Caio saw an image of the prince submerged in the deepest ocean water, quickly surrounded by the freezing darkness. The prince expelled an involuntary scream as he fell to the desert floor, crushed by the depths of the ocean in his mind.
King Vieri caught up to Prince Rao as the Pawelon fell, swinging his falchion down at the sage’s chest.
Lord Galleazzo crossed his powerful arms as Lucia swung Ysa’s blade upward to crash its white metal against her father’s steel. The goddess Ysa’s cold face merely observed without flinching.
As her father stepped backward, Lucia looked over her shoulder at Rao’s corpse.
Narayani watched the king run forward swinging his sword. She watched Rao crumple to the earth.
She ran for him.
“Caio, you did this?” Lucia asked.
“I knew he was lying. He didn’t use any of his magic on you.”
Lucia turned around to look at Rao’s body and looked up at Narayani running toward her. She raised her white sword and pointed her open palm at Narayani to tell her to stop.
“Let me help him,” Narayani said. She dropped onto her knees beside Rao and felt a burning sensation traveling from her stomach to her mouth. Rao’s face had been instantly bruised into hideous shades of purple and blue. She turned away from him and somehow managed not to vomit, then rubbed her eyes and forehead, hiding from the sight of Rao’s corpse.
“We did this together, Son.”
Narayani felt Rao’s body. His body was already clammy and cold from Caio’s magic.
Caio stepped forward with his arms and chest open. “Narayani, it had to be one of us, either him or me. Now you can come back with me.”
“Do what I asked you to do last night. Kill me! Right now. Let me fall against him and die.”
Still two paces away, Caio raised his palms as if he intended to heal her.
“No more,” she said. “Don’t touch me with your gods.”
“I’ll do it.” The king raised his blade above his head and stepped forward.
“Don’t you touch her.” Lucia bent her knees and brought Ysa’s sword in front of her forehead, horizontal and ready to block the king’s weapon.
“Have you gone mad?” her father said. “She nearly got you and Caio killed. She is evil, nothing but bad luck.”
“Don’t touch her, Father,” Caio said. “She is distraught. She doesn’t mean what she’s saying.”
“I do. I could never go back with you.” Narayani didn’t want the king to be the one to finish her, though. She ran her hands along Rao’s body to look for a weapon, but found none.
Caio extended his hands outward and stepped close to Narayani. “Please. I want to take you far away from here, so you’ll never have to experience any place like this ever again. I want you to live with me in peace and luxury in Remaes. Please let me make it up to you for all you’ve endured.”
Caio put his hands on her cheeks. For one brief moment, she considered his offer.
“Viparyas amrakh!” yelled a Pawelon voice.
Caio’s skin shook and rippled and, like Rao’s, turned dark, sickly shades of purple and blue. Caio collapsed in a lifeless heap before her, beside Rao’s body.
Narayani swung her head around. Rajah Devak stood ten paces away, in a sage’s stance, holding his fingers in a forked mudra. Aayu stood near to him, holding a great spear.
What?
Rezzia’s King took two great steps forward and hurled his sword at the rajah. The blade found its mark.
The rajah screamed in pain, but—he didn’t sound like the rajah. The rajah fell backward and slammed down flat.
Narayani looked back toward Aayu, but Devak stood where Aayu had been standing. She stood and looked again at the rajah’s fallen body. Aayu lay there instead, with the king’s sword in his chest.
She felt Caio’s neck. Exactly like Rao’s.
Just as the rajah stepped forward holding his great spear, Narayani ran to Aayu. Her cousin writhed on the ground, grunting and screaming in pain.
“What just happened?” Narayani asked as she yanked the king’s sword from Aayu’s shoulder. Her cousin squeezed his eyes shut and unleashed a horrible cry.
