The Last Goddess

by C.E. Stalbaum

  Chapter Twenty-Two

   

  When an entire evening passed and Tryss hadn’t heard anything from her mother, she’d started to get a little worried. She’d assumed things would have quickly gone downhill the moment Aston made it back to his father. Caldwell would have spoken to the Empress, and then Tryss would have had to defend her behavior and endure yet another lecture on why this relationship was more important than her own wishes.

  When nothing had happened by noon the next day, Tryss was on the verge of panic. She had visions of all three of them storming into her quarters to berate her, but again nothing happened. It wasn’t until just before dinnertime that she finally heard someone approaching from down the hall and knew the reckoning was here at long last.

  “Tryss?”

  It was her mother’s voice, but it wasn’t trembling with rage as Tryss had expected. It was, in fact, quite the opposite. She just sounded…tired.

  “It’s open,” Tryss replied, setting down her pen.

  The door opened gently, and her mother casually slipped inside. When she wasn’t wearing one of her ridiculously ostentatious royal gowns, Tryss knew something was wrong. Even while in the palace, the Empress rarely moved about in anything less than finery, but today she wore a simple robe. Her white hair was tussled and bore no crown.

  “We need to talk,” her mother said softly.

  Tryss had rehearsed this moment a dozen times already, and she was fully prepared to hold her ground—or at least, that’s what she’d convinced herself. But she’d been expecting her mother to roar in here breathing fire, and the sobriety had already thrown her off guard. Had the Empress already endured a confrontation with Caldwell? Had the treaty fallen apart?

  “He tried to force himself on me,” Tryss murmured. It wasn’t how she’d planned to start the conversation, but it just slipped out. “I tried not to hurt him.”

  The Empress studied her daughter, her cool gray eyes revealing nothing. She shut the door behind her and stepped forward. “I know.”

  Tryss pressed her hands together. They were trembling for some reason. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”

  Her mother took a deep breath and walked over to the portrait of her father on the eastern wall. “We always have a choice.”

  The Empress stood there staring up at the painting, and Tryss studied her profile. She’d never been particularly close to either of her parents. Her father had died when she was young, and her memories of him were vague impressions at best. Her mother, on the other hand, had simply been…distant. The moment Alassa Malivar took the throne from her own mother, she had been obsessed with rebuilding Darenthi. She was, in many ways, the quintessential Edehan, and the perfect example of how politics and ambition could corrupt even a noble message. In her mad quest to prevent the destruction of another war, she had abandoned huge sections of her own country and let entropy destroy what war had not. She had made dubious compromises and shady alliances to gather money and support for her cause. And she had, for all intents and purposes, ignored her own children as much as possible.

  Yet despite all that, what Tryss wanted more than anything right now was to hear from her mother that it was okay—that she had done the right thing in defending herself, and that no one, no matter how important they might have been, had any right to touch her daughter without permission. Tryss wanted to hear her mother say that she loved her.

  “So…” Tryss whispered, “I should have just let him?”

  The Empress’s eyes narrowed fractionally, and finally she turned. “Yes.”

  Tryss’s mouth fell open. “How can you—”

  “I just spent the better part of a day convincing a man I can’t stand that this treaty is more important than one relationship,” her mother said. “And he told me in no uncertain terms that the only way he would sign this treaty is if you and Aston are married. He insists that without an example to inspire them, his people will never accept the Darenthi as anything other than conquerors.” She paused, and her jawline visibly tightened. “But more to the point, it would be a huge political victory for him, and he is up for reelection in six months.”

  “I don’t care about him. I don’t care about politics!”

  “Believe me, I know,” the Empress replied softly. “You only care about yourself.”

  Tryss stood and knocked her chair away. “He tried to rape me! How can you just accept that?”

  The Empress stepped forward until she was mere inches from her daughter. “Because you don’t matter.”

  Tryss started to reply but no words came out. Instead she grabbed onto the desk, her knees suddenly going weak.

  “I’ve tried to explain it to you a hundred times in a hundred different ways,” her mother said, “but you never seem to get it. Do you realize how many people died in the last war? Do you have any concept of how many more would die if we fought another? My military advisors pressure me every day to launch an attack now before the Ebarans have a chance to rebuild further. They are convinced we can and should finish the job we started, and that maybe, just maybe, we could bring all of Esharia under our banner. That is the future the Balorites wish for our people, and if I can’t come through on this treaty, then that is exactly what’s going to happen.”

