“Surely this fat-tongued fellow I see before me isn’t the same singer who so beautifully sung me the Building of Old Black’s Meadhall,” said Keun-ju, gently scratching Sullen’s head.
“Okay, then,” said Sullen, Keun-ju’s ribbing probably the only thing that could have ever forced the words to leave his lips. “I feel… the way I feel about her, yeah, but I’m also feeling it for you, I guess? And I’m just really happy I got to know the both of you, but at the same time, well… I’m sorry I came between you and Ji-hyeon.”
“I feel the same for you, Sullen, and you haven’t come between us,” said Keun-ju, making Sullen feel a lot better, even before he added, “much as I think Ji-hyeon likes the idea, if you follow my meaning.”
He didn’t, at first, but when he got it they both laughed again, bittersweetly, missing the woman they both loved so much more than words or songs could ever convey, but bound even tighter together by being able to share this saudade that only they could know.
“We’re going to find her,” Sullen told Keun-ju. “I swear by all my ancestors, even my ornery old Fa, we will find Ji-hyeon and we will go to her, no matter where she is in all the Star.”
Looking into Keun-ju’s eyes, Sullen could tell they both believed it, too, with the confidence that only comes from desiring something truly beautiful… even if it seems too perfect to be true.
CHAPTER
28
Worse than the drugs, worse than the rituals, worse, even, than Y’Homa’s endless, breathless, teenage chattering was the Office of Answers. It wasn’t that the tortures Indsorith endured in that austere chamber were any less bearable or more creative than what the Burnished Chain had already inflicted upon her. It was the realization that unlike the church’s psychotic barbarism, this stage in her debasement was entirely her own doing. She knew about the Office, vaguely, had signed off on some advisor’s paperwork creating a new department to investigate sedition in the capital, certainly, but she had never dreamed a place like this had been created in her name, and under her direct authority. Save for her, the spacious chamber was empty for the duration of her interrogation, but from the sheer volume of identical rusty gurneys and stained sinks set around the place she had a fair idea that more citizens of Diadem had been brought here than ever enjoyed her public baths, kitchens, or hostels. She had been so busy keeping the Crimson Empire from going over to the Chain or falling apart altogether that she had never realized her most enduring legacy was not the formation of the offices of Public Health, Grievance Resolution, or Tolerance, but a state-sanctioned torture chamber.
But what had she expected, really? Afterward, lying in the cold, dripping, stone cell in the depths of Castle Diadem’s deepest dungeon, warmed only by a mummy’s worth of soiled gauze, Indsorith suffered a greater pain than any of her enemies could inflict—she hadn’t known what went on in the Office of Answers because she had been stupid, and she had been lazy, and here at the end of it all she hadn’t been any better of a queen than Zosia before her.
Even now, even here—especially now, especially here—rare was the day when Indsorith didn’t think about her predecessor, and how their lives had not only become linked but overlapped. Indsorith came to kill a monster, and found only a sad, overburdened failure, but one who still clung to her tattered pride, and still owned her obligations. Indsorith had never quite got over that particular enigma—why, when she had finally confronted Queen Zosia and told her exactly who she was, and why she sought vengeance, Zosia had not tried to make any excuses or argue that what had happened at Karilemin wasn’t her fault… even though it wasn’t. Indsorith only learned the truth when she became the Crimson Queen herself, and had unfettered access to a city block’s worth of records. She had appointed an entire committee to help her confirm what the documents seemed to imply, and there it was, in plain ink on plain vellum: Queen Zosia had never done any of the things Indsorith had so hated her for.
What were supposed to be peaceful negotiations between the Crimson Queen and the noble family of Junius became an international incident when Lady Shels preemptively set the fields of their province ablaze and led her army out in open revolt against the Crown. And what the Crimson Queen had intended to be egalitarian farming communities where all citizens of the Crimson Empire were treated as equals became open-air prisons, and in the case of Karilemin, a brutal work camp. But according to the documentation, Zosia had never sanctioned such barbarism, and once rumor of it reached Diadem she personally traveled to Junius to shut down the farms and punish those who had so egregiously perverted her edicts to settle old scores or turn a profit.
