by EF Joyce
"And the messenger?" Anaka asked.
"He doesn't know anything, but you're right. Best not leave loss ends. I'll take care of it."
"Annie, why don't you go back upstairs and get some rest? We can take care of this," Stellan said.
"I'm not some fainting courtesan," she snapped. "I'm the Black Hand! I've dealt with this plenty of times."
"And seven months ago I would have gladly accepted your help, but you're in no condition to be lifting this amount of weight, or being exposed to disease ridden flies and blood." He argued, followed by a silent threat from his black eyes; don't push this in front of Balkin.
"Fine." She turned and stalked out of the dungeons, wondering what conclusions Balkin and Stellan would draw regarding Grayna's murderer. No one came in or out, no one saw or heard anything yet there he lay, gutted and dead. If they used logic only one conclusion was possible: the murderer could only be Elixa. Unless Stellan knew she could dream and hadn't let on. Had any of the other Handmaidens dabbled with such power? And what about Balkin? She'd never thought he'd have the stones to murder his own men. Why would he throw in with her and Stellan now? He hated them both and had been plotting something with Grayna. Had he gotten scared and panicked with the former Grand General's death? I should have asked that asshole when I had the chance.
She hated that Stellan relegated her in front of Balkin too. Bastard. And now that she and Ronan weren't fleeing to Dalga, he would be marching uselessly off to Darvaza to get himself killed. Stellan's fault yet again. And to think she'd been sappily gazing into his eyes and promising to love him forever only a few hours prior. Idiot. She should have gone to Dalga. She should have saved Ronan and her daughter. If Ronan died, she'd kill Stellan. He may be immortal but she'd find a way, damn it.
Anaka slammed the doors to their new suite of rooms and pouted on the sofa. Nothing to do now but wait. Which one of us dream-murdered the Grand General? Who is the traitor, Stellan? Your wife or your daughter? According to Alaric, we both are. Good luck with that.
Chapter 22
I
The warm breeze rustled through the orange trees, the hot sun soaked into Elixa's pale skin, the soil soft beneath her feet, the air heavy with the scent of fruit and the sea. Alaric's memories whirled away, leaving the queen breathless.
"Your father is a monster." She hadn't meant to say that, but younger Alaric's bruises and desperation clung to her like morning fog on the shores of Yeraz.
"Indeed he is. I received word from him this morning. He is on his way to Dalga, with his allies. Now is the time to plan our attack in earnest. Our armies will converge in Darvaza, as planned. I will send my soldiers through the pass and our troops can combine on the north side of the Hündür. My father will sail to Dalga's harbors, expecting me to meet him with open arms. He will instead find my cities abandoned. If we can hold the Sikasta Pass, we can and will defeat him. With your added troops, your magic and your 300 sorcerers, victory will most certainly be ours."
An elegant plan. No matter how vast and terrifying Darian's army was, they would still have to push through one by one over the pass to get to Yeraz. With Elixa's army and Alaric's troops combined, in addition to her magic, Darian would never get through, no matter how many soldiers he expended in the effort. Elixa paced in the dirt, staring out the turquoise sea, so much different from the harsh, gray ocean that chiseled away the cliffs of her capitol.
"What about your people? Surely we do not have time to evacuate your kingdom."
"No, we won't," he said, blue eyes cold as the winter sky. "Sacrifices must be made. My kingdom is equal in size to five of your fifty-two provinces. Those people will die, and it will be terrible, but many more will be saved." Willing to give up his kingdom to save her empire? Impossible.
"How can you condemn your people to death to save mine? I don't believe that for a second. What do you really want from me, Eide? An easy victory? My throne in Yeraz? My father at the bottom of the sea?" She'd let her guard down. He still hadn't told her who the traitor was. He'd charmed his way through her senses with his good looks and epic tales of magic long dead; using fear of power she could not understand on a scale she could not fathom to cow her into an unwilling alliance.
