The Diplomat

by French, Sophia

  Bannon released Rema’s arm and shoved her. Rema tottered a few steps, unable to distinguish between her left and right feet. She steadied herself and looked into Betany’s triumphant face.

  “I love the irony that this monster is only here because you brought him with you,” said Betany. “It seems nothing but death and disaster awaited you in Danosha. I know all about you and the princess.”

  “If you knew it all, you’d blush as you said that,” said Rema, trying not to sway as she stood.

  Betany’s thin lips moved in something less than a smile. “You ridiculous thing. Strutting about in your trousers and coat, so cocky and proud of your mannish ways.”

  “I’m not mannish.” Blood trickled past Rema’s ear. “I’m no less a woman than you. You just can’t understand that strength isn’t only for men.”

  “You talk so much nonsense. You always have. You should have died with the others.”

  “Do tell me why my life so affronts you.”

  “You know why. I begged him! I said to him, ‘Ormun, for your love for me as a sister, execute her. She’s your father’s most loyal servant, she’ll never forgive you and she’ll never cause us anything but grief!’” Betany sneered, a remembered fury kindling in her eyes. “He laughed and said, ‘Kill her? My Rema? She’s more my sister than you will ever be.’ I couldn’t have been more shocked had it been a slap to my face.”

  “What do you expect? You ignored his suffering, whereas I saw the transformation happen, and I comforted him as his mind was extinguished. The whole time, you cared about nothing but your own little schemes.”

  “You stole my father too.” Betany clenched her fists. “He treated you with more affection than he treated me, the daughter of his blood. You entered my household and replaced me! And now you scheme ways to destroy us, and Ormun turns away his indulgent eye.”

  “Indulgent? How many times has Ormun threatened and beaten me? I never recall him laying a hand on you.”

  “That’s because I mind my tongue. If you weren’t Rema, his dearest darling, you’d be dead a hundred times over for the things you dare say to him. He hits you because he’s an animal. He has half a mind, or a fractured mind…but he’s my brother! Not yours!”

  “Your ranting is tiring me,” said Bannon. “Order me to finish it already.”

  “Mind your manners, ogre! You’re a henchman and you should focus on henching.” Betany took a tentative step forward. Rema bared her teeth and hissed, and Betany leapt back.

  “Poor Betany,” said Rema. “So much hate, yet not a shred of courage.”

  Betany hid her shaking hands behind her back. “Ormun couldn’t bring himself to kill you, but I can think of nothing more pleasurable. Your body will be found in the gardens, bloodied beyond recognition. A few tears will be shed and then life will go on much more smoothly.” Excitement tightened her voice, raising its pitch and giving it a quivering edge of mania. “Oh, and before I send Bannon away, I’ll have him garrote that singer of yours. An appropriate way for her to die, don’t you think?”

  The threat hit Rema like a fist to her gut. “No. Betany, she’s never done a thing to you. Leave her be.”

  “It’s touching you still care for her even after you’ve abandoned her for your new trophy. Perhaps I should have her strangled slowly instead, so that the last thing she sees is Bannon’s remarkable eyes. A dying song warbling from her little throat.”

  “Bannon.” Rema’s voice shook, and her stomach churned. Her own life was one thing, but Jalaya…Gods, no, it couldn’t end that way for her. “I want to reconsider my position. Please.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Bannon. “It’s far too late in the game for that. You played your hand badly, Rema. At least this employer has the bloodlust to keep me occupied.”

  “I’m tired of her.” Betany ran a finger across her throat. “Finish it.”

  Bannon nodded and drew his sword. The sight of its honed iron edge sent Rema’s heart into spasms. How could it all end here, ingloriously cut down at Betany’s feet? She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. At the very least she’d not give Betany the satisfaction of seeing fear.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The door opened, slamming against the marble wall so forcefully that the room’s paintings shook on their fixtures. Bannon spun, his sword still raised, and the anxiety scaling Rema’s stomach reached new heights. Elise and Jalaya were standing in the doorway, their faces whiter than the moonlight that drenched the hall behind them.

  “How the hell did you find us?” said Bannon, swinging his sword to point at Rema again. “Don’t run, or she dies.”

