“Jerani,” Celaise said, “don’t stare.”
“How couldn’t I?”
The lady cut off a last few strips of skin with a glance. Her fox tried to bat at them, the fiend, but she kept them out of reach. Nodding, she turned to her dragon. It lofted the Angler’s corpse with one hand. Wings pressed against the trees.
“Its right foreleg was damaged. You’ll be carried alongside each other with the back ones. I hope that will suit.”
Celaise glanced at Jerani. Crystal claws closed around her and him.
The dragon hauled them skyward. Branches were swept aside. The sky opened up in its full glory of night. Great wings beat. Bats whirled away. Celaise matched the level of the full moon, skimming over the glowing fog. Dew gusted its chilly sharpness across her face. The domed palace that raced toward them looked carved from starlight.
Celaise smiled at Jerani. He smiled at her. For now, they were alive.
39
“Then if I must decide, I’ll request jewels and gold but not demand. Should anything else be given, I’ll smile then sell it later.”
“Delicious!”
Tethiel could smell Hiresha. She was closing in. Her fear of lateness was a whiff of fresh spearmint. Soon he would see her as a bride. He had to. No torturer would keep her from Tethiel any longer. The suspense would delight him to death.
“Where’s the enchantress?” The Talon slapped aside the offer of a broiled chick. He stabbed at the veiled server. The man jumped back in time. “She should be here. The Winged Flame won’t forgive her. The world is set to burn, and she’d slight it to flame.”
“Savor the pureness of your desire,” Tethiel said. “Impatience is the most powerful natural force.”
“Have you done something with her?” This, Fos the Swordskull asked. “Where is—”
A dragon slam-landed on the dome. The palace gonged, and the crystal rang with the pitch of the unforgettable. A lower guest started to choke. Even Purest Elbe lost hold of her poise. Her chalice bounced against the table then flipped back upright.
The doors of the bride’s entranceway opened. Hiresha entered solo. She needed no accompaniment, and none could’ve been seen beside her.
She wore a masterpiece, ribbons of spine, a filigree of snake ribs, scallops of hipbones, and ruffles of eye sockets. Her skirt pulsed as a gauze of blood. The gown covered her hips and chest only enough. It was most elegant in its absences.
No veil covered the sharp glitter of amethyst eyes. The dining room moved around her, and now she floated within reach of the man who had been choking. He gaped at her, eyes popping, mouth open and soundless. She touched his reddened cheek.
His neck bulged. He made a gulping noise, then a euphoric gasping. She had saved him and, even better, had made an historic entrance.
Knees rapped against tables as the guests stood. Even the kings were on their feet. They stared down from the ceiling at her. Tethiel could see the glistening flesh of her arm wasn’t a trick of the candlelight. She had been half skinned and still looked very alive.
The Talon threw himself down. He raked his knife across his palm and fingers without taking his eyes from her. “What miracle of blood is this? Are you the Flayed Goddess?”
“I am Hiresha, and you will know me as the Lady of Gems.”
Her bridesmaids filed in behind her. Tethiel had heard each would be dressed as a creature that mated for life. Celaise came as a raven, Minara as a barn owl wearing the mask of a white heart, and Miss Barrows strutted in with a fur wrap. A hundred tails of winter wolves dangled as her skirt.
The bridesmaids carried a corpse. He had once been Angler, the poor dumpling. Hiresha flung him against the spike of the room’s central pillar. There was no mess, no splatter. She mustn’t have allowed it.
“An assassination delayed me,” Hiresha said, “yet not for long. No crude violence can touch me. No human force can overcome my will.”
What a torment for Tethiel not to rush down to her, to lift her by the waist then kiss her skeletal hand. But they had agreed to stay distant. Besides, there wasn’t a place to hold her, not on the fine bones of her dress nor the naked ribs of her back.
Hiresha flipped overhead to hover beside the Bleeding Maiden. The red stains on the Feaster’s dress drained away. Her color blanched while Hiresha’s brightened.
The king brute looked away from them to peer into the green depths of his cup. “Honey’s stronger than I thought.”
