Chapter Thirty-Six
Max
I could feel Tisaanah’s stare picking me apart, though I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. My heart was still racing, palms still sweating, unwelcome images behind my eyes every time I blinked.
Neither of us spoke until we were back in her room.
“What— what was that?” she murmured.
“It was fucking with us.”
You belong here.
I blinked, trying to force the words away, but that only invited an onslaught of nightmares in the darkness.
“That’s what that place does,” I said. “It takes your worst fears and tortures you with them. It’s… people say it’s… alive.”
“Alive?”
“It’s not. I don’t believe it for a second. It’s just… a fancy, magical mirror, reflecting your nightmares.” I cleared my throat. “That’s all it was doing, in there. Fucking with us.”
Tisaanah flinched, as if one of her own visions was racking through her mind. I could only imagine what she had seen. Her past was so dark. There would have been plenty for Ilyzath to work with.
I shouldn’t have brought her there.
“Why didn’t it let us leave?” she said.
“Far be it from me to interpret the motivations of an ancient sentient prison.”
“Has that happened before? Does it… do that?”
Not that I’d heard of. But then again, Ilyzath was universally regarded to be mysterious and horrible, and no one truly understood it.
I ran my hand through my hair. “Maybe… it’s because of our magic. Perhaps it responded to us differently because of it.” Ancient and mystical and evil. Just like Ilyzath.
“Perhaps,” Tisaanah said, but I could tell that she wasn’t satisfied with this answer.
You escaped me once.
I fought a shudder and went to the window, mostly because it gave me an excuse to turn away from Tisaanah’s stare — one that, as always, saw too much.
“We have more important things to worry about than Ilyzath’s sadistic tendencies, anyway,” I said.
Tisaanah and I did what we always did when we mutually needed a distraction that night: we trained. There was comforting familiarity in the two of us throwing ourselves into work with no room for other unpleasant realities. Tisaanah had gotten better since I left, especially at combat. Il’Sahaj now worked as an extension of her body and her magic, almost as well as my staff worked as an extension of mine. But it was still unnervingly strange whenever I caught glimpses of my own tactics in her movements — a reminder of why we were here, and the terrifying thing that now bound us together deeper than our friendship or our affection.
We trained until our bodies no longer cooperated, and then we rinsed ourselves off and collapsed into bed, where we lay in silence pretending to be asleep. We left the lanterns on, and neither of us discussed why.
You belong here.
It was past midnight when I felt Tisaanah’s limbs wind around me. Her voice was quiet in my ear.
“When they charged you, after Sarlazai,” she murmured, “if you had been found guilty, is that where they would have sent you?”
I’d known the question was coming, and was dreading it. “If I had been convicted, yes.” War crimes. That had been my charge. What other word was there for what had happened in Sarlazai?
It was oddly difficult to speak. “It would have been the right place. To send someone who was responsible for that.”
“It wasn’t you, Max,” she whispered.
Sometimes, I wasn’t sure how much it mattered.
“I wasn’t even at the trial. I was… distracted. But I heard that the survivors were there. They came and testified before the Orders because they wanted justice, just days after they buried whatever was left to bury…” I cleared my throat. “I was only freed because Nura fought for me. Sometimes I think about that. How those people must have felt, watching me be cleared when I wasn’t even there. Is that justice?”
“You going to that place because you felt guilty wouldn’t have been justice, either.”
Maybe. But maybe it would have been closer to it.
You belong here.
When Ilyzath had whispered that to me, it had felt like the truth.
“Max.” Tisaanah turned my face to her. Her mismatched eyes were bright and fierce. “You have never belonged there. And you never will, no matter what it said to you. Do you understand?”
She said it the same way she had once declared that she would free the Threllian slaves — the same voice she had used when she insisted that she would save Serel, even when the world told her it was impossible. Relentless brute force.
I kissed her on the forehead and pulled her into an embrace. “I know,” I murmured.
She did always make it seem so easy to believe her.
But when I looked at her again, her face as I had seen it in the darkness of Ilyzath stared back at me. Ilyzath’s whispers caressed my dreams all night long.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Tisaanah
I couldn’t shake the things that Ilyzath had shown me. Sleep was restless. It was nearly morning by the time I finally dozed off, and when I woke again, Max was gone, a note on his pillow:
T,
Your snoring was charming and you were too peaceful to wake. Early drills. Dinner later?
Love,
M
It was so deceptively nonchalant, written as if we were two very ordinary people leading very ordinary lives, and like we hadn’t been victimized by a magical ancient prison twelve hours ago.
I set the note aside. Then, as I rose and began to prepare for the day, I noticed another letter that had been slid beneath the door.
It was from the refugee dwellings, from a young woman named Fijra whom I had met a few times before. Her grandmother needed my help, and requested that I visit that day, though the letter remained somewhat vague as to why.
Not that it mattered. Whenever the refugees asked me to go, I went. Today would be no exception.
“Thank you, Tisaanah, for having the time to come.”