  “Elsie felt something was wrong,” said Jalaya. “We thought we heard a scream, and then we found blood…” Her eyes were immense in the dark, and horror trembled in her voice. “Whoever you are, don’t hurt her. Please.”

  Betany laughed in wild delight. “Look, her lovers have arrived to save her! Now we can kill three deviants at once. How efficient.”

  “Betany, how could you?” Jalaya’s fear seemed to have sobered her. “You hateful thing.”

  “Why don’t you sing a song while she dies? A touching little dirge.” Betany laughed again. “And look, the foreign bitch can’t even talk, she’s so frightened. You should watch closely as she dies, you chubby slut. Maybe you’ll learn something about the price of infidelity.”

  Elise remained motionless in the moonlight, her pale face framed by the unruly cascade of her black hair. Her eyes shone with an unnatural radiance both bright and forbidding.

  “Come on, say something,” said Betany. “Or don’t you speak Annari? Should I grunt instead, in the manner of your people?”

  Elise stepped forward, her long shadow stretching almost to Betany’s feet, but her gaze was fixed not on Betany but Bannon. “Heed me well, Calan’s butcher. I’ll not let you harm the woman I love. Release her or die under an agony even your baleful mind can’t comprehend.”

  “How absurd,” said Betany. “What is she going to do, smother you?”

  “The little one,” said Bannon. “Get inside and close the door. Or else I kill her.” Jalaya quivered as she pulled the door shut and pressed her back to it. “Now, what’s this about me dying in agony?”

  “Release my lover.” A commanding power inhabited Elise’s voice. “You’ve caused her pain, and now I feel your dark heart beating close to mine. I have the hand of death, Bannon, and I will close it tight around you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bannon spoke with a shade of uncertainty. “If you’re going to threaten me, you need to do better than to give me spooky looks.”

  Betany clapped her hands. “Bannon! Get on with it!”

  Bannon blinked, and the doubt left his eyes. He advanced on Rema. Before he could strike, Jalaya shrieked and leapt at him. She pounded her tiny fists on his back and pulled vainly on his arms. “Rema, run!”

  Bannon turned and struck Jalaya across the face. She stumbled, holding her cheek. Bannon lifted her with a single hand, gripping her by the neck, and dashed her against the wall. Her small body spasmed as it struck the stone, and she fell crumpled to the floor.

  Tears burned in Rema’s eyes—it couldn’t be, not her Jalaya, anyone but her—and she screamed as she threw herself at Bannon, ripping his face, kicking his legs, punching his chest and tearing at his fist in an attempt to free the sword from his hands. Bannon retreated, fending off her frantic, useless attacks.

  Rema pulled again on his arm, and he struck her across the face with the hilt of his sword. Pain obliterated her thoughts. Another powerful blow caught her stomach, and she reeled and wheezed, falling to her knees and disappearing into a fog of nausea, breathlessness and consuming pain. Bannon’s sword raised high above her, a line of moonlight defining its killing edge.

  Rema closed her eyes and waited for the blow. Impossible seconds passed, yet she still lived. A slow gurgling broke the silence, and she opened her eyes. Bannon had frozen in midswing, his muscles
tensed and his neck bulging. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  “What is this?” said Betany. “Bannon! Kill her!”

  Elise was standing behind Bannon, her eyes closed and her hands pressed together over her chest. A single tear ran down her cheek, and her lips moved without sound. As she continued her silent murmuring, her hair rose and writhed through the air, the black strands moving like feathered serpents.

  Bannon twitched, and the sword dropped from his hand. Rema and Betany both flinched as it hit the marble with a sharp, metallic crack. A second tear slipped from Elise’s lashes, and Bannon doubled over and coughed up blood, so much blood that Rema’s stomach rolled.

  “Make her stop,” said Bannon, his voice raw with suffering.

  “I’m sorry,” said Elise. Her whisper somehow filled the room, and it was as if many other voices were contained within it, some mournful, some furious, others triumphant.

  Bannon’s face had become paler than his eyes, which he turned toward Rema, bemusement and fear frozen in their dying depths. He dropped to one knee, shivered and fell forward into the pool of his blood. A long groan shook his body before he shuddered into the stillness of death.