He grinned and drank more.
She glided back into the air. A train of jewels followed her as she circled the room. Candles flamed below her in pendulum sweeps.
“I am not pleased with the seating abnormalities.” She glared at the high guests. “We’ll set this problem aside for now. I am ready to accept your gifts.”
The servers’ door was thrown wide. Veiled men and women began carrying in treasures. More enticing to Tethiel were the wealth of smells. The dining room had filled with the yeasty warmth of a bakery. Hiresha’s magnificent entrance had cracked the kings’ certainty. Even Ix had a faint aroma of blueberry muffin. The high guests would desire Hiresha even more, now that they had seen their power themselves.
On another olfactory plane, the Bleeding Maiden’s fright had boiled into rosebud soup. She had thought Hiresha would attack. Now that the bride had turned her attention to her gifts, the Bleeding Maiden had staunched her scent. Tethiel knew she would have another counterplot.
Her mischief could already be seen at a lower table. His daughter, Physis, wore a bone dress of suspicious similarity to Hiresha’s. The idea must’ve been stolen. He could smell the guilt on his child. On her, the bones were a jumble. On Hiresha, unadulterated art. Anyone who compared them would see it. His daughter was ripe with embarrassment.
The most delicious smell came from the dragon, of all places. The hollow beast lounged around the outside of the dome. The dragon might as well be full of ginger-snap cookies and licorice twists, sweetened even more with the fear of lost love. Hiresha must have locked away two of her assassins, newlyweds themselves by any guess. They might fit anywhere in Hiresha’s plan.
She reshaped the gifts into flowers. Jewelry of golden earplugs stretched to the stems of glittering irises. She carved gemstone without a chisel into petals. The treasure floated between her hands, one skeletal, one natural, then transformed. Shards burst from a red stone then were arranged along its silver shaft as thorns of a rose.
“That which blooms after a rainy season will wither before the next,” she said. “All that I make will endure.”
She motioned with a fingertip of yellow bone, and a bouquet of opal orchids swept up to levitate above a table. Soon gemstone arrangements decorated the entire dining hall.
“My marriage will last as long as diamonds shine,” she said, “as long as mountains stand. It will never wilt.”
The jewel shine of her gaze fell on Tethiel, on his buttonhole. She scowled at the faded wisteria, perhaps for the benefit of the jealous kings, but she also feared. Hiresha didn’t think she could marry him. All the Feasters in the room couldn’t help but smell her doubt. The Bleeding Maiden might be whispering of it right then to Purest Elbe.
New scents bubbled from Hiresha like a stew of delicacies. She was full of turmoil. The attempt on her life had rattled her, and it had come on her wedding night, when all her desperate hopes joined hands with her deepest anxieties.
She didn’t let them pierce and pin her. The bouquet of onyx tulips she had carved for Tethiel’s table was exquisite. He savored seeing how she didn’t quail or tremble when the potato king approached her, the one from the Cloudcrusher Mountains.
The crowned appetizer asked her to step on a large scale. “My Lady of Gems, I promised to give your weight in gemstones.”
She complied so with a barb of a grin. Her left foot was a slipper of tendons. The balance plate clinked to the floor beneath her. On the other side of the scale, the king heaped turquoise and quartz crystal.
“More
! More!” The king brute shouted. “She can’t weigh much. You saw her fly.”
The scale never shifted. The potato king emptied his last treasure chest. He even slipped off his own jade nose ring in desperation to tip the balance. The only thing to change was his expression. His shriveled lips quavered downward, while Hiresha’s smile spiked up each side of her face.
“The weight of a person is given entirely too much weight,” Hiresha said. “It can never measure quality. Wouldn’t you agree?”
The king’s face had flushed to the shade of one of those delightful red potatoes. He had the good grace to kneel before her. “I requisitioned enough raw gemstone to outweigh three men. You are greater.”
She had tricked him fairly. The king brute knocked his axe butt against the ceiling in approval. Low guests laughed and cheered. Tethiel applauded. He had not been wrong about her. Hiresha was a woman of empire, with the poise of a victory monument.
