by Lee, Nadia
He swung his sword again and again, the air shrieking with every slash. My body pumped adrenaline as I dodged. The heartstone in my mouth grew hot and cold at the same time, but it didn’t seem to help much. Still, I thanked whatever deities exist for Nahemah’s camouflage spell. Had Nathanael been able to see me clearly, I would already have been dead.
There had to be a way to fight back. I looked around for something I could use as a weapon and saw white stones bordering the garden. I threw them at him. He didn’t even blink. My aim was true, but none of rocks hit home. As soon as they got near him, they glanced away, tumbling across the ground.
Shit. I ducked, barely avoiding another whistling slash.
Now I knew how a cockroach must feel when a determined housewife stomps her feet all over the kitchen floor. How long could I roll, duck and jump? Escaping into the lake wasn’t an option. I trampled Leh’s garden in my desperate evasions. The scent of crushed mint and rosemary grew almost too pungent for me to breathe.
Finally, he backed me onto a small spit of land. It was him in front of me, and the fatal water to both sides and behind.
Why had I ever thought waiting for him to get finished with Leh was boring?
“Die,” he said, his voice passionless.
I had lived exactly twenty-seven years and one day. There was no way I was going out so young.
Nathanael raised his sword, the moonlight sliding along the blade. I gathered all my remaining magic for a death spell. Power pooled within me, amplified by the heartstone in my mouth. The spell worked on lower to midgrade demons, but I had no idea what kind of effect it would have on a demigod. Time to find out.
There was a sharp cry of “No!” and a blur of movement. I came dangerously close to releasing the spell before I realized Leh was standing in front of me. Nathanael’s sword tip floated at her neck. I blinked. How had she moved so quickly? And why had it taken her so long to help me?
Nathanael’s eyes narrowed as he regarded Leh. “Don’t.” And then his magic surged and crashed into her like an angry wave.
Instead of defending passively, she blasted her own spell back at him. I gritted my teeth against the residual forces battering me and tried not to slide into the lake. I had come too far to get myself killed by some possessed body of water.
Their spells, ancient and fueled by hundreds of years of bloody history, strained and pushed at each other. Tendrils of power extended from their cores and snapped and cut and stabbed. Magic ripped from its owner flew off into the air, and the strange forces of the Mystic Forest absorbed it and spat red death and misery into the atmosphere until the scene looked like Purgatory.
Neither of them had moved. Then, heedless of Nathanael’s sword tip, Leh took a step forward. Her alabaster skin opened and a drop of crimson blood beaded and moistened the tip of the blade. Nathanael took an equal step back, but didn’t lower his sword.
“Is this your answer to my question?” Nathanael’s voice shook slightly, and there was naked pain in those electric blue eyes.
“Don’t,” Leh murmured. Despite her soft tone, her magic gained strength.
Nathanael’s magic began to lose its momentum. Although his sword arm was steady, his gaze wavered. Then he lowered the sword. “I will not repeat the past.” He ceased attacking, but his defenses remained up.
With a sigh, Leh let go of everything—both offense and defense—and stood there staring at him. “Why couldn’t you have rejected the Advisors?” Her words were so soft, it seemed like she hadn’t spoken at all.
Nathanael stood, irresolute. The moonlight cast a pale glow on his sweat-slick skin. Lean muscles rippled as he brushed his hair away from his face. He had a body powerful and beautiful enough to rival Ramiel’s.
“You ask too much,” he said finally. “One does not reject his duty.”
He turned away and walked toward the lake shore. Although his demeanor was proud, weariness seemed to weigh down his broad shoulders. The sight of his bare, pale torso hinted at an unexpected vulnerability, one that for the first time made me see him as something more than just a demigod who was my enemy.
Leh took a step forward, her hand rising toward him, but stopped. A soft sigh escaped her. Then she sang, a lovely but melancholy melody that I knew would haunt my dreams forever.