That was what had haunted Indsorith for so long, the question of why Zosia hadn’t just told any of that to the avenging teenager who demanded justice for Junius. Why not say something? The paper trail didn’t leave any doubt; within a fortnight of when Indsorith escaped the prison farm and started her long march toward Diadem to assassinate the Crimson Queen, Zosia arrived at Karilemin and did what she could to right the wrongs committed in her name… they might have even passed on the road on their missions of bloody-handed judgment. So why not tell any of that to her accuser?
But now, at last, Indsorith understood. Zosia hadn’t held her tongue because she assumed the murderous Juniusian girl wouldn’t believe her anyway, but because she didn’t believe it herself. Even though she had given no order or decree intended to cause the horrors she found when she liberated the farms, Zosia was too smart to believe that she didn’t have a hand in it. It happened in the Empire, during her reign, and so she was accountable, to herself if no other—that was why she had agreed to duel Indsorith, that was why she had made no excuses before they fought, and that was why the only stakes Zosia would fight for were death or exile. Because no matter what justifications others could make for her, in the end it came down to her sitting on the Crimson Throne, wearing the Carnelian Crown, and knowing the magnitude of the crimes people had committed in her name, under her flag, carrying her seal.
If only Indsorith had solved this riddle years ago, she might have learned from Zosia’s mistakes instead of repeating them. By trying to ameliorate relations and work together with the Burnished Chain she had only given them the strength to usurp her. By focusing so heavily of late on the church’s vicious persecution of the weirdborn she had overlooked the exact equivalent that had grown like a tumor in her own house—how could she hope to stop the Chain from mutilating people when she had empowered officers of the Crown to do the exact same thing?
Once upon a time, a brave young lady had sought to cast down the tyrannical Crimson Queen… but when she took the villain’s crown and placed it on her own head, she became her. Over the blurry weeks of brutality since the Burnished Chain had carried out their coup, Indsorith had lost so many hours, so many days, time becoming a never-slowing flood of pain and degradation… but even right this moment she could still clearly remember signing off on countless writs and forms that she barely glanced at, the memories as fresh as if she’d spent the morning doing nothing else, instead of what she’d actually been up to—shivering in the cold and the dark, waiting for her overtaxed body to grant her a reprieve she knew she didn’t deserve.
This was the real reason why she had declined Y’Homa’s invitation to join the fleet sailing for Jex Toth, though it had been immensely satisfying to look the little lunatic in the eye through the grimy bars of her cell and claim she preferred the comfort of her own gods to those of the Burnished Chain. The truth was that Indsorith had never believed in any gods at all, but she knew heresy would infuriate the girl-pope far more than outright denial. It would have been satisfying, to accompany Y’Homa to whatever devil-riddled hell she had mistaken for heaven and see the look on her face when she realized what Indsorith had known all along, that the Fallen Mother was nothing more than a devil with a complicated story, if she existed at all… but when the time came, Indsorith knew she didn’t deserve even a petty victory over the girl who had usurped her. She deserved nothi
ng more than what she had now received, to be forgotten in an ancient crypt, dying not as a martyr, but a proud fool. Like her mother before her, Indsorith was effecting a passive form of suicide rather than capitulating to her conquerors.
Granted, if the similarities between her convictions and those that had led to the pathetic death of Lady Shels had occurred to her sooner, Indsorith would have begged Y’Homa to take her along, because she had governed her entire reign according to the principle that her mother had been utterly fucking delusional about what constituted responsible rule… but it was too late for that now. Despite twenty years on the Crimson Throne, when Indsorith had found herself backed into a corner she made the exact sort of idiotic stand she had promised herself she would never take. Such were the revelations one found when cut off from food and light and anything to drink save the mouthfuls of salty water that pooled on the floor from the dripping stalactites. If only she could chalk up her failings to a hereditary deficiency, she might have been able to sleep better as she slowly starved to death, deprived of even the conviction of the rightness of her actions that a condemned Chainite would have possessed.
