“You think I can make you mighty?” Hiresha asked. “And that having this power, I still must do as you say?”
“Yes,” the King’s Spear said. “And admit it, you hexed the maize yourself. You tricked the king into thinking you saved his city. You can’t trick Macco.”
The pus brain, he didn’t seem to understand what an enchantress was. He knew she had magic. He knew she worked with gemstone. He couldn’t connect those two points with a line. If he did, he would try to kidnap her. With an enchantress hostage, the King’s Spear could position himself to become king.
She would let him live, for now. Her secret was safe with his stupidity.
Hiresha held up the amethyst crystal. It glowed in her palm as she unraveled its enchantment. “I can see there’s no fooling someone of your intellect. Take this. Push it up your ass so no one can steal its magic from you.”
He blinked at the amethyst. “Won’t it come out? With the shit.”
“You merely have to pick it out of your feces and slide it back in.”
The muscles of his abdomen twitched and contracted to the point that he no longer appeared to boast a potbelly. “And the magic will keep Macco safe in battle.”
No, the crystal would do nothing. She would not prolong his worthless life. Hiresha was not inclined toward murder, yet she was tempted to think the world would be improved with Macco removed from the equation. “I can promise you this: In your next battle, you’ll be above all other men, and none shall kill you.”
“Wait.” He frowned. “What about the battle after that?”
“Then you’ll need another crystal from me, of course.” How tempting to give him a bigger gemstone, but then she shouldn’t focus on such pettiness. She had more productive things to do and only twelve hours in her day.
On her way back to her banyan fortress, she stopped in front of an elephantine tree. Two assassins were hiding behind it.
She paused to analyze how she knew. She had no right to be able to hear their breathing. Yet she could. No person should’ve been able to pick out the motes of light reflecting off their blades onto the nearby ground. Hiresha could count them, five to seven depending on the shifting canopy. She might even be able to feel body heat diffusing through the misty coolness. Her gem-studded palms itched from the enchantments in nearby blades and armor.
Or maybe she was only trying to justify her knowledge. It could be the unadulterated knowing of a lucid dreamer. The breathless wonder of it coursed over her skin in a thrilling wash. She willed her necklace to unclamp her red paragon. It floated out of her robes. Her blue paragon was another hard reassurance nestled against her abdomen.
Hiresha addressed the tree. “How decent of you to wait to kill me out of sight of the village.”
Spellsword Sagai whirled toward her with a modest blade of gold-emblazoned bronze. Naroh Sen lunged out from the other side of the trunk. She wielded short and long swords, also enchanted.
“How phenomenal to see you both together.” Hiresha sprang thirty feet past them with her red paragon pulling her forward. Her blue diamond remained behind. “Sagai, never abandon her to marry a princess. I’ve seen you do it, to your instant regret.”
Sagai had grown his dark hair out, covering the branch tattoos on his scalp. Cherry blossoms were still visible on his chest, and bamboo fenced his neck. Hiresha hadn’t noticed it before, but the designs weren’t grouped by natural design or randomness. Each cluster of twigs would be a word or idea. The tattoo foliage hid a language which she could decrypt given sufficient time. This prince carried the secrets of his kingdom.
He moved left. Naroh slipped right. They accompanied each other in a synchronicity of swords. They didn’t hesitate. They circled after Hiresha as if with one mind, yet they didn’t act like mere reflections. When he leaped high and flipped over his blade to strike, she swooped low to trap Hiresha with her own weapon.
What a shame to waste all their synergy. Hiresha reversed her direction toward her blue paragon and whisked up to the tree branches. The paired assassins would never outmaneuver her, not when they had to react while she foresaw; they moved in vectors, she in parabolas; they in planes, Hiresha in three axes.
“How is she …” Naroh clamped her mouth shut. Magic in her boots Lightened her, and she sprang up. She must’ve activated the enchantment herself. Sagai hadn’t been close enough to do it for her. Her swords keened through the air on their way to Hiresha.