His body rigid, Nathanael walked across the lake to the other side, backlit by the pyrotechnics still going on in the forest. His steps were sure and unhurried, as if nearly fatal fights in limbo were a normal occurrence. At the other side he turned and bowed to Leh. The gesture was so formal, if I hadn’t seen them kissing, I would never have believed they were lovers.
Without waiting for her acknowledgment, he disappeared into the flaming woods.
Leh wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and turned to me. “Ashera. Are you all right?”
I staggered to my feet. My entire body felt bruised, and my knees protested the abuse they’d been subjected to. The robe Nahemah had given me was now basically dirt-colored, smeared with patches of green where I’d skidded over Leh’s herbs. I pulled the heartstone from my mouth and put it in one of the robe’s pockets.
“Sorry about all this,” I said lamely. Although technically it wasn’t all my fault.
“My daughter.” Her voice broke. “I should’ve protected you better.”
She took one step, then another, and I was enclosed in a tight embrace. Her body was softer than I’d thought it would be. She smelled of lavender and lilies and comfort and everything else I’d longed for. I couldn’t utter a sound as I returned her hug.
How many times had I rehearsed what I’d say if I were ever to meet my mother? Now all the carefully composed speeches evaporated, and I simply clung to her, hoping the moment would never end. A terrible sinking feeling that Leh couldn’t possibly be my real mother hit me, along with a cautious hope that said maybe she was. Where else could I have gotten my voice? And why else would she have protected me against Nathanael at such great peril to herself?
“You’re as beautiful as I imagined,” she said with a smile.
I looked at her radiant flawlessness and wished she hadn’t said that. I knew what I looked like, and so did she. She didn’t have to lie to make me feel…I don’t know…better or something.
“Umm…thanks. I guess.” I was suddenly embarrassed and hating the feeling.
“I mean it.” She put a hand on my cheek and caressed it gently. The residue of powerful magic clung to her, prickling my face. “Welcome to my little place. I wish… Perhaps if I had known you were coming tonight, I would’ve been more prepared.” She glanced at the moon, now halfway down from its peak in the sky. “I didn’t think you would.”
“I had to come.”
She smiled. “Curiosity?”
“Yeah…plus Semangelaf poisoned my sister.”
“Ah.”
Ramiel hadn’t mentioned it, but I had nothing to lose by asking. “Can you make an antidote?”
“Alas, no. I’m not much of a potion mistress.” She took my hand. “Come inside. Let me show you what you really are.”
That sounded slightly ominous. But what choice did I have?
The cottage was larger than I’d imagined, and it too smelled of fresh lavender and lilies, although I didn’t see any sign of flowers. As she walked across the living room, the skirt of her nightgown brushed along a beautiful rectangular rug of gold, red and magenta on the gray stone floor. Tangled ivory sheets covered a large bed in the corner beneath a window—the one that I had been hiding under until Nathanael had detected my presence. A big chunk of the wall was gone. Debris and dust coated the bed.
Leh waved a hand. The wall repaired itself almost instantaneously, and the sheets stood up and shook themselves in a corner. A mop flew out and wiped the dirt away.
Now there was some magic I’d like to learn. Maybe I could use it to rebuild my condo and keep it clean.
With a small kitchen and a table for two, the cottage looked comfortable enough for a single
woman. Something about the place—a gut feeling—told me that Nathanael had created it just for Leh. I still couldn’t understand how someone who claimed to be my mother could be having an affair with a man who wanted me dead. And I didn’t understand how a man who wanted—apparently needed—to kill me could be in love with my mother so much so that he’d rather retreat than end the fight then and there. He had to have known that he would prevail if he’d used his full strength against me and Leh.
After all, it was he who was credited with the slayers’ extinction. No dragonlord before him had been able to convince the others to join in a war against their archenemies. So what were one extra undead slayer and her brat to him?
Leh went to the kitchen and snapped her fingers. A teakettle began boiling water and a spoon scooped up dried herbs and tossed them inside a steeper.
“My special blend,” she said. “It should help calm your nerves.”
“Thank you.”
