Death of the Immortal King

by Sarah McCarthy

  They stared at each other.

  “Have you been here long?” Coralie asked.

  “Eight years.” Lilianna swallowed, embarrassed, felt the tears welling in her eyes.

  Instantly, Coralie was there. The short, stocky, boy-arms were around her. It was, in one sense, completely different, but beneath that, completely familiar. It was Coralie, that same deep caring and love in her touch that had been there when they were twenty and when they were sixty.

  That same sense of relief, and love washed over her, complete with the usual inability to stand it for more than a few seconds. She pulled away.

  “This body is crazy,” she said. “Did you see this?” She pointed at the fuzz on her chin.

  Coralie rubbed a hand across her own, already partially bearded, face. “Yeah, sorry, I asked for a, a razor, but the monks didn’t have one.” She blushed. “I don’t even—gods. The Dymri just grow their beards out long and braid them, so I don’t even…”

  Lilianna laughed. “It’s OK, me neither. I’ve kind of been ignoring it.” She gripped Coralie’s hand, even as she took a slight step back. “Let’s get Paric, I’m sure he can teach us how to shave.”

  “Probably has some fancy Volarian shaving kit,” Coralie grinned. Then she looked down at herself. “To be honest I have other questions, too.”

  “Gods, you want to know what?” Paric asked when they finally found him. He was a tall, stringy, but still lethal eighty-six-year-old man. “I knew I should have left for that godsdamn monastery earlier. Why couldn’t Gird be here?”

  “Please?” Lilianna asked. “We figured… of all the men we could ask…”

  He glared at her. “Fine. Just get me a drink.”

  He downed the first drink in one go, then when they brought him another, he drank that slowly, glaring at them over the rim of his glass.

  When he’d finished that, he started on his third.

  “All right, first off, underwear. No cotton, no linen, for gods’ sake no wool. Silk. I don’t care if you’re on your last silver. Fight someone for it if you have to.”

  Lilianna nodded, and Coralie pulled out a piece of parchment and began jotting down notes.

  Paric tipped his glass back and forth, watching the liquid.

  “Be ready to fight anyone at any moment. Start every day with forty push-ups and a three-mile run. Make sure you work out both arms equally. You never know when you’ll need to dual-wield.”

  By the fourth drink, Paric had completely warmed to the topic. He talked long past the time he usually had his afternoon nap, expounding on the finer points of seven different shaving methods, and making them practice them in front of him. Lilianna had long since wished they’d asked someone else by the time he drifted off, still muttering about weapon choices and fighting stances.

  66

  Coralie

  For three hundred years, Coralie and Lilianna were happy. Mostly. They reincarnated again and again, always finding their way back to one another. Coralie never felt completely at home as a man, but she always loved Lilianna. Man, woman, whatever, it didn’t matter, she could always find Lilianna looking back at her out of those ever-darkening eyes.

  The wall that Coralie put between herself and her opinions about Lilianna’s rule grew taller and thicker over the years, especially as the clans grew in wealth and power and the clanless were left destitute.

  “Don’t you remember what it was like to struggle? To have nothing?” she said once, the words slipping out through a tiny crack in the wall.

  “Of course I do.” Lilianna was tall, hale man in his early fifties who still trained hours every day. They sat together on the palace rooftop, looking out and watching the sunset. He lifted his chin, his jaw set. “And I remember that we succeeded. We lifted ourselves up from nothing.”

  Coralie, a few years older, female, her hair already going grey, leaned her head on his shoulder and he put an arm around her.

  “We had Aron, though.”

  “And they have advantages, too. I’m not coddling our people. They will succeed or fail, based on their own merit.”

  You don’t have to try to sound so statesmanlike for me. Those were words from the speeches.

  Lilianna turned to her, his hand cupping her chin, his black eyes looking into hers. He leaned in and kissed her, and Coralie closed her eyes, feeling his lips warm on hers. When he pulled away, the sun had slipped beneath the horizon, and the sky was dark overhead, the stars scattered above them.

  “Don’t worry, Coralie. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I trust you.” Those were the words she needed to say, the words he needed to hear, and she said them. It wasn’t clear how much either of them believed them anymore.

  The first unforgiveable thing that Coralie said to Lilianna was “Maybe you should have listened to him.” ‘Him’ was Alydren, and it was too late to listen to him anymore because he had been executed. After nearly succeeding in his attempt to assassinate Lilianna.

  I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry, Coralie thought, when she saw Lilianna pull back, looking like she’d been slapped. But she didn’t say it. The dam had been broken, and every single thing she’d wanted to say but hadn’t came pouring out.

  The last unforgiveable thing that Coralie said to Lilianna happened almost a hundred years later. A hundred years of fighting, a hundred years where Coralie no longer held back a single opinion, and barely tried to be nice about it, either.

  67

  Lilianna

  Year Four Hundred Ninety-Three of the Reign of the Mandrevecchian.