“How exceptional. A woman Spellsword.” Hiresha dashed over Naroh’s head and drove her to the ground with the blue paragon. “Sagai trained you in defiance of all the Academy’s edicts. I pronounce that devotion.”
Sagai reached toward the diamond with a gauntlet of no ordinary power. The paired star-sapphire jewels left no doubt. Those were the Strategic Reroute Gauntlets. They held the dreaming soul of Elder Enchantress Scintar, who in death, as in life, enjoyed nothing more than draining the funding and magic from failed research projects. The junior faculty had called her the Dreambreaker, and those gauntlets were her tomb.
In Sagai’s hands, they could disenchant Hiresha’s paragon diamonds. The gauntlets might even fracture the integrity of her dream inversion. She couldn’t allow Sagai to touch her or anything she held dear.
Hiresha retracted her blue paragon to safety. “How dare you! I stopped Emesea from savaging you over the streets of Jaraah.”
“Killing you will redeem me.” Sagai hopped off the side of a trunk to reach for her with fingers of jealous metal.
“Assassination is how you show gratitude?” Hiresha threw her red paragon at the exact moment necessary to Attract Naroh and Sagai together, back to back, with the jewel trapped between them where he couldn’t reach it. “I’d expect more even from a prince third from the throne.”
“This isn’t possible.” Sagai flailed where she had left them floating in the air. “Naroh, Burden your swords.”
Hiresha Lightened them higher. “Redemption doesn’t suit you, Sagai. Trying to please your father will only bring you sorrow.”
“How can you know that?” He looked upside down into her eyes. “How are you doing all this?”
“You must rebel,” Hiresha said. “You’ve already begun, growing your hair out, teaching Naroh your magic.”
“Choke on a fish head and die,” Naroh said. “We can’t go back to the Empire ’til you’re dead.”
“Then we have a conundrum,” Hiresha said. “You have no power to kill me, and I, no desire to harm you. I don’t expect you to understand, Sagai, yet in another world you are being most helpful.”
“He’d never help you.” Naroh Lightened her short sword and flung it spinning at Hiresha’s head.
“Of course he would.” Hiresha waved her hand, and the weapon became utterly weightless. Its flight dragged to a stop. The air held it trapped. “Sagai helped you, did he not? We are the same, in a way. We both know magic forbidden to us by the Empire for ridiculous and arbitrary reasons.”
“We aren’t half the same,” Naroh said.
“We don’t have Feasters for friends.” Sagai forced his gauntlet behind his back, reaching for Hiresha’s diamond.
She lurched him to the side, and his rib cracked. “Deserved,” Hiresha said.
“You shouldn’t hurt him,” Naroh said. The pair had drifted and she now faced away. She swiveled her head far enough around to glare with one eye. “You should surrender.”
“An interesting demand, from the helpless,” Hiresha said.
“She’s right,” Sagai said. “Stop yourself, while you still can. Can you still remember the woman you were?”
“With perfect recall, thank you.”
“You were a decent enchantress of the Empire,” he said.
“I was repressed. Perhaps the two are easily confused from the viewpoint of the privileged.”
“Now what are you?” Sagai asked. “Nothing good. Your magic has made you a jeweled horror.”
Dissonance vibrated through Hiresha. In her other face
t, he had said, “Your power has made you Flawless.” Or, he would say it. The realities snaked around her in a heart-thumping whir.
“And you’ll only become worse,” he said. “Unless you surrender.”
“What insolence. I should snap the spines in you both. The fact that I won’t should prove something to you.”
Hiresha flung him and Naroh away. He flipped to land on his feet. Naroh Lightened herself.
The paragon diamonds returned to hover around Hiresha as she walked toward her banyan fortress. “Refrain from prowling here anymore. I don’t want to hear anything from either of you in this world again, unless it’s two apologies.”
“We—we could say we killed her.” Naroh was speaking to Sagai. “Find a woman’s skull. Say it’s hers.”
“I would advise against that.” Hiresha spoke over her shoulder. “The Empire will soon know I’m alive and well. There will be a formal announcement.”