Neither of us was eager to approach the real topic. I sat down at the table and waited for the tea. The situation was both completely normal and utterly surreal. I caught myself drumming my fingers and immediately stopped.
Should I just blurt out what I wanted? Should I ask her why she had abandoned me? Who had fathered me?
Leh placed a steaming cup on the table. The physical labor of it surprised me. She could’ve snapped her fingers again.
She broke the silence first. “Did Ramiel bring you here?”
“Not really.” The steam rose and warmed and moistened my face. “I had to use Nahemah’s magic.”
“I see.”
“He didn’t want me to go to the Lunar Garden, but we didn’t really have any other choice.” I took a sip of the brew. It wasn’t my favorite type of tea—I like mine sweet—but it wasn’t bad either.
Leh pursed her lips and tapped the table top with the knuckle of her middle finger, the motion of her wrist slow and deliberate. “I can imagine. Ramiel and Nahemah have a history, and he knows her well.”
“What do you mean?” Had they been lovers? I suddenly felt extremely inadequate.
“It doesn’t matter.” Her clear violet eyes gazed into mine. “Ashera, regardless of what Ramiel—or anyone else—would like you to believe, you are neither dragonlord nor slayer. That makes certain dragonlords…nervous. Perhaps even afraid. They have a visceral horror of miscegenation.” Leh’s look reflected an odd mixture of contempt and regret. “The Advisors believe you’ll destroy the current hierarchy.”
“So it’s true? It’s been preordained?”
She blinked once, very slowly, like a cat in the sun. “Nothing is preordained, my child. Otherwise, why live?”
“But the ancient texts said the Advisors are never wrong.”
“Are the texts of your day never wrong?”
That stopped me for a moment. “But…they’re ancient.”
“And packed with self-fulfilling prophecy. Have you ever wondered why certain people succeed and others don’t? There is always luck, but if you believe, truly believe, that you’ll never accomplish anything, you won’t even try.”
I frowned. It was my philosophy as well, but when the supernatural realm merged with mine so thoroughly and the Triumvirate of Madainsair decided to kill me—despite my best efforts to avoid getting tangled up in their affairs—my feelings on predestination seemed a little suspect. Maybe certain things were just meant to be. Otherwise I wouldn’t even be here, talking to the last slayer. My mother.
“Sounds awfully simple,” I said.
Leh smiled. “Does it seem that way to you? If it were simple, everyone would create his own destiny. Making your way in the world is supposed to be difficult. Divination is nothing more than a glimpse, seeing at most a few possibilities out of millions. It’s never absolute. I know, for it’s an art that originated from and belongs to my people. Don’t let what the Advisors said sow seeds of doubt.” She took my hand. Her skin was butter soft and hot, almost feverish, against mine. “You must collect three heartstones. The first one I’ll give you, the stone of love. You’ll also need the stones of vengeance and compassion. These are the three characteristics required in order to rule well.”
I went still. Was she looking for what I thought she was? Because the last thing I wanted was to wreak vengeance on her behalf. “Seems like an interesting mix,” I said carefully.
She shrugged as if she hadn’t heard the caution in my voice. “Ideally, you will be able to balance everything. Compassion will make you merciful. Vengeance will make you stand up for the weak and for justice. Love will make you understand how to use both to better control yourself.” She brushed a loose tendril of my hair behind my ear. Such a simple gesture, but it made me want to lean into her and bask in the comfort only mothers can give. “Get the heartstones from those who are most known for their vengeance and compassion.”
I nodded, unable to speak. Her conviction that I would use such unimaginable power properly…well, it humbled me. I’d never considered myself “good.” I just did a job and got paid for it. I was insufferably vain about my skills and stubborn to boot. Hell, I doubted there was a single noble bone in my body.
“The one true impiety is indifference,” Leh said. “Never forget that.”
I put down my cup and nodded again. I felt calmer, although my heart was still doing a funny little dance. I took a deep breath, gathering my courage, but it didn’t help. Once I left, I might not be able to return, and I wanted to know.
