by Bec McMaster
There. Truth.
“I know that feeling.” Andromeda lifted her wine and drained it. But there was a sense of relief about her as she lowered the glass and said brightly, “Another glass?”
“Another glass,” Solveig conceded, with a respectful—and knowing—nod to the queen.
Appearances must be kept.
They had sought her out in order to ascertain if she was a threat to Andromeda’s position, but once the truth was gleaned, Solveig found the conversation much easier. Platters were brought, and the three of them laughed over the frustrations of being female in a court of male dreki, and the ways in which to manage them. Lighthearted, gossipy talk that went nowhere, and was dangerous to none of them.
However, she too had her purpose in coming here.
Solveig plucked a piece of dark rye from the Smørrebrød platter, and added a sliver of pickled herring to it, waiting for the precise moment when the conversation lulled. “I am curious about something, if you don’t mind me asking…?”
Andromeda waved a languid hand. “Please. You are our guest.”
She tried to think how to word it. “You know more about the mystical than I do. I have always been taught that when a dreki dies, and we set their body to the bonfire, their spirit rises to ride the horizon forever. But I heard a story about a body that was burned, and no spirit arose. Is it possible?”
Viveka didn’t quite tense, but her fingers tightened on the pear she was carving. “The goddess gifts those who lived their life with honor by an endless flight on the horizon. They’re the ones we see each night when the winter nights are long and cold. Forever seeking the winds. And those that dishonor the goddess are absorbed back into her. She was the one who gave them the spark of their soul. And She is the one who will crush even the merest remnants of it, if they betray her teachings. They cease to exist.”
“So this dreki was absorbed into the goddess?”
Viveka bit her lip. “Most likely—”
“No. There would have been signs,” Andromeda broke in. “A spirit is not released from the body until we are returned to fire. We say the fires burn clean when the soul is pure, but for those who will be extinguished, there is a dark, ruddy-colored smoke, and the fires flicker. You will see a dark form rise, a spirit in anguish. But it will be trapped in the flames, and not free to rise to the sky. The fire consumes it. If no spirit arose then….” She looked troubled. “It was because there was no spirit to rise.”
Solveig nibbled on her slice of bread. “How would that happen?”
“There is a darker side to Chaos magic,” Andromeda admitted. “A Chaos practitioner can steal another’s soul and trap it for their bidding. If the body dies, no spirit arises, for they are cursed into kunuk la’atzu.”
“Seal.” Solveig managed to roughly translate. Her Sumerian was limited. “Seal of….”
“The spirit world.”
She’d never heard such a term before.
“It’s a prison of the soul,” Viveka said. “An object, usually, that a practitioner creates a spirit world inside, where one can trap a soul. There were many seals created in centuries past, though I believe the making of them is lost to this era. It was forbidden in many cultures. They burned the books that spoke of it, and destroyed those kunuk la’atzu that they found.”
“What would one of these objects look like?”
Suspicion darkened Viveka’s eyes. “I don’t know. They called them soulstones.”
“A rock?”
“I don’t know. It’s forbidden to know of such things.”
But Andromeda knew. Once again, her gaze sought her wineglass. Solveig recognized it, though to push now, when they were already suspicious, might prove dangerous.
She considered everything she knew of Queen Amadea’s death. “Could a dreki do it to themselves? Could they trap their soul inside this kunuk la’atzu in order to escape persecution?”
Even Andromeda’s eyebrows rose at that. “It is possible, though I doubt such a practitioner would do it. You would be trapped in there. Possibly forever.”
“Why do you ask?” Viveka leaned toward her, her gray eyes glittering. “Do you know someone who has done this?
“No, it’s just a story,” she murmured, realizing she’d stirred their suspicion too far. “It seemed so farfetched, but it has been toying at my mind.” She lifted her glass. “More wine?”
The two of them shared a look.
“More wine,” Andromeda agreed, though her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Marduk found Ishtar sitting in a window nook, watching the courtyard stir below her. No matter where they were, she seemed to find private little corners where she could watch the world go by. She was no longer trapped in a cave, but he wasn’t entirely certain she’d truly rejoined the world.
They’d spent years apart, but these past few months had been easy.
It felt somewhat akin to sharing a soul. They didn’t even have to speak. He could merely rest his shoulder against hers, and the simple effort of existing became uncomplicated.
She was home in a way that he’d never felt before. She was peace. She was a breath of calming air. And he’d been so busy of late, that he hadn’t truly had a chance to talk to her.
“Do you mind if I sit?”
Ishtar shook her head and gestured to the stone beside her.
“Can you sense anything?” he asked. “Any enormous spikes of Chaos magic?”
“Many.” Her brows drew together. “There’s a beating pulse of power beneath the entire castle, though I don’t know if it is a relic, or merely the echo of thousands of Chaos-workings over the centuries.”
“I can sense three.”
“I can sense hundreds.”
A sigh escaped him. “I knew it couldn’t be that easy.”
“The queen consort asked me to dine with her,” Ishtar said. “She may tell me more about the key. She’s very nice.”
