by EF Joyce
Tell me Queen of Dreams, what do you see when you look around this room? This world is not what you believe it to be, the Nameless had told her. Had Elixa gone mad already?
"I don't understand," she whispered.
"The people believe you live in the tower, but that's all an illusion. The council knows otherwise, the Handmaidens, and your father, of course. Yeraz's best kept secret." Elixa wanted to scream, to shake her friend and demand straight answers rather than cryptic riddles. "Follow me, and I will show you everything, as I should have done long ago."
The queen trailed after Anaka wordlessly; her truest friend, her almost sister, her greatest betrayer. The Handmaiden opened a door to a dark set of stairs. The lower levels. Home of the Sphere. Elixa followed in silence, a cold fist of foreboding clamped around her chest.
What is so terrible you would tear down the world to save your daughter from it? All this time, Anaka had been hiding something, a truth she'd been seconds from hearing until her father had interrupted them. The secret would be kept no longer – Elixa would finally learn the truth.
Four levels below the palace; this labyrinth was just as she'd remembered. Crumbling stone walls, shadowy corners, darkness lurking everywhere, terror reaching out in tangible tendrils to crush her very soul. Anaka opened the doors to the Sphere's room, just as her father had all those years ago – the depths of its blackness impenetrable, the malevolence of the Sphere hitting her like a wall.
The Sphere that caused the tapestries to unravel and the silver to green and the stone to crumble. The Sphere whose infection spread throughout the palace, leeching life and joy from the inhabitants, replacing it with coldness and mercilessness. The ruthlessness of the Yerazi nobility all came from that thing. Her people didn't stand a chance while this darkness infiltrated their very souls. How had she never understood before now?
The Sphere held her father's magic. And his soul. The Sphere was the Ilahi and the Ilahi was the Sphere. Do not trust our father. Above all others, he is your enemy. Above. All. Others.
Elixa remembered meeting the glowing violet eye of that monster when she was ten years old, and with that memory came the rest.
Ten years ago, her papa had carried her into that room while she'd screamed and screamed.
"Please, Papa! I want to go back! Please, please," she'd sobbed. He'd wrapped his arms around her, held her close and stroked her hair.
"Everything will be fine, darling, just fine. I promise. Shh, everything's alright, trust me." He held her until her screams tapered down to silent tears. Grayna had been there and Anaka and a few others, but their pale faces faded into the background like ghosts and only her father's remained.
I forgive you for ruining my birthday, for making Shadowfire go away, for making mama cry. I forgive you for everything; just keep me safe from this horror. She didn't have to say so; her father knew she was sorry and he would never let anyone hurt her. He lifted her onto a stone slab so close to the Sphere its pulsing violet light played across her skin and she swore she could feel it reaching for her, hungry for her magic.
"Lay down, darling."
"I don't want to. Please."
"Elixa, you must bond with the Sphere, to become queen. This will all be over soon and you'll be back in your room."
"With mama?"
"With mama."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
The frozen slab pressed against her tiny shoulder blades, its cold seeping right through the pink and violet dress she had magicked together in her room the night before. She looked up at the blackness, no ceiling to discern. Violet light pulsed all around her, finding nothing to illuminate. She would be brave, for her mama. For her papa. To be queen.
Her papa's face appeared over her and she latched onto his black eyes, their cold depths a familiar comfort in this dark place. He would protect her. He'd promised and she'd believed him. Elixa hadn't seen the dagger behind his back, curved and gleaming in the wicked violet light, a tiny stone pulsing with the Sphere's magic. She had only seen her papa, her hero.
"I love you, Elixa," he said, and then brought the knife down quick as lightning flashing over the Haddash Sea. She had heard her muscles pop as the dagger sliced through them, piercing her heart with untold agony.
Her body blossomed with pain. She heard a scream more horrible than she ever imagined a scream could be. She realized that she was the one screaming. The knife came down again and again until a cold overtook her.
Then she felt nothing.
The day she became queen, Elixa had died. And her father had been her murderer.