"And here I thought I'd been speaking to the Empress of Yeraz, not a court fool!" he snapped, shaking her by the shoulders, his face inches away, twisted in a snarl. "If my father takes this land it will mean death and slavery for everyone! You do not trust me? Fine! Ask your father. When you tell him of my country and my siblings and the Nameless, the blood will drain from his face as terror overcomes him. He will weep at the loss of his world even before it happens because he has seen my father's power and he knows what is coming.
"I am your only chance, Elixa, and you are mine! You infuriating woman! How can we repair this broken world if we keep tearing each other down?" His grip tightened on her shoulders but the fury drained from his face. "Let us build a new world, free of control. Together." He leaned in and kissed her with soft lips and unyielding embrace.
The Queen of Dreams froze, always careful, always suspicious, never letting anyone close. But what kind of life was that? Her solitude was as much a prison as her tower, trapped by her own loneliness and fear. Elixa let go of everything, returned his kiss with ferocity, inhaled his sweet scent, held him as close as she could and all the walls she'd built so high around her came crashing down all at once.
Alaric released her, his piercing eyes gazing at her as if she meant everything, and she felt herself gazing right back. Such a feeling she could have never imagined. So this was why Anaka continued to stand with Sebastian, despite the risks. She understood now, and forgave her friend everything. Maybe she could find a way around the coup – a way to overthrow her father without locking him up. She had to try at least, for Anaka.
"You were right to be angry," Alaric said. "We agreed no more secrets. If I have to tell you everything to seal our alliance, I will. You already know I have an informant in your palace. I had promised to protect her, but our alliance is more important." Her?
"I needed someone close. Someone who could give me information even your council did not possess. Someone who could tell me the moment the great Ilahi changed his battle plans without the council's approval."
No. There was only one person who could have given Alaric such information...
"Anaka Vilente."
II
Elixa tossed and turned under her heavy bed sheets, rain crashing onto the windows, thunder boomed and lightning cracked across the black sky, illuminating her bedroom in bright flashes. Heavy tapestries lined her round walls, each depicting epic tales from Yeraz's history. When Laynea Elspeth, the first Queen of Dreams, took the first province with her powers, cleaving the golden palace in two, and most notably when Tessa Elspeth dreamed the once great land of Arzu into The Waste, the Blighted Lands, where nothing would grow or live, crawl or slither ever again. The strongest Queen of Dreams, she had also snuffed out every Tibrin soldier's life with a thought and dreamed into place the Bronze Gates. There was even a tapestry made for when the Red Queen, Elixa Elspeth, had slaughtered Atam, but she wouldn't let that one anywhere near her chambers.
The storm continued to crash and rage and howl outside, not that she could have slept anyway. Darian was coming with the Nameless in tow and her armies had marched out a mere three days ago to fight for the fate of the world. Grayna had been murdered in his cell days before his trial and no one had seen anything, even with his own men posted outside the doors, though two of his soldiers had gone missing and were suspected of aiding an assassin. Would the treachery never end? And there was Anaka...the traitor.
Elixa almost hadn't dared to believe it until Alaric outlined every detail – how she'd given him the tunnels to Tibre and killed her own man to shift the blame. How she'd known every battle plan from the start, even the ones kept secret. She had gotten the information directly from Sebastian only to use it against him. But the why of it still gnawed at
her. Alaric swore Anaka had never revealed her reasons for treason, only that she'd demanded asylum but had apparently changed her mind since she never showed for her promised transport out of the empire. Weeks had passed and yet Elixa still held onto this secret, unsure what to do with it.
Anaka loved Sebastian; she knew that much to be true. What could motivate her to destroy everything she held dear? The second the queen allowed this secret to go free, her ruthless father would kill his new wife without a second thought and Elixa would never know the truth. Besides, everything had changed. Tibre had been released; Alaric's forces had marched out under the white flag, returning the province to Elixa's rule, sealing their alliance. Yeraz was no longer at war with Dalga, which meant Anaka's previous actions no longer mattered.
But they did matter, to Elixa. Her Handmaiden had betrayed her and the Ilahi and the empire, then changed her mind and she had no idea why. The queen would discover the reason. Grayna's murder had been covered up but the troops were still antsy. They wanted Sebastian gone and if Elixa intended to keep her empire, she would have to keep her promise to Balkin. Knowing of Anaka's treachery, she now had no illusions of sparing her. Once imprisoned, Elixa would get those answers from Anaka, no matter what she had to do to accomplish the task.
