Chapter Thirteen
There I was.
“I cannot believe that,” Zaan said.
He couldn’t, but I could. My life was even worse than I’d imagined.
“Is Airelle still alive?” Zaan moved the tip of his sword to emphasize each point.
“Depends on your definition of life, Zaibann. By some definitions, no – by some definitions, she’s sitting right here beside me.”
Zaan looked to me, his face clouded with confusion. “I don’t understand –“
“Railan is the one in charge of creating clones. It’s possible that he has her in a vat somewhere, or just a piece of her pinkie finger.” Yzin shrugged.
“Are you saying I am Airelle?” My voice rose as I spoke. “If I am, then I should kill you for all you have done!”
Yzin put up a calming hand. “Ilylle, I have spent your lifetime watching over you. Teaching you – training you. You are the first Queen that I thought could make it outside the palace walls. You have no idea the lengths I’ve gone to to help prepare.”
I crossed my arms to hold myself – I really was a copy of her -- the final lie was that I wasn’t even me. I turned toward Yzin, still reeling in horror. “All you did was put a book in a vase.”
“That I then made sure your servants would take you to. It has taken me three thousand years to have enough spies in the palace network to make sure that their commands are mine alone. A normal man lives only eighty, and only works sixty of that. It seems every time I blink I require more spies.” Yzin shook his head. “Then I taught you, myself, to read – and gave you stories which I could only hope you would glean the lessons from, of honor and strength, then pray that you would not ask Railan questions about them over me – luckily, you knew with a child’s heart that that man was not safe from the beginning. I had to train you, as best I could, and hope that you would find some way to unlock your powers.”
“So you ordered Joshan to –“ I flushed with embarrassment, thinking of the first time I’d fucked my servant on the floor.
“Only because it was the only way. I couldn’t have him fight you, could I? And yet you needed something to feel in charge of, some way to come into your own.”
“I trusted you. You could have just told me.”
“Would you have believed me a month ago? A year ago? Had I told you my screens were real, and the truth of the outside world?” Yzin planted a finger on his last screen. “The deeds inside those screens were real. Men and women have been dying for you to have a chance.”
It felt like the room was spinning around me again. “A chance at what?”
“At really being Queen – at sweeping Railan and me and every other councilman off the board to start Aranda over again, as it should be.” Yzin gave another weary sigh. “I had hoped we would have more time to train you, Ilylle. I couldn’t push you, though. If I’d told you the truth before you saw your King –“
“I wouldn’t have believed,” I said quietly.
“And now we have little time. Tide’s Day is only three days away.”
Zaan stepped back, sheathing his weapon. “I must find Airelle.”
Yzin groaned. “She has waited twenty-thousand years – a few days more won’t matter. If we’re going to succeed, we need to plan.”
I watched Zaan weigh his anger against his options. He was furious at being used, and revolted at what the councilmen had done – as was I, and I had even more right to anger than him. But this was our only chance. “We have to make things right, Zaan. For everyone.”
Zaan made a sound of disgust and looked to Yzin. “Promise me everyone who tortured her dies.”
Yzin smiled grimly. “Everyone. Even me.”
Zaan shoved his weapon back into his sheath. “What’s your plan?”
I realized as Yzin spoke that his plan was going to go into action with or without me. There was a machine underneath the earth ready to bore into the bottom tunnels of the palace, and men and women willing to run in through the hole it made to – up until our conversation – kill me. At the loss of their own lives. Other groups would act after that, attempting to kill off the council one by one.
I was both humbled and horrified, that they were willing to sacrifice everything – including me -- to stop Railan and the rest from regenerating again.
But now that I could help, plans changed.
We would use the pretense of my ceremony to gather the entire council – I would turn Zaan back to stone, and pretend to be innocent and lure everyone in, until I released Zaan again. And then he and I would fight alongside Yzin’s rebels -- he would attack, and I would shield them from Railan’s magic.
Yzin finished explaining and stood. “I have to leave now. Railan already fears I’ve grown soft. But I’ve made sure to do this each time, to cultivate a habit of kindliness and sorrow, so that when my iron finally strikes it will surprise him.”
Each time, I thought. “How many Queens have you watched die?”
“Enough.” At that, the old man finally looked away. “You must be the last, Ilylle. The world depends on it.” He took my shoulders in his hands, and leaned forward to kiss the crown of my head. Then he stood and doddered down the hall.
#
Ilylle and I watched Rkatrayzin depart silently and all that was in me wanted to cut him down. To think he’d lived so long, so cruelly – and my Airelle –
I was startled from my thoughts by Ilylle’s hand upon my arm. “Can you teach me to be a shield?”
I stared down at her. Was everything he had said true? Was she a ghost of my Airelle, come to life? I felt physically torn, between the woman I loved and the woman I wanted to hate.
I swallowed down twenty-thousand years’ worth of rage. “I can,” I said. “And I will. Defend –“ I commanded, and pulled out my sword.
Ilylle’s eyes went wide and she scooted bodily back on her couch, her skirts catching her feet as she crawled. She pointed a hand at me and I felt the heat where her magic tried to rise.