The next memory Elixa had was waking up in her bed. But that hadn't really been her bed, had it? She had been there all along, living in an illusion the Sphere had created for her mind, becoming real only when its magic chose to grant her flesh. She never left her tower. Only the council members had ever spoken with her. They had been there, in the Sphere's room, hearing her voice through its evil glass.
Her entire life had been a lie.
Elixa was always dreaming. Dreaming awake.
Chapter 41
Elixa Elspeth had lived only ten years. Every betrayal and plot and double cross had been to save her daughter from death at Stellan's hands. At nine-years-old she'd watched him kill her dearest friend, her almost sister, and she'd felt that loss like nothing else. First she swore revenge. Then, as Hakkon's training wore her down and she got to know the Elixa trapped within the Sphere, she willingly became a servant of Yeraz. Whatever you want, I will do, Elixa. That much I owe you.
Anaka had become the queen's most faithful servant, in repayment for her life that she'd failed to save. Until she'd fallen in love with Stellan. Somehow, that poisonous love had prompted her to forget herself, her vows to Elixa, to overlook his horrible wrongdoings, the brutal murders of his own children. But now she saw clearly and hated herself for not realizing all of this earlier.
When the queens learn the truth they go mad. The Sphere consumes what remains of their minds and their magic and then it's time for a new queen. That's what she'd always been told, but Elixa, standing beside her in the Sphere's dark room, her eyes an abyss of sorrow, tears coursing down her cheeks, did not appear to be mad.
"He's taken everything from me," the queen whispered. "I'll never feel the sunlight. I'll never fall in love. I'll never truly rule Yeraz because I am not here at all."
"I'm sorry, Elixa. I'm so sorry. I didn't know until I watched you die. If I could have stopped it..."
"Don't blame yourself. This is his doing. He is evil incarnate. I'm glad you gave Alaric his name. Now go!"
"Elixa?"
"I said go! Run! Get out of Yeraz. Take your daughter as far away as possible. Keep her from my father. I forgive you, Anaka, for everything. You're my sister and I love you, forever. Under storms and starlight."
"Through darkness and death," Anaka finished, giving her friend one last glance before fleeing the room, hurrying through the maze-like corridors and up the flights of stairs.
Anaka wondered what Elixa would do with the truth Anaka had given. No other queen had kept her sanity once they recalled their own deaths, no other queen had ever dared use Stellan's own magic against him. Elixa had been consumed by sorrow and grief, by loss and by truth. So long she'd kept the secret, harboring her hidden hatred for Stellan, smothering the pain of her friend's death and speaking to her through the Sphere as if they were together again, sitting across a tea table, gossiping like children once more.
Over and over she had relived Stellan burying that knife in Elixa's heart. Anaka had screamed and thrashed, had rushed forward to save her, but Grayna had held her back, and her child's strength had been no match for him. She had cared for no one, loved no one but Elixa, and watching her die had been the single most terrible moment in her life. The pain had been too much, as overwhelming as a tidal wave. So she'd blocked it out, hardened her heart against the world and became as cold and dead and ruthless as her worst enemy. But her daug
hter had changed all that, had made her feel again, love again. She would tear the world apart before she'd watch Stellan murder their child.
The queen's magic followed her, turning the guards' attention away, letting her slip unseen from the palace, out the doors and down the palace road lined with broken statues. The city was strangely silent, and one look told her exactly why. An army approached the gates, their boots thundering on the hard ground, clad in a mix of white Dalgan armor and the dark Stilethen metal of elite Yerazi soldiers. The troops from Darvaza, taken with Alaric's power.
They reached the gates at the same moment; her dark, slanted eyes meeting Alaric's ice blue ones through the iron bars.
"If it isn't my little bird," he said, hand curling around the metal. "Have you come to face me all by yourself?"
"I'm on your side, remember?" she said, wondering if she could still count on his amnesty. After all she had given him, he owed her. "You're only here because of me. I gave you Stellan and with him, the queen, and with her the Sphere, the armies, the empire."