The old woman spoke with a thick Derali accent, a dialect of Thereni that was sharp and choppy. Her hands shook as she served us stew, broth splashing across the table as she struggled to support the weight of the ladle. I gently took the spoon from her and poured the stew myself. For me. For her. And then for Fijra, who sat silently with her eyes lowered.
“Of course I have time,” I said.
I settled back into my chair and sipped my stew. The flavors weren’t quite the same as those found in Threll — it had that classic Aran fishy, burning spice — but still, nostalgia flooded over me at even an imperfect taste of Threllian food.
My eyes drifted to the corner of the apartment, where a little boy, perhaps no older than five, played with blocks on the floor. I gave him a small wave, which he seemed reluctant to return.
“That’s my boy Meo,” the old woman croaked, following my gaze as she settled into her seat. “Not by blood, but I love him all the same.”
“The family we choose is just as important,” I said.
There was a long, awkward silence. The old woman was peering at me through cataract ridden, wrinkled eyes. Fijra wouldn’t so much as look at me.
I cleared my throat. “So. What can I help you with?”
“I did have a grandson, though,” the woman creaked out, as if she hadn’t heard me. “I did have a lot of things, a long time ago. Before Deralin fell. I used to live in the capital, you know. Before it fell.”
The woman’s stare glazed over. I knew that look. Almost everyone got that look, when they got to thinking about the past. I put down my spoon, realizing that what this woman needed above all, right now, was to talk.
“It was the Essarians that got us,” she went on. “We were all surprised by that. Those ink-stained mice brought down the great Deralin nation.”
The Essarians had been one of Threll’s only allies. They didn’t ha
ve a strong military, but they had money and scientific advancements. They used that money to purchase the best warriors, now-infamous bands of private armies like the Roseteeth and Goldbark Companies. In the end, though, the Essarians were still playing a game they couldn’t win. They spent all their gold trying to keep up with the Threllians, and when they were no longer useful, the Threllians conquered them, too. Mercenary armies don’t stay to defend you if you can’t pay them anymore, and so, Essaria fell just like the rest of us.
“We got out early,” the old woman went on. “Before the major cities fell. My grandson, my little Senrha, was just thirteen. Dangerous age, for a boy. Old enough to fancy yourself a hero. Went on like that for some weeks. Thought we might make it out. But that’s when the slavers started to come. And the first time we saw them, my boy didn’t want to run.” Her voice was flat, too used to telling sad stories, but the grief beneath it never dulled. “Thirteen is a dangerous age for a boy,” she murmured, gaze far-off. “Fancied himself a hero.”
Fijra’s eyes closed, as if shutting out the memory.
“A terrible thing,” I whispered.
“They took Fijra and me. Gods’ luck, we stayed together, but the others… well, soon, it was only us.” The woman patted Fijra’s hand. “Then I meet little Mara and little Meo. Mara was such a gentle little thing, like a broken bird. And Meo looked just like my boy, he did. Just like him. Didn’t he?”
Fijra spoke for the first time. “Yes, Grandmother. He does.” She glanced at me for only a second before looking away again.
The old woman nodded slowly, then peered down at my bowl. Half empty. “Eat, girl. You’re so small, so thin. Eat.”
I obeyed. The air seemed thick in here now, almost dizzying.
“They were all alone,” the woman said. “I could not leave them that way. They became my family, too. But some time later, we were sold. I got to keep Meo. Mikovs wanted him. But they had no need for a little girl, so Mara was sent away. All alone again.”
The world seemed to be falling away, except for her voice. The old woman leaned across the table, looking at me with an intensity disproportionate to her frailty.
“But I’ll never leave her that way, Tisaanah.”
I nodded. Of course. I had said the same thing about all of them — all those people who still remained there, trapped. I’ll never leave them that way.
Fijra was peering at me now from behind sheets of gold hair, and I felt something sully the air.
Regret. Shame.
Beneath my skull, Reshaye slithered.
“I tell you this,” the old woman said, closer still, “because I want you to know.”
A headache throbbed in my temples. The edges of my vision were growing gray.
Too late, I realized.
The world blurred around the old woman’s face.
“I want you to understand me. I would do anything for them, Tisaanah. Anything.”
{Go!} Reshaye roared.
I grabbed for the knife at the table only for Fijra to clumsily knock it away. My muscles barely obeyed me. Strong, male hands grabbed my throat.
My vision was darkening. Thoughts unraveling.
I thrashed out. Catching skin, irregular busts of magic popping at my fingertips, some faceless attacker screaming in pain and pulling away as I left him with rotted flesh.
I hit the floor. Everything went black.
Rope tightened around my neck.
And the last thing I remembered was Reshaye’s frantic, fading whisper:
{Kill them, kill them, kill them…!}
But even that was claimed by the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Aefe
My father’s hands were on my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I looked at nothing but his face. He was bigger than me — I was ten years old, and especially small for my age besides, so light that he could have picked me up with one hand. His breath smelled of wine and rage, both equally pungent.