“Not attack. Defend,” I said, swinging my sword at her slowly. She pointed her hand at it and it became warm.
“Defend!” I shouted, swinging at her fully. I barely stopped the sword in time, it sliced the leather around her neck but went no further.
She lay on the couch, panting in terror. “This isn’t a lesson.”
“You’re right, it’s not.” I regathered myself and threw the sword aside.
In the moment my eyes left her, she bolted – flipping over and scurrying off the end of the couch to land near her chamber’s doorway.
“Push me back,” I commanded, striding forward.
She flung her arms out at me and I felt her will surging in the room, as my own magic protected me from the flames hers tried to light. She was pushing me, yes, but with fire – “No heat. Just intent. Quiet your emotions, and find your true strength.”
I slowed so she could think on what I’d said – and then I ran straight at her. To her credit, she didn’t turn and run away, but threw her arms out again.
I felt her magic catch me bodily, covering all of me like a glove. “Good. Hold it.”
I thrashed inside, pushing with my own strength, and then pushing with half of my magic, slowly using it all.
“Relax,” I said, and felt grounded as she released me.
“Did that work?” There was sweat at her brow, and she kneaded cramping hands.
“Yes and no. You protected yourself from me, but that’s not the same as being a shield.” I retrieved my dropped sword and walked over, offering it to her hilt first. “Hold this.”
Ilylle shook her head. “No – I’m not good enough yet – what if –“
“I’m a Zaibann,” I said, slicing through my own arm, making myself smoke in its passage.
“Okay.” She laughed weakly. “Should I attack?”
“No. Just offer it out. And pretend this is real, even if it is not.” I took three steps back, turned, and started walking directly at the blade.
Instead of increasing up my power slowly, I slammed it at her, full force. She fell back across the floor half a step, her slippers sliding across the tile, but the sword stayed true, as did her magic.
I threw another wave at her – this time, not just force, but pain. I had pain to spare, agony for miles. Every time I hadn’t felt at home in this strange world, every time I’d missed Airelle, every time I’d been forced to make do with her instead – I threw it at her.
And Ilylle, shielding me but not herself, stepped back, tears streaming from her eyes. I drew up short, and dropped my powers.
“The councilmen will use many tricks. Fire is only the most obvious weapon. They will also try to punish you with other things – fear, shame, pain. You must not only shield the rebels, but shield yourself.” I reached forward and took the blade-end of the sword. She released the hilt and put her head into her hands.
“I cannot.”
“You can.” I tossed the sword into my other hand – and with my first, I slapped her. She looked up at me, eyes-wild. “Are you a Queen or not?”
Her jaw clenched and then her magic hit me like the blow of a thousand hammers. I was thrown back by the force of it, completely unprepared. Instinctively I rebounded and flew at her, half-man, half-smoke, reforming close.
I hit at her and she dodged, both physically and with power, leaving me lurching forward against a shield that wasn’t there, pulling back to aim at me – or where she thought I was, I was too fast, letting her power slash through me then reforming again.
We fought like that, neither one landing a blow on the other, both of us too fast, looking for advantages. I had years of cunning training, but she had frightening strength. Eventually, tiring, neither one of us moved or flew, we just projected walls and inched toward the other one. I reached for her, her magic fighting mine as mine fought hers, and we grappled as though we were dancing a dance where neither of us were allowed to touch.
Sweat poured from her and she was breathing hard – I felt the same as she did but my training and my nature gave nothing away.
“Do you yield?” I asked her, on the verge of breaking down myself.
She nodded curtly rather than answer and the wall of her magic dropped. I stepped into her sphere on my own and watched her pant.
What the old man said sounded insane. But how much more proof did I need? The force I’d used against her would have killed anyone of lesser power.
“How much longer do you think you could have gone?” Her face was flush, and blood was coursing through her entire body.
“I don’t know –“ she caught her breath and looked down at her hands.
“Can you do that again? When lives depend on you?”
“It will be the first time I have acted like a Queen in three hundred years.” She looked up at me, chin high, bearing regal. “I will do it, or I will die trying.”
In that moment – she was of her, after all.
The binding rose in me, overpowering my sense, and without thinking I pulled her to me. One hand wrapped around her waist, the other pushed into her hair and bowed her head to one side. I could feel her power roil against me, calling like to like, her wanting me as badly as I wanted her. I lowered my head and the moment between my teeth touching her neck and piercing her tender flesh, she whispered. “And what of Airelle?”
I pulled back and my hands loosened, though need roared inside me. “Airelle is not here. Yet.”
Ilylle pushed me away bodily, without power, and I let her go. She gathered herself and shook her head. “No. I want you to fuck me for me. Not because I am some available substitute. If a hole is all you want, fuck Beza.” She whirled and began walking away – I caught her outstretched arm and pulled her back.
“You are the one I caught fucking the metal-beasts. Am I so easily replaced?”