Narayani fell to her knees and opened her bag. “This will hurt.” She found her tincture for treating deep wounds and poured the oil onto Aayu’s bleeding shoulder. Aayu opened his mouth like a dying lion, suffering a silent scream. She grabbed a handful of cloth bandages and held them against the deep cut.
“I used my secondary sadhana,” Aayu mumbled with incredible speed. “I appeared as the rajah, he appeared as me.”
“Rao is dead, Aayu,” Narayani said as her chest heaved from her misery. “And you just killed the Haizzem.”
“He was about to touch you. I killed him with Rao’s own sadhana.” Still on the ground, Aayu turned his head and spit out blood. “What is Devak doing?”
The rajah of Pawelon thrust his great spear forward, backing Lucia and the king away.
Chapter 81: Choosing Death
LUCIA WATCHED AS Aayu’s body became the rajah’s, and as the rajah’s body became Aayu’s. She had no time to consider the sage’s power that made it possible. The rajah pointed his long spear and raced for her.
Her father came forward. The rajah’s spear clacked as her father’s holy shield deflected it.
Lucia fell back. She lifted Ysa’s shield from Rao’s limp arm.
“Who killed my son?” the rajah asked in his own language, stepping around her father with his spear poised to strike.
Lucia remembered her power as a Haizzem. The one she’d chosen not to use on Ilario, the ability she would have to use now.
“My son killed him, as it should have been when they fought.” Vieri raised his voice as he said, “Now look at my boy.” He threw one arm backward, pointing at Caio. The sons of the two men lay beside one another, badly disfigured and bruised. Vieri pulled a wide dagger from his belt.
“Then you will finally bury a son, too.” The rajah stepped back and lowered his spear. “I’ll make you an offer. You bury yours and I bury mine?”
Lucia knew her father would feel naked without his falchion. She crept forward with knees bent, prepared to dodge or deflect the rajah’s thrusts. “Listen! Rao rescued me so we could negotiate. You can choose to let their deaths be the end to all this fighting.”
The rajah’s black eyes searched her and her father. “That is what my son would’ve wanted.”
“Not mine,” her father said, “My son was sent by our gods to conquer your people and we will do it in his name.”
“What nonsense,” Lucia blurted out. “Caio never wanted to kill anyone.”
“It didn’t take him long to realize his duty,” Vieri said.
A frightening idea hatched in Lucia’s mind, to use her power against her father.
“Father, Caio is dead. Duilio is dead. Will you keep fighting until I’m dead, too? Our gods do not support your cursed war.”
Her father stepped backward, away from the rajah, motioning for Lucia to follow him. The rajah held his position. Narayani tended Aayu’s wound. Lucia and her father stood close to Caio’s body.
“Whether you want the fighting to continue or not, we must bury our sons,” the rajah said. “You’ve taken all three of mine. At least give me this honor.”
Vieri’s nose twitched as he sniffled. He rubbed his nose with the back of one hand.
“Then what the prince told me is true,” she said. “You had his brothers killed when they were little boys.”
“I did what any worthy King of Rezzia would have done.”
Lucia stabbed Ysa’s sword into the ground. She grabbed one of her gloves, near her shoulder, and pulled it down and off. The black fabric fell beside the white sword.
Her father’s lips twitched as he stared at the markings on her arm. “What in Danato’s underworld?”
The rajah still held his spear in two hands. “So you didn’t know.”
“I am a Haizzem, or I suppo
se I would be a Haizzema.” Lucia picked up Ysa’s sword again. “These markings appeared long ago, a few years after Mother died.”
“What are you saying?” her father asked.
“I have borne the signs of the Haizzem all of my adult life. And I believe this means I can raise one man from death.”
A quick smile flashed on her father’s face.
The rajah raised his spear and leaned forward, as if ready to charge.
“Wait,” Lucia commanded. “I want the two of you to work out a settlement here and now.”
“Lucia, we are winning now. Bring Caio back to us so the three of us can finish their citadel together.”
“I won’t raise him unless you agree to end your war.”