  It was midday, and Lilianna sat at her desk in her private rooms, in a ray of sunshine, writing a letter to the leader of the Tereboy clan, when Coralie entered. Lilianna was thirty-five, her fiery red hair in a thick braid with jeweled pins adorning it. Her creamy white silk tunic lay lightly on her pale skin. Coralie was slightly older, male and dark-haired, strong but not a fighter.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her, waiting for her to finish.

  Something was up, Lilianna could sense it, and she finished the last few sentences with a shaking hand before looking up to meet her lover’s eyes.

  “What is it?”

  Coralie swallowed. “Lilianna, you know I love you more than anything.”

  Lilianna’s chest constricted, and she sat very still.

  Coralie waited, but continued when she got no response. “I can’t sit by and watch what Mimros is becoming. I can’t stay here and watch what you’re becoming anymore.”

  Something small and fragile snapped in Lilianna’s heart.

  Coralie continued. “I’m leaving now. I don’t know where I’ll go or what I’ll do.”

  Unreality washed over Lilianna. Desperation. She wanted to run to her, throw her arms around Coralie’s neck and beg her not to leave. But she wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t beg. If Coralie wanted to leave, she would let her. She knew Coralie thought little of her, had thought little of her for the past hundred years.

  “All right,” was all she said. She didn’t look at Coralie, didn’t want to see the indifference in her face.

  Coralie waited several seconds, her hands gripping the bed covers tightly.

  “Goodbye, Lilianna,” she said finally, and walked out the door.

  A thick, yawning emptiness opened in Lilianna’s heart. For several minutes she sat unmoving, the pen still gripped in her shaking hand. The utter loneliness of the coming lifetimes stretched in front of her. Finally, she shook herself, folded the letter, tucked it into its envelope, sealed it, then ripped it to shreds.

  She pulled the curtains shut, climbed into the large, empty bed, wrapped her arms around her stomach, and shook, letting herself go, letting the grief and despair pour out of her.

  She stayed in her room, in the dark, for twenty-five days, barely eating or drinking. She left the governance to Aron and Paric, not telling them what had happened. She couldn’t stand the shame. She could never tell them the truth, could never tell anyone
that Coralie had left her. That she’d never been good enough after all.

  After she left, Coralie travelled the world for many years, then became a shipping merchant. For several lifetimes she did nothing but work. Alone. Building her company and doing what she could to make the country better, to improve the lives of the poor and clanless. But in everything she did, there was a terrible emptiness. She kept waiting for news, for a letter from Lilianna, asking her to come back, saying she would listen to her, but none ever came. Lilianna continued approving her reincarnation, through hundreds of years, and Coralie became more and more wealthy and established.

  One night, in the throes of loneliness, Coralie slept with a woman who was good and kind and idealistic, never intending it to be more than a single night. But the woman became pregnant, and Coralie would never have left her to raise a child on her own. The woman died not long after, and Coralie, having given up her dreams of fixing what she and Lilianna had built, dedicated herself to the task of raising her daughter. But as she did, she found herself once again realizing what the world was missing. This child was so young, had such a beautiful, innocent view of the world. Coralie wanted to make the world the way it looked through her daughter’s eyes, the way she remembered it had looked through her own eyes nine hundred years ago.

  She formulated a plan. Something she had discussed with one of the younger monks a few times, when they had talked about how terrible Mimros was becoming. In those days it had been an idle plan; they’d never thought they’d need to enact it. They’d both thought Lilianna would come around, that her love for Coralie would be enough to convince her to change, to see things another way, to make the world a softer, better place for everyone. But it hadn’t turned out that way.

  Instead, things had gotten steadily worse, and it became clearer and clearer that nothing was going to change unless Lilianna changed. And eventually she realized it was time. Even if it meant giving up the thing she loved most in the world. For her daughter.

  68

  Harram

  Year 904 of the Reign of the Mandrevecchian.

  Harram was playing in the shade of the aqueduct the first time it happened. He had found the perfect hole-digging stick and was busily scratching away at the dry earth. This was going to be the biggest hole anyone had ever seen. He would build steps down into it and cover it with dry grass and it would be his hideout, and all the other boys would come to see it and be impressed. He would dig more holes and connect them with tunnels. Maybe they could have a whole city underground here.

  He paused to pry out a stone. It left a round, smooth divot in the yellow, clay-rich dirt.

  Suddenly, he felt dizzy. He placed his palms flat on the ground and leaned over them, scrunching his eyes shut. When he opened them, it was dark. He was in a thick forest, unlike anything he’d ever seen before, and it was night. His eyes widened in fear, but then he blinked and he was looking at his hands, with their dirt-caked nails, pressed into the yellow dirt.

  Another wave of dizziness hit him, and he was digging. Another hole, a different hole, one that made him sad. Something screeched in the darkness. An owl.

  He fell forward onto his hands, and his face hit the dust. He lay there, breathing heavily, tears in his eyes dripping down into the dirt, but it didn’t happen again.

  “Harram!” his mother’s voice called. “Supper!”

  Harram picked himself off and ran towards his mother’s voice, trying to forget the strange things he’d seen.