"So much to consider, so little time," a woman's voice chimed from the corner of Elixa's bedroom, heavy with a lilting foreign accent. The queen gasped and scrambled out of bed, fumbling in the darkness for her alarm bell. Impossible anyone but her father could have snuck in here. Had he sent this woman? Had he discovered the coup and hired an assassin to kill her? Where was that damn bell!
Lightning flashed and Elixa saw her intruder, lounging in the winged chair by the window, tall and slender with a pale, beautiful face framed by long black hair. She looked strangely familiar, though Elixa was certain she'd never seen her before. The woman held Elixa's bell, muted between her delicate fingers.
The room went black again and the queen stood pressed against the wall, barely breathing for fear. How could anyone have gotten past all of her guards? This had to be Sebastian's doing, there was no other explanation. This hired killer would snuff out her life before she could yank Yeraz from his immortal hands. But then why was she still sitting in that chair, as if she'd stopped by for tea?
"I am not here to harm you," the woman said, her strangely accented voice the only thing Elixa clung to in the blackness. Lightning flashed again, the woman's pale, angular face white in the grim light, her dark eyes examining the queen curiously. So familiar. I know her, from somewhere. But who? Where? Wouldn't she have remembered?
"I can do little to help you," the woman said. Help me? Who are you and why are you here? I am queen and I demand to know! But the only sound that escaped her was a quiet whine. When not in a dream, the queen was powerless. A mere mortal, a commoner, nothing. She'd had magic once, when she was a child, but she'd given it all to the Sphere. What she wouldn't do to have it back now.
"I'm sorry you have suffered so. This timeline, your life like this, Yeraz, it was all an accident, created by my meddling in time. Every change I make only results in a fate direr than the last, and then I die and must begin all over again. Endless universes, filled with my failures. The Oracle warned me, but I did not want to listen. Still, I must do something."
What?
Every lamp in Elixa's room suddenly burst to life at once, the tiny flickering flames casting a comfortable glow. Magic. She could feel it now, smothering her with almost overwhelming force, strong as the Sphere. Stronger. The woman stood now, at least a head taller than Elixa, her face beautiful and smooth, like marble, full red lips and black, black eyes, like a moonless midnight or a bottomless abyss. Her father's eyes. Her father's face, but softer, more feminine. A sister Elixa had never been told of? That would explain her magic...but how?
"Tell me Queen of Dreams, what do you see when you look around this room?" the woman gestured to her windows, her tapestries, her four post bed. Explain the room they were standing in? Why?
"My bedroom?" Elixa ventured, voice shaking. Would this mage kill her or not?
"Your bedroom. Hmm. Certainly you must wonder why you've never left your tower, not once in all this time? This world is not what you believe it to be. Do not trust our father. Above all others, he is your enemy. Above. All. Others. Understand?"
"So you are my sister," Elixa mused, still too shocked to comprehend.
"I look too much like him to deny it," she answered with her strange accent, surely not from any of the provinces. Where could she be from? Another world? Elixa's mind felt stretched to its limits.
"How can I have a sister I've never met? Who are you really?" Elixa breathed, eyes darting nervously toward the alarm bell, her only hope.
"I've worn many titles but am best known as the Nameless One. Perhaps you've heard of me? Our time runs short. I am but a wanderer here. You have the power to destroy him, Elixa. The answer lies within your memories. You must free him to kill him." The woman started to shimmer, her very presence hovering on the edge of reality.
"Wait!" Elixa yelled. "Why not just tell me what to do?" The woman vanished into nothing, but her voice remained.
"I tried that. You went mad and destroyed the world."