"I suppose you're right," he sighed, and the gates creaked open as if empowered by his breath. "I made a promise to welcome you into my ranks once I owned Yeraz, and here I am. So, welcome. You're a Dalgan now." He smiled sharply and Anaka pushed past him, through the ranks of his soldiers and down the empty streets, the citizens locked away, praying to a powerless god that their wooden doors would keep them safe from harm.
There were no gods – only men and magic and a bottomless thirst for power. And her – an assassin, a traitor, a killer, but never again a tool. Driven by love and hate, ferocity, vengeance and dreams, Anaka did not deserve freedom, or amnesty or forgiveness, but her daughter did. And she would get it all, liberated from the evil Anaka had spent her existence buried in.
For her, she would be better. She was now the light to Anaka's darkness, just as Ronan had once been, and she'd learned never to shy away from that light again.
Chapter 42
"I want her found! I want every guard, every soldier, every man, woman, and boy able to walk going after her!" The Ilahi shouted tipping over another chair, the polished wood cracking against the stone as it hit the floor. Elixa sighed, blinking away the illusion. Her father paced in the Sphere's room, Elixa watched him from behind violet glass, from inside the Sphere, her true world. She embraced it now, and saw truth everywhere.
"Just let her go, Papa!" she shouted. Alaric and his army had arrived. Even now, they were marching into her city, up to her gates. She could see them through the Sphere, feel the soft, lingering touch of Alaric's consciousness. His black eyes burned, his clothes disheveled, his hair a mess, a dark smudge of something smeared across his pale cheek. Anaka was gone, and Elixa carried the truth with her, locked up inside. Her father would pay. She would make sure of it.
"Do you understand nothing, stupid girl? The Nameless has appeared in my rooms! I saw her, I spoke to her! When you were planning your grand coup against me, did you ever stop to wonder why I chose a Wakati for the Handmaiden, knowing the people would riot over it? Because she has Seer's blood! Our daughter will be a Seer, capable of knowing what The Nameless will do before she does it! I need her! Without her, we have already lost. Don't you see?
"Alaric owns you, me, our armies. No one can stand against him except The Nameless. And no one can stand against her except for mine and Anaka's child." The Nameless. Her face just like Sebastian's. His daughter, she had claimed. How could he have fought against her and not known? What lies was he trying to spin?
"I met The Nameless also," she said. "She came to my rooms as well. She told me she was your daughter and she looks just like you! Stop lying to me, Papa! For once just tell me the truth!"
"She is not my daughter!" he shouted, eyes blazing. "You want to know why she looks like me? Because when I met her three-thousand-years ago, I was still in possession of all my magic. She was the most beautiful woman any of us had ever seen. People follow beauty; that is the simple truth. And when she betrayed me, I changed my face to look like hers and I've worn it ever since, to remind me of a hard lesson I'd forgotten."
Elixa stared, open mouthed. He had stolen The Nameless's face? She had lied to Elixa, in an attempt to manipulate her into killing her father, though she hadn't done a very good job. Free him to kill him, she still had no idea what that meant. The broken furniture was scattered about her rooms like the broken pieces of her empire. No, there was no furniture, only the Sphere's illusions lying to her again. Betrayed, shattered, ruined. Both her and her father, the most powerful people in the empire, blinded and vanquished by love. At least he'd gotten to experience it.
"You're right, Papa, I have been stupid. I really thought Alaric loved me. But even after all he's done, taken possession of my mind, blocked my magic from harming Dalga, betraying me, stealing my armies, I think he still cares for me more than you do."
"What you are saying?" her father snapped. "Don't be foolish. You're my daughter and I love you. Alaric was only using you to get to me."
"Perhaps. Do you want to know how Anaka escaped the room sealed with my magic? You think the Nameless let her out? I let her out. I told her to run. To take my little sister far away from you. You know what else I told her? That I'm glad she gave Alaric your name. When he reaches the palace I will throw open the doors in welcome and offer you up as a gift. He's waiting just outside, right now. I hope he keeps you in torment for eternity."