“Andromeda is a powerful dreki queen who is mated to a ruthless king. She may be very nice. She may also be working hand in hand with Draco, and I don’t trust him at all.” He kissed her forehead. “I wouldn’t mention it, if I were you.”
“I just want to help.”
“You are helping.”
Ishtar drew her knees to her chest. “Rurik was angry that I opened the portal, wasn’t he?”
“Ishtar….” He blew out a breath. “He’s not angry at you. Never you. You were locked away in a bloody cave. Tyndyr took advantage of you. He lied to you and used your power to start a war. None of this is your fault.”
“I just don’t want to make anyone angry.”
“You don’t. And you’re helping, more than you could ever know. Árdís is so new to her power that she can barely wield it. I can sense Chaos, but I’m no practitioner. You’re our secret weapon, angel. If anyone is going to find the key, it’s going to be you.”
Her sudden hug caught him by surprise. She almost strangled him. Marduk blinked, and then hugged her back.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“I do, however, think you should take someone with you when you visit Andromeda.”
She peered at his face as if trying to decipher an ancient text. “Do you think I cannot handle myself?”
“No. I used to worry about you, but if anyone tries to hurt you, you can simply vanish yourself.” He’d never get used to it. One moment Ishtar was there—flaring like a supernova in the back of his mind—and the next, she was gone. The bond between them went silent, and it felt like she’d been ripped from his life. “I just want you to be careful. You want to trust them, I know you do, because you’ve never been around others with similar powers, but the Zilittu—”
“Can’t be trusted.”
“Maybe you can take Solveig.” If anyone was going to put the Zilittu queen through an inquisition, it was going to be her.
Ishtar toyed with the hem of her skirt. “I don’t think I would like that."
His gaze cut to her.
He’d noticed that Ishtar avoided Solveig. The princess had been unfailingly polite to his sister—or they would have had words—but Ishtar tended to grow quieter around those she didn’t trust.
“I trust Solveig.” Despite her ruthless nature, she would never lift a hand against the innocent. She had her own set of rules. “I know you find her manner intimidating—”
“I just…. I don’t want to be alone again.” Ishtar rubbed the hem of her skirt between thumb and forefinger, and then blurted. “I don’t want to lose you. And I know I will. I know you belong to her, and….”
“Hey.” Marduk drew back to examine her face. “You won’t lose me. You won’t be alone. I’m always here. I promise. Solveig and I are mated, but it’s not the sort of thing that excludes all other relationships in my life.” His voice roughened. “And we’re not…. We’re not each other’s true flames.”
Kataru libbu was an alliance of souls and hearts—dreki who claimed they were put on this world to be another’s match. True flames born in a firestorm together.
An old myth said the goddess created dreki to be two halves of a whole. They spent their entire lives searching for the one who would complete them, and while not every dreki was that lucky, some few found wholeness.
It was something every dreki secretly yearned for.
But males always knew first.
And there was… nothing.
Sometimes it took time, but he’d known her for ten years. It would have happened by now.
Ishtar’s green eyes met his over the top of her knees, and he knew the moment was important to her. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.” Her voice softened to a whisper. “You won’t always be there.”
His heart dropped like a stone. She could see threads of the past, the current and the future. Not entire moments, but just enough to make out an event.
She’d never been wrong before.
“I’m not going to die,” he promised. “Not yet.”
“Oh no, not yet. But….” She bit her lip. “But I have to go away. And I have to let you go.”
“What? Where are you going? What do you mean by ‘let me go?’”
“You belong to Solveig and I stole you.” Sadness turned her green eyes dark. “I didn’t mean to, but I was so scared and you were the only thing I knew.”
“Ishtar?” She wasn’t making sense. Stole me?
“I wanted to stay in Mother’s womb, but I couldn’t. I knew she would hate me when she saw me.”
“Ish….” He wanted to wrap her in his arms and squeeze her so hard that she’d never doubt herself again, but he knew she’d feel confined. “She didn’t deserve you.”
“I didn’t want to be born. Mother loved me while I was inside her. I was her promise. She used to rub her belly and tell me that. But she wouldn’t love me when she saw me. And I was so scared that I reached for you, and you reached back, and you’ve been with me ever since.”
He fell still. Dreki babies were more sentient than humans, but there was no way Ishtar could have—
Unless she was future-walking even then.
She was forged of raw Chaos magic, and who knew what her limitations were?
“Our mother was a bitch.” If he could go back in time and throttle Amadea for daring to plant such doubts in his sister’s head, he would have. “It was never love she felt for us. Only a twisted version of it. But you are loved, Ishtar. I love you. And so does Rurik and Árdís—”
“And the baby.”
“Árdís’s baby?”
“Yes. Can’t you hear her? I sing to her sometimes, and she sings back.”
Sing? Did she mean Chaos? “So Árdís is going to have a little girl.” And she might wield her mother’s magic. “Does she know?”
“Árdís wouldn’t hear her song?” Ishtar asked.
“Don’t tell her,” he warned. “Just in case she doesn’t know.”
“I won’t.”
Marduk smiled at her. “I love you, you know? And if you need me, then I’m right here. I will always be right here—”
She opened her mouth.