  “Get up!” Betany retreated to the wall of her chamber, pressed herself against the stone and stared at Elise. “Bannon, get up and take care of this sorceress!”

  Rema pushed aside her pain and ran to Jalaya, who still lay motionless in the corner. Rema lifted her and held her close, pretending not to see the blood on her head or to feel the limpness of her body. “She’s hurt,” Rema said. “Elsie, help her.” She sobbed as she pressed her cheek against Jalaya’s hair. “Jalaya, my love, please be alive. I love you, please come back…”

  Elise drifted toward them, an inhuman apparition, and Rema shrank away. Elise’s eyes were silver from edge to edge, and her hair was spread as wildly as if she’d been touched by lightning. “Her heart still beats,” she said, her voice lit by spectral power. “I can feel her spirit still radiant within her, a soul like no other in this world. I’ll save your little songbird, Rema. I promise.”

  “Hurry.” Rema brushed away her tears and opened the door. Elise carried Jalaya out of the room and into the shadowed hallway. Rema stared for some time at the dark opening, paralyzed by concern and confusion, before the thought of Betany broke through her trance. Her fear and grief hardened into a cold hunger for revenge.

  Betany was still standing against the wall, her face contorted. “Mark my words,” said Rema, picking up Bannon’s sword as she advanced across the room. “I’ll cut you into ribbons, Betany, if you’ve killed her.”

  Betany wept—self-pity, and fear for her own life. As Rema drew closer, Betany squished against the marble as if she hoped to sink into it. Rema pointed the sword at her breast. “Tell me, why shouldn’t I finish you and leave your body in the gardens?”

  “You should. I would, if I were you. But you won’t, because you’re weak.”

  “Jalaya would say that sparing a life is braver than taking it, but I don’t have her depth of forgiveness. If you’ve slain her, I will harbor a vengeance to make your own hate seem like the petulance of childhood. There is no sea or mountain range that will protect you from me.”

  Betany stared at the tip of the sword. “If you take what is mine, then I’ll take what is yours.”

  “Don’t threaten her again, or I swear I’ll impale you against this wall.”

  “Look at you.” Betany spat at Rema’s feet. “Holding a sword to a defenseless woman. There’s a little bit of Ormun in all of us, isn’t there?”

  Nausea rose in her stomach, and Rema turned away. She walked slowly across the room and stopped to stare at Bannon’s body sunken in blood. Death had followed her from Danosha, but it would end here. She tossed the sword aside, and it clattered in the corner.

  “Get out of my chambers.” Betany’s voice had regained its haughty calm. “If you’re not going to kill me, then leave me be.”

  “Every time I look at you, I see the physical resemblance.” Rema rested her hand on the doorframe, not turning to look at Betany as she spoke. “If only you had similarly inherited your father’s compassion. Instead, your brother vanishes into madness while you burn with hatred. The only solace I can find in Togun’s death is that he never lived to see what his children have become.”

  She slammed the door shut as she left the chamber. It was late enough for a chill to have invaded the night, and the fog in her mind receded as she inhaled a cool lungful of air. The side of her face ached, but the pain hardly mattered—nothing mattered now but Jalaya.

  Rema moved as quickly as she could manage without blundering into the walls. A warm light shone ahead of her, and as she hastened her step, a guard walked into view, his golden armor gleaming under the glow of his lantern. Rema’s relief turned to anger. “Where were you?” she said. “Where are the guards?”

  “I’m sorry,” said the guardsman, steadying her by the shoulder. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. All the guards are patrolling as they should be…” His eyes widened. “Mistress Remela! What happened to your head?”

  “Why is it so dark? Why weren’t you there?” Rema slammed her fists against his breastplate. “Damn it, my friends could have died tonight!”

  “Died?” The guard drew himself upright. “What are you talking about?”

  Rema caught herself. It would do her no good to prompt an official investigation—it would only expose her own machinations. “Nothing. I’ve just been drinking. My apologies.”

  “But your head. You’re injured…”

  “Nothing. It’s nothing. I hit it on a low ceiling.”