“Why did you abandon me?”
She blinked, then sighed and gave me a crooked little smile. “I should have expected this.”
“I thought…” I actually bit my lower lip to keep it from trembling. “I always thought I was an orphan.”
“Yes. It was necessary for you to think that until the time was right.”
We just weren’t on the same emotional wavelength. Did she understand how I’d felt, thinking I was all alone in the world? Despite what Social Services would like you to believe, foster homes aren’t what they’re cracked up to be.
“Why?”
“Oh, Ashera. I couldn’t keep you. If you’d stayed with me, Nathanael would have killed you. And if not him, then Apollyon or Semangelaf, and I can’t stop either of them. Given our…history, I’m quite sure they would have relished the opportunity.”
“Was it Semangelaf who killed you?”
She gave me a sad, almost pitying smile.
Right. He wasn’t the most murderous one out of the bunch. “Apollyon?”
“No.”
“Then who?” A vengeful part of me wanted to know more about the past so I could destroy whoever was responsible for her death. My own mother deserved as much as what I’d promised Miguel, if not more. “You’re too powerful—”
“The past isn’t important. It’s your future that you must consider.”
“But—”
“Ashera, when the time is right, when you’re older and more powerful, you can learn about the history. Even attempt to right the wrong. But that cannot be your focus now.”
She was right. I had to get the heartstone and save Valerie before it was too late. At the same time I couldn’t help feeling resentful that everyone was using Valerie’s condition to make me shut up and go along with their plans. Yet what choice did I have? Semangelaf’s poison was killing her. I wasn’t prepared to tell Jack, “Sorry, your daughter’s dead. I was too busy satisfying my curiosity.”
Leh pulled a long necklace over her head. Three vials glowing golden hung from the intricate silver chain. Each of them was spaced apart, about three inches away from one another. “Keep these with you. They will help you when you need to deal with Nathanael.”
“What are they?” I palmed them. They were light, and warm from having stayed between her breasts. The vials’ contents swirled like restless mist.
“My voice. It will open the Harmonia Chamber in Windgar and drown out the Four Winds. They’re all his to command.” She pursed her lips, and this time
two small lines appeared between her eyebrows. Probably not too fond of betrayers. “Unfortunately, they won’t help you against Apollyon or Semangelaf, which is why I asked Ramiel to guard you. He’s a formidable warrior.”
I remembered the ease with which he’d dispatched Nathanael’s wyrm. “Yes, he is. I guess that’s why you told him my name.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He knew my full name. That surprised me.”
She laughed. “Oh, that. Well, your mortal name doesn’t matter. I’ve given you a name separate from it.”
“Really? What’s my real name?”
“I don’t know.”
I blinked. How could she not know the name she’d given me?
“I performed a spell to make myself forget.” She tilted her head, the motion exposing her throat. It made her look strangely vulnerable. “Does that bother you?”
“I guess not.” Well, as long as nobody knew my name, I was safe from any unwelcome spells. And it wasn’t like I had to know. Then something else struck me. “Do you at least remember my father?”
“No,” Leh said gently. It wasn’t an answer to my question, it was a warning not to go there.
But I can be obtuse when necessary. “You didn’t make yourself forget him,” I said. “Who is he?”
“No one.” Her voice was still warm, but there was a finality in it. “Please don’t ask me about him. He’s not someone worth knowing about.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I do. Otherwise, I would tell you.” Leh looked into my eyes. “Promise me you won’t seek his identity. You have a Triumvirate to overcome, and apparently a friend to save. They’re more important than finding out the name of your father, no?”
I watched fear flit across her face, and I nodded the way kids do when they think their parents are acting silly.
She closed her eyes briefly, then rose from her chair. “Come. The moon will vanish soon. Let me give you your first heartstone.”
I followed her to the living room. She pushed the left shoulder strap of her nightgown down and exposed a breast. I suddenly remembered what Nahemah had done to extract the heartstone from India. The way the lilith’s still-beating heart had spurted blood from the gaping hole.