The rajah lowered his spear again.
Her father let out a huff of irritation and pointed his dagger at her as he spoke. “Do not blaspheme, and do not threaten me.”
“If I do not raise Caio, I will be the living Haizzema. If I tell our army to return to Rezzia, they will.”
“Madness! You are not Dux Spiritus.”
“Neither are you,” she said. “You’ve relinquished your position.”
“And I would have it again if Caio were to fall, but the thought that you would let your brother die is unholy!”
“Agree to end your war. You can still end it proudly because you now have Pawelon on their heels.”
“That is why giving up is unthinkable!”
“The only reason I am still alive is because their prince saved me, and he saved me so that we could have peace. That is what I believe in, too, Father. I warn you, if you do not agree to peace,” Lucia said, then swallowed. “I will save the rajah’s son instead.”
Her father ignored the rajah for the first time as he stepped in front of Lucia and faced her. “I resent your attempt to coerce me. This is a sacrilege.”
“I don’t care one whit about what you think or what you want. Think whatever you want about me, but I mean what I say. I have never meant anything more. Agree to a final peace with Pawelon, now, or I will raise their prince instead.”
Her father’s brow furrowed with wrath. “Don’t you gods damn lie to me, and don’t you dare play with your brother’s life.”
“Get out of my face.” Lucia pointed east, at the Rezzian army. “You’ve played games with his life already, and countless more lives on top of his. I give you one last chance.”
“Lucia, you have always been stubborn and now you are angry. Think about what you are saying. Think of the consequences. Think about what you’d have to live with.”
“I will not tell you again. You are the one who had better think. If you want to see your son alive again, make a lasting peace with their rajah. Right now.”
Vieri threw up his hands and turned his back. He began walking toward the Rezzian army, then spun around again and pointed his dagger at her. “You will not kill your brother. And if you do, I will make sure all of Rezzia knows about your decision.”
The rajah rested the base of his spear against the ground; its tip pointed toward the high sun. Her father, some distance from both her and the rajah, lowered both his shield and dagger and watched her with great focus. Rao’s lady still tended Aayu’s wounds, though she also watched and listened.
Lucia knelt by Caio and Rao. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath.
She opened her eyes. Lord Danato’s massive form stood by the feet of her brother and Rao. He smelled of Rezzian incense. The sky shimmered with a deep shade of purple, not unlike it had been before dawn. She and Danato were alone with the bodies.
“They can’t see me, Lucia. They can’t hear us either.”
“You’ve come for their souls?”
“Only one. As to which one, I leave that to you.” Danato took one step and put his foot down near Rao’s head. “You now know the truth now, something you were never truly willing to ask me for.”
“Why would I ask you for anything after all that you’ve done to me?”
“It only seemed I was doing it to you, my daughter. I am an instrument in the hands of inexorable forces.”
“You’ve tortured me more times than I can remember.”
“Your father killed two boys and one mother. Someone had to pay for his sins.”
“Why me? Why not him?”
“He has suffered, Lucia, but the answer to your question is that you were the only one capable of suffering for him with the power to heal the stain. And you still have this power.”
“What are you saying?”
“Your father knows what he has done. For you to process his karma, as the Pawelons say, means much more in the eyes of the gods—especially to my eyes. Because to you the pain makes no sense at all. You did nothing to deserve it. It feels totally unfair, just as it did to that man.” The black god pointed at Pawelon’s rajah.
“Is that why you killed Ilario?”
“I didn’t kill him. I suggested that you go to the lake. The rest worked out naturally, because it was time. Time for this debt to be resolved, for both your father and for you.”
“This is entirely unfair. I had nothing to do with any of this.”
“To understand what is truly fair requires a god’s perspective.”
“Yes, my perspective is that of a little girl whose bed you entered, whom you tortured physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. If the way things are is that little girls suffer for grown men’s sins, then your world is wrong.”