  The guard’s expression was a study in skepticism, but he nodded dutifully. “Well, there aren’t enough patrolmen for this palace, and that’s a fact. My lady, you seem shaken. Can I escort you somewhere?”

  “Take me to Artunos’s chambers. Quickly, please.”

  The guardsman walked briskly with his lantern swinging before him, and Rema followed, stewing with impatience despite their steady march. If the worst had befallen Jalaya, and Rema wasn’t in time to say farewell…“Hurry up! This is important!”

  “Yes, my lady.” The guard quickened his walk.

  They hurried through the corridors, the guard’s lamplight catching the sculpted features of the halls and making them appear warped and sinister. After far too many anxious minutes, the lamp’s swaying radiance touched on a latticework of gold, and Rema remembered how to breathe. She waved her hand at the guard. “Thank you. You can go back to your duties now. Go, go!” The guard stomped down the hallway, his confusion evident.

  For a moment, Rema considered awakening Artunos, but no—he would only complicate this matter with his worrying. She strode instead into Elise’s room, not even pausing to knock.

  Jalaya lay on the bed, her head supported by a pillow and her eyes closed. Elise was leaning over her, applying something to her forehead. Rema hastened to the bedside and took Jalaya’s small, warm hand. “How is she?”

  “She hit her head quite hard,” said Elise. “She’s opened her eyes once or twice, but she couldn’t say much. I’m hoping she’s just stunned. This balm will help the wound heal, and it’ll also soothe what may be the biggest headache she’s ever had. Poor Jalaya.”

  Rema caressed Jalaya’s face. A subtle smile lifted Jalaya’s lips, as if the gesture had touched her dreams, and grief hardened in Rema’s throat. She had always loved watching Jalaya’s face in slumber. “This is my fault.”

  “Nonsense.” Nothing remained of the eldritch spirit that had animated Elise earlier. Her eyes were human once more, and her hair was messy rather than preternatural. “It wasn’t you that struck her or threw her against a wall.”

  Rema winced. “What happened in there?”

  “It was the spell I’d prepared for Ormun. I felt the life leaving his body. I’ll never do anything like that again.”

  “You had best not,” said a sonorous voice behind the
m. Melnennor entered the chamber, his robes sweeping across the stone floor. He moved to the bedside and touched Jalaya’s arm. “Is the wound grievous?”

  “I can’t yet say,” said Elise, while Rema wiped her eyes, hoping the magician hadn’t seen her tears. She had a reputation to maintain, even now.

  “I was sleeping when you exerted that force. It intruded into my dreaming, corrupting it into nightmare and forcing me awake. You didn’t heed my warning.”

  Elise’s eyes blazed with sudden temper. “I heeded it until heeding wasn’t an option. Someone would have died tonight regardless. What I did saved Rema and Jalaya’s lives.”

  “For now.” Melnennor placed his fingers upon Jalaya’s cheek, and sympathy moved in his narrow eyes. “These vibrations will continue for some time. There will be a reckoning soon, I believe.” He tilted his head to look at Rema. “Remela, I know your plan. It will fail.”

  Rema gaped. “How can you…?”

  “Nothing that happens evades my eye. Why do you think Ormun lured me into his service?”

  “But it’s your job to protect him. Shouldn’t you have had us arrested?”

  Melnennor smiled. “I interpret my role as I see fit. As Elise must have demonstrated to you already, only the stubborn and individualistic pursue the arcane. But let us return to the point. The events of tonight ensure that your plan cannot proceed as you had imagined.”

  “And why is that?” Rema looked at Melnennor with what she hoped was defiance and suspected was tearful confusion.

  “Elise’s spell has reordered everything. Or disordered, to be more precise. She has shaken the branch of eternity, and now its fruit will fall to rot on the ground.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” said Elise. “You don’t need to keep going on about it.”

  “Indeed. In any case, you have a patient, and I am no healer. And this injured woman must live. She has a unique and brilliant heart.” Melnennor closed his eyes, and the shadows of the room seemed to move. “A mighty, sorrowful presence wanders this world, turning many fates with the edge of a blade. It has never been tamed, but she will tame it. She will brave a darkness that has never been broken, and she will break it. Treat her well so that she might fulfill her purpose.”