  Tryss closed her eyes and squeezed at the desk. She could feel the tears streaming down her face, but she wasn’t even sure why. She should have been angry—she should have been absolutely livid—but instead she simply felt…lost. Abandoned.

  Alone.

  The Empress stepped forward again. “Even if we win that war—and I’m not certain we would—tens of thousands of people will die before it is over. Tens of thousands, Tryss. Darenthi, Ebaran, and anything else that stands in the way. So when you ask me what I think you should have done, I’m going to tell you: you should have spread your screlling legs. And the next time he wants you? You should do it again.”

  Tryss turned. “How can you say that? You’re my mother!”

  The Empress moved so quickly her hand was a blur. She struck Tryss in the cheek hard enough to knock her to the ground. Agony seared in her jaw, and between the pain and the tears, Tryss couldn’t see anything.

  “I am also your Empress,” her mother said coldly, “and I’m going to tell you exactly what’s going to happen. The next time you see Aston, you’re going to do whatever he wants. If that means going to the theater, then that’s what you do. If that means lying back and letting him take you, then that’s what you do. I would think the thousands of lives you will be saving would soothe your conscience, but since I know you don’t care about that…then I have something else to motivate you.”

  Tryss gasped as her vision cleared and looked up as the other woman loomed over her. The Empress’s hand still glimmered with energy from the magic-enhanced punch she had just thrown.

  “If you ever want to weave again, you will do exactly as I say,” the Empress continued. “Three of my Faceless will be following you at all times, and if they so much as see you weave a spell to dry your hair in the morning, they’re going to hurt you. Wounds can be healed, you see, but perhaps pain will be the teacher reason could not.”

  “Mother…”

  “President Caldwell wanted to have words with Aston, but I’m sure the prince-to-be will stop by before the night is over. I suggest you be ready to please him.”

  Tryss tried to pull herself up but only made it halfway before collapsing into a ball. She couldn’t even concentrate enough to weave a healing spell into her jaw. All she could do was sob and tremble.

  She had no idea how long she laid crumpled in a helpless ball before a pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders and squeezed her tightly.

  “My lady,” Lepton breathed, “I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

  Tryss spun into the old man’s arms. He dabbed a wet cloth across her cheek as he held her close.

  “Let me help you to your bed,” he offered. He was well into his seventies, but somehow he
found the strength to lift her into his arms and carry her across the room. She pulled him down next to her and clenched him so tightly it probably hurt.

  “How can she….?” Tryss managed before her voice cut out. She clamped down hard enough on her lip that she tasted blood.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I just don’t know.”

  Tryss knew. She had always known. She didn’t have a mother, and neither did Kastrius. For all her brother’s faults, he was as much a victim of abandonment as Tryss. The moment he’d disagreed with their mother publically, the Empress had him sealed away like a leper…like a mistake. The only reason she hadn’t done that with Tryss was because of the academy; it had kept her out of the public eye just as well as a locked tower.

  But now Tryss had gone from a mistake to a potential tool, and as it turned out, that was even worse. She let her sorrow congeal into rage, and she eventually pushed Lepton away.

  “I need to be alone,” she told him.

  He frowned. “Are you certain, my lady? Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  She reached out and touched his face. “You’ve given me everything I could ever ask for. But please, I just need to be alone for a while.”

  “As you wish, princess.” He stood and squeezed her hand before heading to the door.

  “I love you, Lepton,” she whispered. “I hope you know that.”

  He smiled. “And I you, my lady. I will bring you something to eat in a bit.”

  When he was gone, Tryss lifted herself from the bed and walked in front of the mirror. She scowled at the woman looking back at her. She had no reason to cry. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She had given her mother every opportunity to see reason, and instead….

  Tryss rubbed at the growing bruise on her cheek. Instead, the Empress had a new enemy. And she was not a helpless little girl.

  She turned to Tiber and fingered the crystal control pendant on her necklace. He stood in silence near the door, his visor glowing faintly. Again she wondered how he would have reacted to all of this had he still been human. Was he a man of honor before the transformation? Was he a bloodthirsty brute? Perhaps he had been a she, and she would have understood even better.

  “We’re leaving,” Tryss told him, wiping the last tears from her face. “And we’re never coming back.”