  His mother was standing at the back of their mud brick home. She smiled as he approached and bent down to brush the dirt off his clothes.

  “How did you get so much dirt on you?” She smiled. “Do you roll around in it on purpose?” She began to brush off his cheeks, but some of it had stuck on from the tears. Suddenly, her expression changed, her thumb froze on his cheek.

  Harram felt her looking straight at him, but she wasn’t quite seeing him, she was just looking at his eyes. Her voice shook a little. “Blink, Harram. You’ve got some in your eyes, too.” He blinked. Her face went paler, and she looked away. “Good, all right, your father won’t be home for supper, he’s out in the fields late tonight, so it’s just you and me. Come on inside.”

  She took his small hand, and her palm was rough, calloused, and warm, and she clasped his hand so gently but with such strength, Harram felt completely safe. Whatever happened, she would protect him.

  The next day, Harram’s father left right after breakfast to go out into the fields, and Harram climbed up onto the roof to wave goodbye. He perched on the clay tiles, the wind singing past him, and called and waved. His father, a sack over one shoulder and a hoe over the other, turned and grinned, tipping his head at his son. Harram smiled and wrapped his arms around his knees.

  He closed his eyes and suddenly he was high in a tree, feeling the wind on his face. A girl was with him. She had shining brown hair and light green eyes and she grinned at him, pulling herself up to a higher branch. He felt how much he loved her, and he started to climb after her. Then he felt his mother grab his arm and pull him back through the window.

  “Harram,” she said, exasperated but not angry. “I’ve told you, you’re not allowed out here without your father or me.”

  Harram was still partially in the tree, partially on the roof, and he didn’t answer, just tensed.

  “Harram, come on. I said get down.” That was his mother’s serious tone, and it jolted him back to where he was.

  “Sorry, mother,” he mumbled, climbing in after her.

  “Are you feeling all right?” she asked, holding his arms and bending down to look at him. Her lips parted and she gasped, gripped his upper arms painfully tight. He squirmed. “Harram, what have you been doing?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Ow, you’re hurting me.”

  She relaxed her grip, but only a little. “Harram, listen to me. If there’s things that you’re thinking that seem strange, don’t think them. You hear me?”

  “OK, but—”

  “Are you having strange thoughts?” There was terror in her voice.

  “No.”

  “Listen to me, Harram. Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes.” He started to cry.

  She pulled him into a tight hug. “I’m sorry sweetheart. It’s all right. Everything will be OK. But you have to listen to me. Those thoughts are bad. You have to not think them. Do you promise me?”

  He nodded, his face pressed into her shoulder.

  “Tell me you promise, Harram.”

  “I promise.”

  But the thoughts struck him without warning, and, like nightmares, he couldn’t awaken from them. He saw the brown-haired girl again and again, saw her so clearly and strongly. And these parts weren’t nightmares. They were beautiful dreams. He laughed with her, swam in ice-cold water, sparkling in the summer air. They spent days wandering through heath and rock, catching crickets.

  Harram tried to fight them, but he didn’t want to. They called to him. They were important. There were things there he needed to know. There was someone in trouble. Coralie. The name kept coming back to him.

  His mother no longer looked him in the eyes. When she hugged him, they were tight, tearful hugs, and Harram heard her and his father talking late at night. His mother’s voice was high, his father’s a deep murmur.

  One day, he asked his mother if he could go out to play. Relieved, because he hadn’t asked to play in days, she sent him outside. But he didn’t go to his usual place by the aqueduct. He went out into the fields, hidden in the wheat, and lay down, looking up past the heavy stalks into the empty blue sky. He needed to know. He closed his eyes and relaxed.

  The memories came flooding in.

  Some time later, Coralie opened her eyes and looked up through the wheat stalks, into the bright blue sky. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to leave the field. She could feel the change that had come over her, knew her eyes would be jet black now. She didn’t want to return to the farmhous
e. To Harram’s mother.

  She didn’t want to live this lifetime, which she hoped would be her last. Lilianna was gone, now, and she didn’t want to be in a world without her. She didn’t want to be the only one remembering their life together. She wanted to slip into obscurity, to forget everything that had happened, everything that she’d been, and to have them find each other again, thinking it was the first time, not knowing what their lives had been, and how deeply she had betrayed the person who meant the most to her.

  She reached out and touched one of the wheat stalks gently, marveling at the clumsiness of these tiny fingers. Memories of all her other hands flashed through her mind. She watched them all grow and age, just as these would. But that way lay madness. She’d learned that long ago. She couldn’t dwell for too long in the memories. The only way to keep herself sane was to focus on the present, to be who she was now.

  Harram stood up and pushed his way back to the farmhouse, dragging his feet in the dusty fields. When he came to the kitchen door, his mother came out to meet him.

  “Back so—” She stopped. Harram looked up, meeting her eyes.

  She started to shake. “No.”

  “I’m so sorry, mother.”

  “Don’t you call me that,” she snapped, but then her eyes filled with tears. She gasped and grabbed him by the arm. He was too weak to resist as she pulled him into the house and dragged him up the stairs, locking him into his room.