She feared she couldn’t marry him, yes, but he took that to mean she still wished to. Hiresha had hours to decide before the ritual. In important matters such as these it was best to act rashly and with as little thought as possible. Thinking, that’s where people went wrong.
The next gifts tramped in on their own feet, though not with free will. Slaves were herded into the dining room, their minds cooking with death scents. Winged warriors flew in with them. One abominable bird had to swerve around a swinging chandelier.
The Talon flailed a hand at the slaves, and blue feathers on his bracers slashed up and down. “Bow before this woman. Grind your faces into the ground until your noses bleed.” The Talon also flung himself before Hiresha. His cut hand smeared the glass with red.
She had raised a brow. “These people walk encumbered. Did you force them to eat gold?”
What an unbelievable thing to say. It must be true. Tethiel saw a few slaves did clutch their bellies, and yes, one girl feared that eating nuggets would turn her into a gold statue. Hiresha had been right.
“Yes,” the Talon said, “yes, yes, and you may pull the gold from their flesh.”
“Or let it pass,” Hiresha said.
“Gold is dirt. My gift is greater.” The Talon lifted his phallus knife to her. “You may kill them. You must. Give their hearts brimming with life force to the Winged Flame. The honor is yours.”
“Are the women Innocent?” Bright Palm Alyla asked. The soulless girl had no expression, but her brother did. He was all worried eyebrows.
“They are runaways, madwomen, or profaners.” The Talon pushed his knife toward Hiresha’s flayed hand. “They’re worthless, except for their blood. Kill them, for divine favor. Kill them, for the sun that lights all corn. Kill them, to save the world.”
“They should not die,” the Bright Palm said.
“They must,” the king brute said, “you death-light whore.”
“Don’t you call her that.” Fos the Bronzebrain pulled at his weapon.
The jaguar knight growled.
“Hiresha.” The voice of Purest Elbe was high and clear. “We know you’ll choose the way of harmony.”
The Talon had more in his skull than blood. Tethiel had to respect the trap laid for Hiresha. By choosing all women slaves the Talon had caught the matriarch’s heart. He could’ve sacrificed them himself, but by giving away that privilege he would force Hiresha to choose a side. She had to offend the kings or the rest of her guests.
Hiresha glanced up to Tethiel, though he could offer no help here. Any illusion he crafted to satisfy would enrage instead when found out by the Bright Palm or the Bleeding Maiden. The Talon had given Hiresha an impossible choice. She would have to make it herself.
Hiresha had rarely had the displeasure of meeting such an obnoxious man. The Talon’s face was a bloodless mask, pale against the bright red of his lips and mouth. His tongue had a fissure from constant cutting. His ears also had raw wounds, and one lobe was swollen and enflamed.
He did wear an intimidating swath of feathers. They fumed with color in the candlelight, carmines, magentas, and aquamarines. They must’ve come from the Winged Flame himself.
The Talon had power, and together with the kings, he commanded a continent. Hiresha couldn’t slap away this grisly request. She would have to compromise.
He pushed his rude knife toward her hand. She Burdened it away from touching her and went to the chests of Elbe’s gold.
“Why do you hesitate?” The Talon’s voice spiked with anger. “The way is clear. The sky has but one sun. If you haven’t the will to—”
“Never question my will.”
Hiresha Attracted gold together, shaped it into a sickle knife. Gold was soft, yet her enchantment was peerless. She stripped off layers of gilt leaf, leaving an edge as sharp as physically possible.
She could take pride in the knife and none in what she would soon have to do. The Talon had placed her in a ruinous position. She couldn’t escape it unscathed. The best outcome she could strive for would be to offend all the guests equally. Even that little she would have to buy with lives.
“In the land of my birth, we sacrificed animals to a god of life and death,” she said. “The Winged Flame is also a god of duality, though of different kinds.”
She beckoned, and two winged warriors lifted one prisoner by her shoulders. Their claws dug into her skin, pulling her forward with great wing beats.
“Yours is a god of bloodlust and tender companionship,” she said, “as well as revenge and forgiveness. Am I wrong?”
