story years ago, but it took some time stuck in here with nothing to do but think to remember it.
"Once I did, I recalled the day I went to examine Maurice Sundry's body before his burial. The way he died gave you away. A direct stab to the heart with an extremely sharp dagger. A cut like that screams of an experienced killer, which fits none of the other council members except myself and Sebastian, but he wouldn't have killed his own ally. Also, there was a long, black hair on his shirt. Only one person in the council fits that description. It's mostly speculation, sure, but once I speak those words there will be no taking them back. Sebastian will start to wonder and that will be the end of you."
"Very good, Grand General," she replied. A wound and a hair and Cyril's past. But if Grayna had kept this information to himself and Sundry's body had already been sealed, Stellan would not be able to learn the truth the same way. Besides, he wouldn't be searching for it as Grayna had. Unless, of course, Grayna told him. But he wouldn't be leaving this cell or even this conversation alive.
"But the best of it is Sebastian," he added, almost excited at the very idea someone could so deeply betray the great Ilahi. "You really swindled him. I don't know how, I never thought I'd see that man move for anyone else. But damn, you got him to love you. Even more impressive is how you've played him. I've seen generations of women make fools of themselves over that man when he won't even spare them a glance. Somehow you've managed to snare him while keeping your distance. You're a marvel, Handmaiden. I've truly underestimated you." The Grand General was genuinely thrilled, she could see it. Clearly he'd been longing for a worthy opponent, a villain to topple, a mystery to unravel.
"In one part, you're mistaken," she said, approaching the bars, leaning on them as if she couldn't simply dream her way through. "I do indeed love him. But some loves are greater than others. Some deserve life more than others."
"Aha!" he exclaimed, his dark eyes lighting up, though he remained pressed against the back wall. "That was my one missing piece. I could not understand why you would do this. Why you would tear Yeraz apart. I'd almost convinced myself you'd done it just to prove that you could."
"You know what happened to the q
ueens, Grand General."
"Your daughter. I tried to offer you another way out, Handmaiden, in the gardens that night. When you rejected me I assumed you didn't even care for your own child. But it seems you already had plans of your own. If you had joined me, all of this could have been avoided. Too bad it will all be for nothing when I declare you as a traitor in my trial day after next," this time he smiled at her, the wide grin of the victorious. She returned his grin, her turn to gloat.
"I don't think you will be doing any such thing, Grand General."
"My men guard the door, they are the ones who let you in," he said, so confident of his safety, so secure in his assumptions. "They report anyone who enters and leaves directly to Balkin. You think you can kill me in here, oh great assassin? You can't even reach me through the bars. And even if you could, the whole empire would know it was you. You're through, Handmaiden."
"No they won't. Your men saw no one enter, and they will see no one leave, since I am not really here." Anaka stepped through the bars as if they were smoke, Grayna's eyes widened with shock. Not giving him a second to recover, the assassin pulled her famed dagger from her sleeve and stabbed him in the heart before he'd realized what had happened. His body stiffened then went slack, sliding lifelessly to the floor like a doll.
She yanked her weapon free of him, admiring its wicked edge, gleaming silvery and deadly, the purple stone on the hilt, pulsing with life and magic. Hakkon hadn't made this dagger, Anaka had stolen it. Hakkon had made a replica that she'd replaced it with at the age of thirteen. Betraying Stellan since she was a child. Perhaps it had been her destiny to destroy him. Of course this too was a copy, a dream copy. She sheathed the weapon and woke, her dream body vanishing from the dungeons as if it had never been.
II
Night had fallen over the coastal capitol, the sky clear for once, the stars gleaming overhead like a million spying eyes. Anaka slipped from the palace under cover of darkness, dressed in a plain black silk shirt and pants, Ronan at her side. The chilly air sliced through the thin fabric, the wind off the waves freezing her to the bone. Stellan was waiting for her at the cliff, dressed in his best suit, hair neatly combed, marble skin gleaming in the moonlight. One of his priestesses stood before them, glad in purple the silk robes and gold tiara of her station. He took her hands and she gazed into his fathomless black eyes, no longer enigmatic but filled with love, for her. Even after all she'd done, though he didn't know it. If he found out, that love would turn to poison and hatred, fiercer than she could ever imagine.
The priestess chanted in some ancient language and Anaka pretended to listen, but instead her mind kept taking her back to the moment she knew she loved him, the very same moment that he had chosen to trust her, dooming himself.
The rising sun had warmed her naked skin as she stood facing the balcony doors, the curtains yanked back, flooding the room in deep yellow-orange light. Only three months had passed since she'd returned from the Wakati Islands, the crazy prophecies of the man who had called himself Oracle – among other things – still haunting her dreams. The queen had been so proud of the death there; two-hundred-thirteen men women and children, lying in pools of their own blood. As if one assassin could manage such a job, even one as skilled as she. Especially against Seers. Was she the only one able to spot the inconsistency there? But they had never questioned her story.
Anaka had briefly considered speaking the truth, I didn't do it, I didn't kill them, but that act had brought Stellan to her rooms and by order of the queen, Anaka would take him in. That lie had been the spark that lit their romance and despite Elixa's orders to pretend, the Handmaiden had fallen for him hard and fast. Dead men can't speak, so let them keep her secrets.