III
The black clouds turned gray as the light of day emerged behind the still raging storm. Elixa hadn't moved in all the small hours of the morning, slumped on the floor against her bed with the dagger in her hand. After the woman, her sister? had left, Elixa hadn't the slightest clue where to begin, or what to think. How could she have destroyed the world? It was still here, wasn't it? Endless universes, filled with my failures. The words echoed in her mind and still she could not understand. Start with the simple things, Elixa. Sebastian was her greatest enemy. Yes, she could certainly believe that but soon he'd be locked up, unable to touch her.
Had that woman been here? Or the last night's visit just a vivid dream? And the Nameless One? Certainly a title she recognized. Yet according to her father, the Nameless One had lived over three-thousand-years ago. Could she be another immortal?
A slippery slope to madness was the fate of every queen. The Sphere caused it, the cost of its bond spreading through her veins like an insidious infection, growing stronger each time she borrowed its power. Elixa had always known that someday she would lose herself; the price of being the Queen of Dreams. But so soon? At twenty-years-old she should have decades left still. The queen could not waste her time with this. If it was madness, she would push it back until the war ended. If the woman had been real, she could puzzle out her riddles later.
But what about her tower? Certainly she had left it in the last ten years. Hadn't she? Why couldn't she remember? If she tried to leave right now, what would happen? The doors would open and she'd be in the corridor, that's what. Quit being paranoid Elixa, you have an empire to run. Thinking on this would only encourage the madness waiting to take over since the day she'd been bound to that evil thing, the Sphere of Dreams. The answer lies within your memories... She would never forget the day she'd been bound to the Sphere, but that memory held no answers, only terror and magic.
Elixa locked those thoughts away to a place she could not reach, deciding instead to focus on important matters rather than the mad ravings of a dream. Better, much better.
There were other problems to face, like the terrible clash of Yeraz and Dazhan. Like her father's coup. Like her closest friend's darkest secrets.
Chapter 23
I
"My name is Rozlyn Lucia-Agresta," she announced, though they already knew that part. The red light blinked, reminding her she was streaming live, daring her to fuck it up. Her bright orange hair was a tangled mess, her makeup-free eyes had dark circles beneath them and she was wrapped in Faifax's silk robe, curled up on his giant fluffy bed, the stars glittering above her through the transparent ceiling. A clear and beautiful night. The princess had been hiding out in his apartments for the last few days, and either
he had given up trying to keep their relationship a secret or he pitied her too much to make her leave. She figured the latter. He'd rushed out only hours earlier in an emergency – some unlikely Old Worlder claiming to know where the rebel base was hidden.
"Arcadia is lie," she continued, staring straight into the camera, perched on the messy bed. "We live in a fake world, built on lies, sustained on lies, a dream world! My family wants you to think we are the last humans on the planet, but we aren't. There's a whole world out there – cities, empires, kings and queens, farms and villages, oceans and mountains!" She was shouting now, choking on her words, tears flowing hot and unbidden, the stale taste of bile and alcohol rising in her throat. "The royal family has lied to you. I've lied to you. I knew of this world, and said nothing. You can't know how sorry I am, but we can start again. Take back the world and live as we were meant to – on the ground, together, with the Old Worlders."
Rozlyn coughed on her tears, snot dripping from her nose. She leaned forward and snapped the camera off before collapsing on the bed in racking sobs. The princess wanted to share the truth; to free the Arcadians, who were slaves to lies and unsustainable dreams, and to free the Old Worlders who were slaves to Arcadia.
Posting a video where she looked totally insane wasn't about to help her case. Her parents would freak; they were probably pounding down her door right now. They would never find her here – ha! She celebrated her tiny victory with a snort of derisive laughter and a gulp of Quintaro Ice. The potent liquor dripped down her chin and soaked into the lapel of Faifax's pale blue robe. Oops. He's not going to like that.
The princess collapsed back onto a mountain of pillows and closed her eyes. Bad idea. The rebellion's sick video clip painted itself on the inside of her eyelids: blood slashing up a white wall, gun shots, Kaelor's face, cold and determined, his finger squeezing the trigger, ending lives. Rozlyn would never get over this, not in a million years. She would have to get smashed everyday just to keep herself alive. Rolling over, she snatched the bottle of sleeping pills from the nightstand, popped two and welcomed oblivion.