She flushed bright red – and then she slapped me. I wasn’t prepared for it, there was no magic behind it, or even much malice, only the warning that a line had been crossed.
“I am a Queen. I demand you treat me like one.”
My jaw clenched and I stared down at her, tempted to take her blood still – only I knew if I tried to fight her now, I might not win. “As you wish, my lady,” I said, and turned to walk away.
Chapter Fourteen
I stood in the hallway and watched Zaan go. I wanted him to comfort me and my body craved him – but after everything I’d found out, I needed my pride more.
I stormed into my dressing chamber and looked at myself in the mirror, leaning close enough that it fogged with my breath.
Was I real?
I might as well have been a figment of Airelle’s imagination – or just another character in one of Yzin’s stories. My entire world had been designed to lie to me and now that I knew the truth, what was left? I looked at my outstretched hands, as though they belonged to another. Had anything that had happened to me been mine? My people did not know me – wanted to kill me, in fact – and my King was in love with a woman from another time.
What was left for me?
Who was I?
I found I didn’t really know.
#
I knew where Ilylle was inside the palace because of our bloodbond -- I could feel her aimless pacing like the beating of my heart. But she didn’t know where I was, and the Feather Palace was so large I could hide from her until Tide’s Day – or until she used her magic to hunt me down.
Her magic. It was incredible. As a mimic of Airelle – a clone, as Yzin had said, the word cruel and unfamiliar – she was a precise one, now that her powers were untethered. If all Queens were like her, no wonder this palace was designed for placation – it wouldn’t do for the pups trapped inside to realize they were wolves.
But where was the original? I had to find her to be sure.
I selfishly wanted her to be alive, so that we could be rejoined. And I selfishly wanted her dead, because if she still was alive – torture changed a man. After twenty-thousand years of torture, what of Airelle could possibly remain?
Of course I had marked her all those years ago. I had not called on it since waking because calling and knowing nothing answered was a worse fate than never calling at all. Because her living seemed improbable – as improbable as my being bloodbound to her copy.
I stopped my own pacing and drew up short near a door. Ilylle – who wanted me, who needed me, who I had hurt because she needed it, and hurt because I wanted to hurt someone -- she was right. She deserved a better King than I currently was.
Until I put my past to bed, I had no business being in hers.
It was time to call.
I walked into the nearest nexus and sat down, repeating the words in the old tongue that calmed my mind so that like could call to like again.
Airelle had a piece of me with her. It would be hers eternally, even if she had taken it to the grave.
I murmured the words under my breath, sending out wave after wave of power, hoping for even the faintest response in return. Hours passed and nothing answered me. A zoomer approached and poked me – likely to see if I needed cleaning – and I prepared to give up. I sent out a final pulse, waiting for a reply, and then opened my eyes. Airelle, in any way that I had known her, was gone.
And then I got one faint response.
Part of me wondered if it was her calling to me from across the ages – or if I’d spent so long in a trance that I’d imagined it. But another response came through, a tap of knowing, my power brushing up against my ancient trace.
“My love,” I whispered, and started running down the hall.
I ran and flew, depending on how strong the signal I chased was. It faded and resurged in a slow pattern, like impossibly long breaths, and each time just as I feared I’d lost it, I would hear it again. I dove into the tunnels below the palace, down where the tunnel-beast likel
y was, through doors that were barred except to Zaibann smoke, and wound up in a final chamber that was cramped and small. The only light here was of my own creation – I reformed and held a flame in one hand to look around.
There was a thing that looked like Ilylle’s cradle in the center of the room, inside a similar nest of wires.
“No,” I whispered, walking up to it. The metal under my feet bent and broke. I put a hand on the lid, bracing for the worst, and opened it.
My flame illuminated a withered form inside. Shreds of skin over chips of bone, my love had died waiting, as I had, for a rescue that had never come. A few strands of long blonde hair, and where her neck would be, the remnants of a collar.
“No,” I whispered – and the gentle force of my breath shuddered what was inside to dust – “Airelle!”
I sank to my knees beside what had become her coffin. “My love! Airelle!” I shouted her name. It echoed in the chamber, and as it began to fade, I shouted it again. I would never stop shouting it, some part of me would be screaming her name until I was placed in a grave. “Airelle!”
I crumpled forward as though struck a mortal blow and sobbed, pressing my head against the edge of the lid of the horrible thing that had killed her.
“Zaan?” a soft voice asked behind me.
I turned, eyes wet with tears, and saw the vision of my Queen – then blinked and realized it was only Ilylle, again.
“Zaan, are you okay?” She stepped into the circle of light my flame provided and looked into the coffin. “Is that –“
“My Airelle, and what they have done to her.” I reached inside to touch her one more time and my fingers sifted through her dust.
“I’m so sorry, Zaan,” Ilylle whispered.
“It is not how a Queen should have died – not my Queen. Scared and alone and unremembered.” I was dizzy with the emotions reeling through me: vast sorrow, immense betrayal, and the violent weight of my anger. “I would go back in time and change everything.”
The Hated (Sleeping With Monsters Book 3) Page 12