Yet there was hope in a godless life, for without the promise of a better world beyond this one, without the assurance that all wrongs would eventually be righted by a higher authority, mortals would strive to protect each other in this life, would seek to make a paradise of the Star instead of waiting patiently for a posthumous reward. It was one of her mother’s few teachings that Indsorith had kept close to her heart throughout her reign, and one that she hewed closer to than Lady Shels, here at the end. Her mother had chosen to die as a symbol of resistance, after all, but Indsorith now realized the error in such a philosophy—a willing martyr has but one opportunity to send a message, hoping it is the right one, while a living woman can keep working to better the world no matter how many mistakes she might make along the way.
Indsorith had come to this epiphany too late to save herself, yes, but that was no less than she had earned—her dreams of escape, of revenge, were but more penance she paid for her absolute failure to do any better than the woman who had ruled before her, another tyrant deposed by another teenage idealist who thought she understood how the Star ought to turn. As she lay on the cold stone floor, lapping at a mineral-rich puddle, she had to ask herself if she was actually doing this out of an improbable hope that she might somehow survive and escape her prison, or if this was one final form of mortification, denying herself the quicker death of dehydration so that she might prolong her miserable, inevitable end.
Warm thoughts for a warm cell, the woman who had stood tall at the crown of Diadem now swallowed alive by the very castle, slowly dissolving in its belly to nourish the next phase in the Empire’s life cycle.
A rat clicked its claws down the hall outside, and Indsorith went perfectly still, holding her breath. All her philosophical brooding was replaced by another single, shining hope, here in the place where countless hopes had blossomed, only to wither on the vine—if the rat thought she was dead, it might come into her cell to investigate, to see if she was good to eat, and if that happened, if she stayed so still it sniffed her crusty bandages, then she might be able to snatch it in her hand and squeeze the life out of it, and have something to eat.
This was what the Crimson Queen was reduced to, at the end of her reign: hoping that she could taste the warm blood of a rat in her lightless pit.
This must be how it felt to be a devil, desperately cocking your ear to the squirming, alien lives of mortals in hopes of a meal.
The tapping of its claws came closer, and stopped just outside the cell. It wasn’t a rat, the sounds of its approach too loud, the panting of its breath too heavy. Before she could turn her imagination to what other creatures might stalk these dungeons, after Y’Homa had set all the other prisoners free before abandoning Diadem for a better world, her visitor informed her of its identity in no uncertain terms: it barked once, the echoes through the caves deafening after so long without any noise but the dripping of water and her own ragged breath. Indsorith thought she was long past fear, but the jarring sound so close to her head made her scramble back across the cell, crouching in a corner like the animal she had become.
Just as she was overcoming her base panic, taking the first hesitant movements toward the door, thinking a dog must be far more nourishing than a rat, if she could just entice it to stick its head between the bars so she could snap its neck, Indsorith’s eyes began to burn. It took her time to realize the source, a faint glow coming down the passage, but her eyes refused to adjust, the torch burning brighter as it approached, tears flowing faster from her stinging face. At last a silhouette arrived beside the low shape that she was sure hadn’t been a dog a moment ago, when the light first struck it… shielding her face with her fingers, she saw a lone figure standing beside the dog, and she squinted harder, trying to make out something more than a black silhouette limned in fire.
“So this is what it takes to get an audience with the queen these days?” asked the woman, and Indsorith fell back on her ass, unable to believe. The torchlight fell full upon her bandaged feet now, and the woman’s tone took a sudden turn. “Fuck’s sake, Chop, open the door!”