"You know, don't you? You know," he said, his black eyes furious and afraid. "You shouldn't still be here."
"I know that you murdered me when I was ten-years-old? Yes! I know! So why haven't I gone mad, vanishing into the depths of the evil Sphere with my sisters? I've embraced my fate as a spirit of magic. I have one more thing I need to do before I go. You see, the Sphere may hold your soul but it also holds the souls of my thirteen dead sisters, and they aren't happy at what you've done to us.
"Vengeance, Papa, that's why I'm still here. You've only loved one thing your whole life: power. You've worked for eight-hundred-years to build Yeraz, maybe longer. I may not be able to kill you, but I can make you watch while I destroy the only thing you care for."
"Elixa, please, you're not in your right mind. Those are your people...they need you..."
"They were never my people, you made sure of it! What was it you called me? Scion of war? Destroyer?" she laughed, a high and wicked sound. She had tried to be good. She had tried to find the path to peace and righteousness, to earn the love of her father and her subjects and Alaric. All of it had been lies. All of it, a dream. Now the world would be her dream, her nightmare.
Elixa called the power of the Sphere and it answered readily, the force of her father's soul locked inside not enough to override the will of her sisters. She no longer had a body; she was the wind, the sky, the clouds. Below her stretched the city, the place where all evil was born to spread across the world like a sickness. Alaric could control her but he'd left her all her magic, only stopping her from touching Dalga and his troops, but Dalga was not her target an neither was the capitol.
With a thought, a whisper of the vast magic singing through her veins she imagined fallen. Every mansion, every hut, every garden, every monument collapsed in a heap of debris. All but the capitol city, the cluster of protected Dalgan soldiers and citizens locked in their homes, watching the obliteration of everything it had ruled over. With another thought, she snuffed out every life in the capitol other than the Dalgan camp, still shielded by Alaric's block on her magic. Every person who had dared worship her evil father, and she did not stop there. He would have no people, no empire, no dominion.
The Bronze Gates turned to dust, Tibre's fields burned, Osimiri's famed clear waters turned to tar, its grass to rust, Daulata's mulberry trees were riddled with disease, its food stores infected, a plague was born and spread from person to person faster than breathing. All fifty-two provinces suffered the wrath of Elixa, and Tessa and Ravella and Celena and Laynea, Queens of Dreams, Empresses
of Yeraz, ghosts of magic, wraiths of vengeance.
The world fell, just as it had three-thousand-years ago. The Nameless had been right to level the Three Kingdoms. Magic was the cause of all suffering, the root of all evil. With one last burst of magic, she splintered the Hundur Mountains, an avalanche burying Darvaza, the place where Alaric had betrayed her. Only Dalga, Arcadia, the Waste, the Plains and the Wakati Isles remained untouched.
I told you the truth; you went mad and destroyed the world. She didn't feel mad, but she had destroyed the world, and she had not yet finished.
"Elixa...what have you done?" her father sobbed, on his knees before the Sphere, his creation and his undoing.
Elixa pounded on the Sphere's glass, real or an illusion, it did not matter. She poured out her fury in her tiny, beating fists. He had used her. He had created her. He had killed her. He had murdered all of his children for power. She had torn apart his dreams but still, it wasn't enough. Elixa screamed her hatred, letting go of her control. She was part of him, and part of the Sphere too. And she wanted it destroyed, even if she destroyed herself along with it.
She pounded the glass again and it cracked. She stopped and stared at the fissure. Elixa focused again. She found her rage, and her desire for the Sphere's annihilation. The annihilation of herself. She pounded the glass again. The fissure exploded into a spider web of cracks.
"What are you doing?" he screamed. "Stop! You're killing yourself!"
"I'm already dead!" she shrieked. Dead. She would never dance in the sunlight, walk on the ocean shore, fall in love, have her own daughters. He had robbed her of everything and trapped her soul in evil for eternity.