“You’re right.” The Talon beamed at her. Blood had stained his teeth pink. “He’s light and darkness.”
“Half the prisoners, I will kill for blood.” Hiresha lifted both hands, with the gold razor in her skinless hand. With her nerves numbed, she couldn’t feel the grip. It would’ve slipped out had she not Attracted the gold to her bones. “Half will sacrifice their forgiveness and live. Both will satisfy your god.”
“No,” the Talon said, “no, no, the gods care only for life force. It pools in the heart in times of fear.”
“And otherwise in the brain, where the correct state of mind permits alternate offerings,” Hiresha said. “The teachings of your predecessors in less bloody ages recorded sacrificing parts of the soul, and not through blood.”
“Now the god needs more,” he said.
“I choose to believe a person’s capacity to forgive can be sacrificed. That piece of the soul can be given and the rest of the person can yet live.”
“No,” the Talon said, “you must cut out the sacred cores.”
“You’ve gifted me these prisoners to sacrifice. I will do so in my own way.” She would save half of them. Elbe and the other guests would hardly thank Hiresha for it, yet any other path may well make Hiresha irredeemable.
The prisoner slid her feet back and forth on the floor, trying to push away from Hiresha’s gold razor. The winged warriors held her upright. Urine splattered over her legs. Her tears ran down pockmarks. She had survived a plague only to face death again. She could’ve been as young as twenty.
“Will you forgive me?” Hiresha lifted the knife with its golden finality.
The question had to be repeated before the woman could gather herself to reply. Her face quaked and shone with tears. She strained and panted. Hiresha could well believe forgiving would take a great effort, even if one’s life depended on it.
“Yes.” Her eyes bright with tears flashed up at Hiresha. “Your hand is the god’s.”
“Will you forgive yourself for the choices that brought you here? Will you forgive your god and send to him the power of your forgiveness?”
“I will.”
Hiresha touched the woman’s brow, made a cupping motion as if her hand filled with life force, and then lofted it skyward toward the divine. Hiresha hoped the execution of the improvised rite would satisfy the Talon on some level. The results proved to be more dramatic than anticipated.
The woman projectile vomited out gold nuggets and a slurry of cornmeal. She s
lumped as if Hiresha had ripped out her spine. The winged warriors caught her, and she hung between them, eyes spinning.
The guests gasped. Some on the lower tables cheered.
Hiresha gazed down at her hand, the one with skin with which she had touched the woman. Her palm felt inextricably warm, as if she had held something of heat and power. Perhaps she had accomplished something greater than theatrics.
It did not feel like victory.
If the changes in the woman came only from self delusion, they were yet convincing. She started to scream. All composure in the face of death had left her, and her face cramped in a stricken look as if she had taken a wound that would never heal.
“I hate you,” she shouted at Hiresha. She beat back the winged warriors. “I hate everyone.”
The servers had to remove her forcibly from the dining hall. The next sacrifice was pushed forward.
Hiresha spared those with forgiveness strong enough to absolve their executioner. The rest, she killed. She had to choose somehow. Picking at random would insult all involved, not least of all the god. She could forgive herself all too easily. The lives she sacrificed in all probability would’ve amounted to little.
The kings had best admire the sharpness of her blade. The knife parted skin and cut bone. Each slice came too easily, and a mirroring pain slashed across Hiresha: deep, absolute, and irrevocable. She could not slow or show weakness, and to do so she had to scrape out a part of herself. Like the women who sacrificed their forgiveness, Hiresha was uncertain she would ever be whole again.
A wake of tears and blood followed her; she reminded herself she was saving lives. The Talon would’ve killed them all. That man, may parasitic worms eat their way up his legs and devour his liver!
One prisoner asked for death. “To keep the sun alive.” This, Hiresha granted. Her enchanted blade parted skin and bone alike.
“I forgive you,” one woman said. The left corner of her lips crinkled into a smile. The flicker of expression was gone in the next instant, yet it meant smugness she couldn’t quite suppress. This woman hadn’t forgiven; she thought to steal back her life by outsmarting Hiresha.
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