“Even if whatever is going to happen happens. I’m your brother. I will always protect you. I will always love you. And I will always be here for you, no matter what.”
Ishtar considered it. “I just want a couple more days with you.”
His stomach fell. “You’re not going to be in any danger, are you?”
She shook her head. “I need to do this. It’s the only way we win the war.”
He hated these moments. He’d spent most of his life searching for her, but he couldn’t smother her. She’d been locked away for her own “protection” for years, and he wouldn’t do that to her.
A commotion echoed up the stairwell.
Marduk’s head whipped toward that direction, and he slowly pushed himself to his feet. Call him an untrusting bastard, but loud noises in a castle like this made him nervous.
Three Zilittu dreki thundered up the stairs, spears held low. Marduk wished he had more on him than a dagger. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve found them!” one bellowed down the stairs.
Another drew his sword.
Marduk stepped between the guards and Ishtar. “You dare break guest right and draw your sword on your king’s cousins?”
“Don’t you speak to me of guest right.” The soldier in the lead pressed his lips together. “My king has insisted upon your presence. Both of you. There’s been a murder.”
“A murder?” Marduk’s heart dropped. But then he saw the dreki guard’s face. Not one of theirs. It had to be Zilittu. “Who?”
It had once been a young woman.
Marduk’s steps slowed as he beheld the husk on the floor in front of him. The last time he’d seen a body like this had been in Egypt, when some idiotic British tomb-raiders had broken open a sarcophagus.
Or when Marthe was found.
Andromeda knelt by the husk, her fingers trembling as she reached out and brushed withered blonde hair away from the woman’s face. “Kirstin.”
“What happened to her?” Marduk whispered.
Andromeda’s hands glowing faintly with Chaos magic as she hovered them over the body. She looked up in shock. “Kirstin was one of our most powerful practitioners, but there’s… nothing there anymore. Her body should still resonate with magic, but it’s as if she’s been sucked dry.”
Tension slid through him. There was one reason and one reason only why he and Ishtar had been hauled down here.
He wasn’t a particularly violent dreki.
He’d rarely felt the protective, possessive urges other males felt, nor had he bothered to fight for territory.
But as the king turned to look at him, Marduk stepped between him and Ishtar and looked him in the eye. “Don’t even suggest it.”
A muscle in Draco’s jaw kicked. “The last person who was seen with Kirstin was your sister.”
“She couldn’t have done this.”
“My mate assures me that only a Chaos-wielder of significant strength could have overwhelmed Kirstin.”
“She wouldn’t have done this.” Marduk shook his head, trying to find the words. Words that, for once, escaped him.
Ishtar stepped closer to the body. “What happened to her?”
It was startling to hear her voice in company. She spoke aloud to him, but rarely in front of others.
“It’s all right,” he said, moving to intercept her. It was entirely possible she’d never seen someone die before.
“She’s silent,” Ishtar said. “She doesn’t sing anymore. Why is there no song?”
“Why—?” Draco’s face hardened.
But Andromeda pushed him out of the way. Empathy filled her dark eyes. “She has gone to ride the horizon with our brethren.”
“But why is she empty? It’s gone. The song is gone. Every dreki has a spark of the song to some degree.” Ishtar looked to Draco. “His song is quiet and angry, like the crashing w
aves of the sea.” Toward Andromeda. “And yours is wild and beautiful, like a storm rolling over the horizon. And Marduk’s is a hint of laughter; a trickling brook babbling over stones. Her song is silent, as if it’s been ripped from her.”
Marduk could see the king’s anger sharpening with every word. He needed to get her out of here.
But Andromeda beat him to it. “Her song has been ripped out of her? What do you mean? Do you think… someone has taken her magic?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Ishtar’s fingers curled into fists, and she continued shaking her head. “I’m tired. Can I go?”
“Not yet,” Draco said.
But Marduk put his hand to the king’s chest. “My sister is weary. And you’re not going to bother her with your baseless accusations. We don’t know who did this.”
His heart skipped a beat.
First Marthe. Now Kirstin.
He needed to talk to the others.
“I opened my lands to another clan for the first time in centuries,” Draco said. “And this happens. Why would I not suspect the perpetrator to have come from the Zini delegation?”
“Because I hear your twin brother is in exile, and apparently he’d love to tear you from your throne.” Marduk noted that Draco didn’t so much as flinch at the words. “Your uncle is also out there. And if I were to name a list of those who might wish to see the great king of the Zilittu humbled, I’m afraid the Zini wouldn’t be at the top of it.” He glanced once more at the body. “You have my condolences. But we had nothing to do with this.”
“I will find her killer,” Draco promised.
“If you wish assistance, then I am more than willing to offer it. Ishtar, do you want to sit with Árdís?”
“No. I want to go to my rooms.”
He’d spent enough afternoons arguing with her to know that once she set her mind to something, she wouldn’t change it. Marduk arched a brow at Draco. “Are we done here?”
“Perhaps in the morning, I might be able to speak to her?” Andromeda asked. “I can’t sense anything, but Ishtar might be able to help me discover who did this.”