He had joined her at the window, watching the sunrise, his fingers tracing the scars on her back, his lips on her neck. Unlike Balkin, he'd never been disgusted by her. He said that she was beautiful, her! That the scars were marks of her tremendous strength and will. She was absolutely in love with him. The coldness of her heart melted with his touch, her silence and caution banished by the sound of his voice, and like a fool woman she had spoken her mind.
"I'm in love with you, Sebastian," she'd said, pulling herself closer to him, watching his dark eyes. A shadow had passed over his face, regret? Disgust? Annoyance? Why had she said that? Everything between them had been perfect and she'd ruined it. In love with an immortal, with a god. How stupid could she be?
He'd looked at her for a long time in silence, and she hadn't pressed him. "You're an amazing woman, Anaka. A worthy partner. My name is not Sebastian, it's Stellan. Stellan Tristenza. I ask that you use it, but only when we're alone. I haven't heard my name from another's lips in centuries," he'd looked almost wistful for a second, then his face hardened into his typical unreadable mask.
"Alright, Stellan," she'd said, testing his name, tasting its sound. The moment he had given her the tool to his own destruction, Anaka had loved him above all else. In that moment, she never would have imagined a possibility where she'd betray him. And even now that she had, she did not love him any less, only someone else more.
"Do you swear from this day forward to join your lives together completely, to love until your last breath and to let only death part you?" The priestess said, switching back to Yerazi. Her brown, wrinkle rimmed eyes glowed with excitement and Anaka could only imagine how much of an honor a priestess would consider marrying the Ilahi, who had taken no wives in the last 800 years, since Izeldi the Queen of Yeraz when he'd stumbled upon this land. He'd told Anaka that it had been strictly political, allowing him to take control of the country easily. She had also been the mother of the first Queen of Dreams. Stellan claimed that in his three-and-a-half millennia of life, he'd only loved twice, including herself. The story of his first love had taken him even longer to reveal to her than his true name, and she knew the tragedy of it still haunted him after three-thousand-years.
If they lost this war, if he ever found out what she'd done, he'd never recover.
"I promise," she said.
"I promise," he repeated, gazing into her soul, as if he could see her all the way through; her secrets, her guilt, and loved her anyway. A lie she could not even pretend to believe. The next morning they would see the palace artist and get their vows tattooed around their left wrists, a longstanding tradition in Yeraz. Stellan had already shown her hers, though she could not even read them. Written in the ancient and long dead, but beautifully spiraling, curlicue language of the kingdom Stellan had been born and in when mortal, Anaka had taken to it immediately. He called his long lost home the Kingdom of Ashes, since it had been destroyed by the Nameless three-thousand-years ago, his greatest enemy.
They returned to the palace together, to their new suite on the fourth floor with their unborn daughter's room, now a beacon of hope for the Handmaiden and the life she'd chosen. Win the war and he'd never know, win the war and she'd have everything. They would crush Alaric, she would make certain of it. No matter the cost.
Scarcely an hour had passed in the joyful solitude of each other's company before some messenger was beating down their door demanding entrance to report an emergency; Balkin needed them immediately in the dungeons. The messenger did not know why but Anaka did: they'd found Grayna's body.
III
The once great Grand General was gray-skinned, stiff and unimposing in death, prostrate on the floor where he'd fallen and she'd left him. Summer flies buzzed around his corpse from the open window, two tireless soldiers guarding their hero's body consistently swatting them away. Balkin paced outside the cell, his pock marks shadowed craters in his pale, sweaty skin.
"You! You did this!" Balkin shouted at Stellan, shaking and clenching his fists. Grim-faced Stellan shook his head, his lips pressed in a flat line.
"Why would I?" he said. "His death hurts me more than anyone. Do you think the army will fight for me now? Will they march to Darvaza? Will they defend Yeraz? No. They will lay down their weapons in protest and
our enemy will swarm over us. They will capture our land and burn our villages and tear our empire to the ground."
"No, they won't," Balkin replied, the fury drained from his pale face. "Because they aren't going to find out about this. We'll cover it up, cancel the trial and say he's been pardoned under further investigation."
"Why would you do that?" Stellan pressed. "Isn't this exactly what you wanted? A military coup against me?"
"Yeraz is my home," Balkin snapped. "And Grayna's too. The last thing he'd want was for the empire to be torn apart, especially over him. We cover it up until the army returns from Darvaza." Unexpectedly, he yanked the filigreed sword from his scabbard and killed the two innocent soldiers in one swift motion, who been listening to their new Grand General's blasphemous declaration with wide-eyes. Blood spurted from their warm bodies as they fell into a heap on top of their already stiff and dead leader.
"I had no idea you were so ruthless," Anaka said, still staring at the bodies. The soldiers would have talked of course, even a fool knew that. But she never foresaw such a reaction from soft-hearted Quinton.
"I learned from the best," he said, narrowing his eyes in a fierce glare. So he still resented her, well fine. If he wanted to stew in his own hatred for the remainder of his life, she wouldn't be one to stop him. "We need to bury these bodies and clean up this cell."