Hiresha reached the path leading into the banyans. Sagai and Naroh hadn’t pursued. They had at least that much sense. Hopefully they would have enough not to cross Hiresha again. Hurting them would feel like betraying the Sagai of her other facet. King Sagai, he had been the first to welcome her back to the Empire, the first to take her counsel and organize his people against the plague.
In that world he was crowned and miserable without Naroh. In this one, they could be happy together, if only they didn’t force Hiresha to kill them.
Even in her dreams, Celaise couldn’t escape the sun. The dragon god dove from the sky in a blaze of wings. They seared her eyes with every color of blindness. He breathed fire on her, melting away her beauty. The heat warped her bones, dulled her hair, shriveled her gown to rags.
Celaise crawled under roots and beneath mountains. Deeper, deeper, but the Winged Flame still burned her through the rocks. She could touch nothing. Too hot. She would never be free.
“Jerani!” She called his name until her throat was leather rawness. “Jerani!”
He could not help her. No one could defeat the sun. She should stop her whimpering and give up.
“Jerani.”
He never came. She had nothing but darkness and a black chalice. She could feel it. The bowl was smoothness. Touching the stem was a pleasure. It fit in her hand as if she had been made for it. The wine inside would be both cool and warming, both open freedom and close embrace. The chalice tingled against her lips.
She set it back down, untasted. Where was Jerani? His kisses were sweeter than wine. Just once, she would like to dream of him.
The underworld shook. Boom! Boom! No, no, not him. Stalagmites fell in the dark, exploding around her. Crash! Smash! Why couldn’t they all leave her alone?
The mountains split overhead. The lord father loomed over Celaise. He was the night sky. He was the only shadow that could hide her from the Winged Flame. And he was terrible.
“My little dewdrop plum.” The words echoed from his three great mouths. Thee heads. Monstrous giant fanged. Three twisting necks above her, coiling, scraping against each other with the sounds of rocks grinding, stone screaming. “Have you discovered where the lady sleeps?”
Celaise threw herself down before him. “No, lord father.”
“Might she dream beneath the banyans?”
“She leaves. She’s gone just before noon. I could track her. Her scent’s strongest then.”
“She knows she’s vulnerable when she sleeps.” Eyes flickered as grave lights on one of the heads. The rest was a hulking darkness. “You must find her. Guard her in the evening. Protect her through the eleventh hour.”
“She hasn’t told you where she sleeps?”
“I’m delighted to say she doesn’t trust me completely. Nothing kills romance faster than trust.”
That didn’t sound right. Celaise trusted Jerani. She wanted to.
“You must be cautious, my plum tart. If the Lady of Gems discovers you know her sleeping vault, she may kill you.”
Celaise had to find wherever the Lady of Gems slept. Celaise had to stay away. She had to do both. Trapped. No way out, no escape. She clawed at the broken rock in front of her. She squeezed the jagged pieces between her fingers.
“She may kill you. Worse awaits if you fail, if someone else finds where the lady sleeps. If she’s harmed.” Tendrils of drool draped down silver from his silhouette.
“I’ll find her, lord father.”
“Soon it’ll be noon.” The three-headed colossus swung its bulk downward. Mountains shattered, boulders rained down, caves flattened. “You must wake.”
An avalanche crushed Celaise with blackness.
Tethiel galloped through dreams. They twinkled about him with their exquisite pettiness and bright desperation. The world turned beneath him. Somewhere, it was always night.
The dream stars reddened into nightmares. The lights trembled as he rode by. Some shivered awake and went out. Their fright was the sharp excitement of sugar sprinkled on his tongue. Some souls, he passed every night. Their stars had swollen into bright windows. He reached into one of these sills of imagination and plucked out a morsel. The scone was buttered with insignificance and filled with a creamy dread of dying alone. He laid it in his mouth.
It tasted of ash. He wasn’t in a Feasting mood.
He scowled at one fitful nightmare. Every evening it flashed in the same tedious pattern. The dreamer was a young nibble. Her older brothers abused her, or Tethiel was no judge of fears at all.