My mouth was opening and closing, but no words would come. This struck me as such an injustice, because I didn’t even need a lot of them. I just needed one, just a single word:
Please.
Please, after all, was a magic word. It was a word that gave me comfort and gifts and safety, pretty trinkets and beautiful dresses, and above all, love.
But my vision was blurring, darkness encroaching over me.
And I was not granted any of those things. Not even that single word.
“Please… please…”
With great effort, my eyes opened to see a world on fire. The leaves were now far, far above me, a canopy of scorched green. Little flecks of flames floated down like shooting stars. It was beautiful, before I remembered enough to make it terrifying.
There was an overwhelming pressure on my chest, and something sharp jutting into my right side. Cries surrounded me, some legible, some not. Somewhere behind me, someone was begging. For what, I wasn’t sure.
A beam from the fallen pub pinned me down. I turned my head and saw Caduan beside me, half sprawled over my midsection. He was so lifeless that panic cleaved through me.
With all my strength, I pushed against the slab of wood. I felt as if my body was a million miles away, but by some miracle, I managed to lift it just enough to wiggle out from beneath it. When I sat up, I stifled a gasp.
It looked like the end of everything.
The world was burning. Flames, orange and blue — blue? — crawled over the trees, consuming the wooden footbridges that connected them all above us. Buildings and debris and bodies rained down, shattering on the ground as they fell from tens or hundreds of feet in the air. It was so smoky, so chaotic, that it took me a moment to realize what I was looking at above me — countless silhouettes surrounded by magic or wielding steel, locked in battle.
Humans.
I heard the word in my head in Caduan’s voice, just as he had said it before we fell.
Shit.
I went to Caduan, yanking the debris off of him. He was still, violet blood plastering the fabric of his shirt to his body. It ran down the side of his face, too, sticky in his copper hair.
“Caduan.” I felt for his heartbeat, breathing a sigh of relief at the weak, but steady, pulse. “Get up. We have to go.”
Cold fear settled over me.
He would wake up, I told myself. He would open his eyes. He had to. The last thing I said to him had been so, so cruel.
He would wake up.
But he didn’t move.
“Caduan. Please.”
Please. Gods, that word. How it had lost all of its magic.
The screams above us seemed to be getting louder, more desperate. Yithara was only a trading hub — there was no military here to resist the attack. We had no time.
I leaned over Caduan. One of his hands was free from the debris, dangling over a beam. I grasped it and pushed up his sleeve, pausing.
I knew Caduan was a skilled magic speaker, even though I didn’t know much about what exactly his gifts were. But I was desperate.
Mathira, this had better work, I thought to myself, and sunk my teeth into the inside of his wrist.
I was not expecting it to hit me so hard. One swallow, and I felt his magic swell in the pit of my stomach. Ishqa’s magic had felt powerful, but strange and unfamiliar, like trying to speak a new language with sounds that didn’t sit right on my tongue. This? This felt like a song I didn’t realize I remembered. Oddly familiar. Oddly right.
I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again something was… different. It was like seeing color when I had once seen only black and white. Except, color was life. The pulsing beat of life in the soil, in the leaves above us, in the wood that made up the splintered floorboards — and in Caduan, weak and waning, like a delicate butterfly fluttering in the center of his chest.
I leaned over him, calling to that thread of light. Something intrinsic in me now understood how to speak to it.
Rise, I whispered. Come back.
All at
once, he surrounded me like a gust of wind.
The power of it was intoxicating, sweeter and headier than any wine. Every part of me was calling for him, reaching deeper than the warmth of his skin — deeper, rawer, than the physical desire of lust.
I felt so utterly exposed.
Caduan’s eyes opened.
I couldn’t look away. We just stared at each other, that connection burning between us like light refracting through stained glass.
Neither of us blinked. Neither of us breathed. Our noses were nearly touching. My heartbeat pounded in my chest, perfectly in time with his.
“Aefe,” he murmured.
It felt so good to hear his voice. I couldn’t speak.
His hand lifted to my arm, skin against skin, a touch that only further awakened this torrent between us.
And then he said, “I can’t get up.”
“What?”
I looked down and realized that I was draped over Caduan’s body.
“Oh.” I pulled myself off of him. Together we staggered to our feet. Our power still roared. I could see the veins of life running through everything around me. It was intoxicating.
Is this how Caduan felt all the time? I knew he was powerful, but this—
I glanced at him. He stared down at his wrist, at the bleeding mark, brow furrowed. Then at me. Back again. “What did you do? Why does this feel so…different—”
There was a crash in the distance, yanking him away from his half-finished thought. His gaze snapped to the sound — a collapsing building — and his expression went rigid, as if for the first time truly taking in the horror around us.
He didn’t need to speak. I could read it in his face: Not again.
“No,” I said. “It won’t be. I swear it.”
“The inn,” Caduan said.
I whirled in the direction of the inn, which had once been nestled high up in the trees, and my stomach plummeted as I saw nothing there but flames and splintering wood.
Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) Page 27