The lock Indsorith had blooded her fingertips futilely fiddling with clicked open, though there was no key, and pausing to slip the blinding torch into a sconce in the hall, the woman slowly entered the cell, cautious as a trapper approaching a snared wolf. Indsorith must have flinched, for the woman paused, and lowering herself slowly to her knees, she said in a whisper, “Devils’ mercy, Indsorith, what did they do to you?”
Indsorith couldn’t answer, the shock paralyzing her tongue. It was her. She had come.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” she said, her silver hair coming into focus as Indsorith’s eyes finally let her see, the scar on the woman’s chin gleaming in the torchlight. “Portolés found me in time, and… well, I got the message. I know you didn’t send Efrain Hjortt after me. I know the Black Pope is to blame for what’s happening. And I came here to bust you out, so we can go after her together. I’m here to save you, Indsorith.”
Indsorith knew her mother would have expected her to stand defiant before this last test of her conviction, but Lady Shels was long dead in a grave of her own making. Indsorith scooted forward on her scabbed knees, and Zosia matched each small movement, until they were face to face in the dark, two queens reunited in the bowels of the Empire they had both failed to save. Then Indsorith threw her weak arms around the neck of the woman who had burned her world, the woman who had as good as murdered her entire family, and she clung to this woman as she convulsed, so grateful she could do nothing but sob into Zosia’s hair. Her hope had not been in vain.
Zosia had planned on gloating a little. She’d been looking forward to it, even; not something to be proud of, but then the truth cared nothing for pride. But when Choplicker led her down into the dark caverns of Castle Diadem’s dungeons and she saw what the Burnished Chain had done to Indsorith, such ugly, petty thoughts vanished in an instant, and try as she did to offer soothing sounds and kind words, her mind boiled over with rage and hatred.
After what she’d seen after emerging from the Diadem Gate, she had expected absolute chaos in the castle, but while rioting mobs tore the city apart, the inner walls of the ancient volcano were as silent as a slow day on the Frozen Savannahs. Then again, the populace didn’t have the benefit of a devil to unlock the complicated locks and gates that barred every entrance, but they would find their way inside soon enough. Compared to the hellscape of the streets, the slippery passage between the Gates had been a walk in Diadem Gardens. Before they were set on fire.
They hadn’t gone three blocks from Gate Square before Boris and Zosia agreed that given the anarchic state of the city, any additional diversions might be superfluous, and she gave him leave to look for some friends of his instead of the original plan of fomenting a revolution. He’d tried to tell her something just before they
parted, maybe something sincere, maybe something sardonic, or maybe just a time and place they should meet, after the Cobalts arrived, but a burning building down the block had toppled over as its supports gave out, and when the smoke and ash lifted enough for her to see again Sister Portolés’s pet heretic was gone. Zosia would say her odds of meeting him again were long indeed, but she’d thought that the last time they’d gone their separate ways and she was too damn old to waste her time betting double-or-nothing.
Only when she slipped into the castle through the same door they’d used when Choplicker first cleared her way to King Kaldruut’s throne room did the magnitude of Diadem’s riot sink in. The whole palace was as empty as Emeritus, the silence spooking her worse than the tumult outside. After she rescued Indsorith from the dungeons she’d once braved to bust out Singh, Zosia spent half the night lugging the battered queen back up Diadem’s endless stairways, finally collapsing beside the woman on her luxurious bed. Zosia was drenched in sweat, only some of it hers, and as Indsorith rolled and groaned in her fever, the former queen tried to reorient herself to the labyrinthine quarters. Choplicker helped, though Zosia knew him well enough to guess there was some self-interest to the attention he paid Indsorith—devils could only feed off the living, and if she died he would miss out on quite the feast.
After Zosia found and raided the kitchen, she ferried soft oranges, ghee, pots of water, and other supplies back to the queen’s bedchamber. Indsorith was induced to swallow drams of buttery, watered-down juice, stinking rags were cut off her bruised body and tossed onto the fire, sick-looking wounds were cleaned out with a red-hot dagger as the queen squealed in her delirium, and then Zosia gave her a pungent absinthe sponge bath.
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