Tethiel pushed into the sordid scene. He reaped the thuggish brothers with a scythe forged of darkness and sharpened with regrets. “Next time I’ll not be here.” Tethiel held the sickle over the weeping dreamer. “Reach into your darkest desperation and you’ll find this. It’ll save you from everything but yourself, my child.”
Her dream burst. Tethiel leaned out of it. What a sad fool he was. He had given her the choice to become a Feaster. She tasted the first searing drop of black wine. The little wafer would never thank him for his help, and she would be right not to. As a Feaster she might grow up to be like the Bleeding Maiden.
Everything could go wrong. His children could undermine him. The kings of the land might refuse to attend the wedding. Hiresha could abandon it.
This alliance had to work. No, he needed to do better than that. The marriage had to astound. As a couple, they must steal the world’s devotion. They needed to be everyone’s guilty pleasure. Or the world would take pleasure in watching them burn.
He reined in his basilisk in front of a gateway. This dream belonged to another of his children. He could walk in. Maybe he would.
Inside was an abandoned manse. Wind rolled over hills of dead grass and blew through the house’s broken windows in a whistling chorus. Rain fell through holes in the roof musically. Sunset painted its walls. The house was in delicious isolation. Too high for the sweet stench of the cities to reach, the manse was lost in emptiness.
“Is it real?” Tethiel had dismounted and walked into the dream. “All realities are false, and falsehoods are truth. But does this place exist upon waking?”
“Yes,” his child answered. It was a small thing of modest appetites, a ghost holding a lantern. The spirit cowered, and as it spoke, its mouth did not move. Only its flame flickered. “I stayed here for a time, lord father.”
Tethiel walked through rooms of beautiful incompletion. Half the floor tiles were missing, half the doors were locked with keys lost, half the rooms empty, half the closets cluttered with worthless treasures, half the attic collapsed, and half the cellar flooded.
In such a place Tethiel could escape. He could bid his obligations farewell. He could live with Hiresha and her crystal tinkering. They would bother no one. No one would bother them. Their wedding could be a quiet affair. A few candles, a blood sacrifice, and cake.
“Why did you ever leave?” Tethiel asked.
“I grew hungry,” the child answered.
“No company?” For their escape to work, Tethiel would have to stop Feasting. Hire
sha would need to content herself with the jewels she already had. The Bleeding Maiden would have to never ride into his dreams, once she was queen of nightmares. Their enemies would have to leave them in peace.
Graver still, Tethiel would have to content himself with never knowing how far he and Hiresha could have risen. What marvels they could’ve created together. What minds they could’ve sculpted, and what nations built. They could rule, or they could spend their lives running from their own power.
No, he could never live simply. It would be too complicated.
Hiresha leaped off the river’s surface and flew over boats, docks, and then streets. The City of Gold was bright, though not with metallic luster. Flowers covered each flat-topped roof in uniform purples, yellows, blues, spotted whites, a chaos of colored dots. The city was fragrant. Updrafts of nectar scents alternated with sewer reek. The city was filthy. Trenches of mud and feces served as lower streets for laborers. Predominately men, they wallowed forward while balancing water jugs on their heads. One vessel tipped and broke when a man spotted Hiresha.
Most people did not look up. Children in an alley threw rocks at a dead snake. A babe sat on her mother’s shins to excrete on the street. Flies converged on the mess.
The city was a jungle of clay brick. Whitewash failed to cover all the cracks in the homes, and a few buildings had crumbled. The rest had rooftop gardens, tended by humming women. They stopped as Hiresha passed. They stared. Some pointed and cried out. A few dropped to their knees among the flowers and bowed.
They had seen her. Now this world would know of Hiresha’s power. The day could not be undone. If Hiresha had made a miscalculation, this would be the moment she regretted forever.
She would also have to withstand the smug disappointment of Miss Barrows. She had told Hiresha not to go. “Elope if you have to,” Miss Barrows had said, “but don’t go parading yourself in front of a bunch of bloodletters. They’ll cut out your heart and toss it to their scaly gods.”
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