“I understand that it feels that way, Lucia. If you could only see things in the proper perspective, the truth of existence as it really is. It seems you are distinct from others—”
“Of course it does. I am the one who has suffered! Don’t tell me I haven’t. Don’t belittle me.”
“Of course you have, Daughter. The gods are not indifferent to your suffering. There’s far more love for you in the kingdom of Lux Lucis than you know. But we do not wish to deny you the chance to heal your kingdom from the affliction it has brought upon itself. Now that you understand, you must either heal this black mark or remain sick.”
“Then tell me, Black One, how do I heal?”
“Fully meet the truth and meet the pain. I can help you if you open yourself to me.” Danato looked down at the bodies and waved one dark hand over them. “What will you do? You can only save one.” Danato put a heavy fist on the desert floor and squatted. The god examined the two bodies.
Danato being so close made Lucia’s skin feel cold and sensitive, but for the first time in her life, she felt safe in the god’s presence. “You’ve tried to help me all along?”
Danato did not look up, but said, “I have always been here for you. You were not ready to receive me, so I had to take extreme measures.”
Which only turned me away from you. “I can’t let my brother die, but I swore to protect Rao. He saved my life, multiple times. And he actually wants peace. My brother doesn’t.”
“Sometimes, dear Lucia, choosing and wishing are very different things.” Danato turned his deep, dark eyes to her. She knew he saw through her soul. She wanted to look away, but then recognized, for the first time in her life, compassion in the god’s eyes.
“I never wanted to hurt you, Lucia. The more you resisted me, the harder it had to become.”
“Why? Where is the compassion in that? You’re a god.”
“Compassion has many faces. Some things you must learn on your own, for your own benefit.” Danato looked down again.
Lucia removed Ysa’s shield and placed her hands on Rao’s sunken chest. “Rao would agree to have peace. I would only need to fight my father for control of the army.”
Lord Danato looked at Rao’s bruised face. “Have you decided then?”
Lucia recalled Caio as a baby in her arms. She pulled back her hands. “No. Even if Caio is enamored with war, he is my brother, our true Haizzem.
She put her hands on Caio’s corpse.
Danato’s eyes rolled to gaze on Caio instead. “Very well,
Lucia.”
Lucia closed her eyes and felt her own buried suffering, first as if it were an echo, then as a hardening of every bit of her chest, from her neck to her ribs, to her belly. “What is this?” she asked the black god.
“Pain you have carried for a long, long time. Since I first came to you.”
“My mother’s death?”
“Her passing was the seed, Lucia, the core of your suffering.”
The sound of his words caused subtle ripples throughout her body, like shivers, but much deeper. She felt something stirring, wanting to arise.
“What? What do I do?”
“Do not look away. Lower yourself into it. For once, soften. Then you can give it to me. You can give me all of your pain.”
I am so tired of fighting you.
She only saw darkness. Her body slowly sank into something like thick, stinging mud. She struggled to stay out of it. As she fell in deeper, she struggled to swim. Nothing she did stopped her from descending into the mire.
Lower yourself into it. For once, soften.
The oozing blackness covered her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It enveloped her flesh, burning her skin.
She let go of struggling, and fell in deeper.
She saw the bloody birthing pool again. Sunlight streamed into the sacred chamber of the ancient minaret. She smelled the holy herbs and scents of Caio’s birth. She heard her own ten-year-old screams as her mother died in her father’s arms. Her sorrow expanded … until nothing else existed.
I give this misery to you, Lord Danato.
A great shiver rocked her body and her awareness returned to the physical world.
She looked at her colored hands on Caio’s chest. Lucia looked around at everyone watching her. Even Aayu watched her, lying on his side. Narayani stood and stumbled toward her, as if she could faint at any moment.
“You are going to kill Rao?” the girl asked. “Even though you swore to protect him?”
“Caio is my brother. I have loved and protected him all my life. I let my lover die so I could save Caio some day.”
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