Dark Lord's Wedding

by A. E. Marling

  Xochi would demand something of equal value. Tethiel could guess who she was.

  “While you undertake this luscious quest,” Tethiel said, “what marvel should the Lady of Gems make?”

  The jaguar knight scratched out the glyph for ships. He wanted the enchanted vessels to sail across sand dunes. His armies would dominate the Oasis Empire then take their blood-decorated claws and blades up to the Alliance of Masks. Every new conquest would exterminate the Bright Bastards.

  They could all be gone. The night could reach perfect dark. Then Tethiel would be the first lord of nightmare to rule all the Lands of Loam. For longer than an evening.

  Tethiel saw but one problem. “The Lady of Gems would never agree.”

  The jaguar knight nodded toward the betrothal necklaces. His whisker wreath dipped and rose again.

  “She’d be no more willing to listen to me after the wedding. Marriage changes everything, except for the bride and groom.”

  Xochi hissed with the sound of boiling snakes.

  “The key to getting anything done is to lower expectations,” Tethiel said. “Ally with us, and we can counterpoint the Winged Flame to bring the gods back into balance.”

  The jaguar knight lowered his tail, sweeping it back and forth over the glass ceiling in a pose of contemplation. He sat upon his haunches and leveled his gaze of golden mystery with Tethiel. He reached out with one paw. His finger pads were broad and pale amid the dark fur.

  Tethiel knew better than to clasp hands with the jaguar knight. This was a different sort of gesture, and it was the same.

  Xochi’s claws were hidden for the instant, but he wouldn’t need them to kill. The jaguar knight could snap a neck with a shove. A push would shatter a ribcage.

  The paw pressed against Tethiel’s chest. Heat sank into his heart, and with every beat it scorched through his arms to his fingertips, fighting against the exhilarating backflow of black wine. The jaguar’s furry bludgeon spanned the breadth from Tethiel’s shoulder to mid vest. His buttonhole would be crushed.

  A less distinguished jaguar knight might test a man by wrapping jaws around his head. Xochi didn’t open his mouth for that indignity. Tethiel met him eye for eye. Both kept their fangs in. Tethiel could tell Xochi feared the strength of the Winged Flame. His smell of fried pancake proved it. They might have an agreement.

  Or they might not. The jaguar knight shifted down to all fours. He marched away showing his asshole.

  Then a lower guest screamed. A rain of bright blood had fallen over her entrée of air-dried chinchilla. What a waste, but victim though she was, this woman didn’t have the room’s greatest fright.

  Tethiel followed Lyss’s scent of lotus wine to the high tables. She was being naughty. Her daggers were sawing through the neck of a Bright Palm. The glowing blood that sprayed furthest rained all the way to the glass floor. The clear ceiling diverted the rest, pulling it back toward the stars. It was a sight of beauty, one that Hiresha wouldn’t appreciate.

  He would have to tell her with a sending. Come, now. Or your guest will die.

  With efficiency that spoke of much practice, the Feaster wedged her serpentine dagger between Alyla’s neck and pried the vertebrae apart. Hiresha Attracted the Feaster away by her gold necklace, yet the Bright Palm’s head came off with her.

  Hiresha couldn’t very well have the wedding devolve into a mêlée. She had to correct this situation without outraging anyone to the point they wouldn’t partake in the next course.

  Fos’s sword ripped through the space where the Feaster had been. He leaped after her, perhaps forgetting that he didn’t wear any enchanted boots. The spellsword landed short. The Feaster was held out of his reach, floating at the center of the reception room, still clutching Alyla’s cranium by her hair.

  “What?” Fos’s eyes met Hiresha’s. “Bring that head back.”

  Hiresha fully intended to, though she wouldn’t go alone. This dagger Feaster likely hadn’t defied her lord on her own initiative; she would have allies. Hiresha Attracted the two other Bright Palms present by their invitation necklaces. One had already begun an attempt to scale a column to assist Alyla. The other had a nail raised over another Feaster guest. Neither cried out in surprise as Hiresha dragged them flying after her.

  “This,” Hiresha said while taking Alyla’s head from the dagger Feaster, “does not belong to you.”

  The eyes of the decapitated Alyla focused on Hiresha. The irises glared white with magic. The Bright Palm hadn’t lost consciousness. The pain would’ve been meaningless to her. She even had the presence of mind to mouth the word, “Help.”

  Fos had bravely and ridiculously tried to staunch the bursting blood from the body by holding a platter on top of her neck. Hiresha Attracted the head back onto the stump. The two Bright Palms she had towed with her lay their hands on Alyla. Hiresha stayed close to observe the healing.

  The ghostly brilliance of their magic flowed into Alyla. Severed skin fused together. Torn muscles connected with scar tissue. Blood vessels stretched to find each other and bond, sometimes with the wrong one. Hiresha broke them apart to seal the original pairings back together. The spinal chord was a tangled puzzle that even she couldn’t solve. The nerve strands wriggled to reconnect; no telling if they were the most suitable of pairings.

  Alyla did not get up. She mouthed something that was easy to deduce as, “I cannot breathe.”

  “Would you be good enough to push air into her lungs?” Hiresha said to the Bright Palm who resembled Jerani. They were likely familial.

  “It should be me,” Fos said. “She’s my sister.”

  “She’s no one’s sister,” the dagger Feaster said. She contorted herself in her prison of air to face Hiresha. “Your guest had no soul. Was trying to give her an honest death.”

  Hiresha had expected conflicts at her wedding. Even so, the defiance stimulated her heart to palpitations, frightening in their force and quickness. All her jewels aligned their pavilion points toward the Feaster.

  Hiresha swept a hand to the prone Bright Palm. “Merely because she doesn’t experience the world as you do doesn’t mean she’s unworthy to live.”

  Tethiel appeared beside Hiresha to face the Feaster. “Better soulless than traitorous. My child, you’ve disappointed me.”

  The woman with a stabbing habit glanced to a table with high guests. She had to hope for aid from the Bleeding Maiden. She may have even been promised it. Now they would observe if the murderous would-be waif would abandon another follower to death.

  She did not. The Bleeding Maiden wrung her hands as she approached. She pawed at Tethiel’s shoulder. “Please, you mustn’t kill her. You, avenging a Bright Palm against your daughter? She’s your best shadow knight.”

  “She was yours tonight,” Tethiel said, “and you cannot save her.”

  This, Hiresha deduced, was the Bleeding Maiden’s ploy. She had placed Tethiel in a situation where he would either look weak to his followers, by sparing the rebellious Feaster or from coddling Bright Palms. Many of his stooges looked up from the common tables. Physis was so rapt she hadn’t even changed to copy Hiresha’s next dress.

  “I will not punish her for attacking a nailer,” Tethiel said. “Her crime was against the Lady of Gems. No one may murder at a wedding except the bride.”

  The Feaster spread her hands, and her daggers multiplied. They swarmed around her, morphing into bronze vipers. Through the razors and fangs, she glared at Hiresha. “Are you a friend to the family? Or a slave to the Bright Asses?”

  Screams tore at the edges of Hiresha’s mind, and spots scrabbled in her peripheral vision. Feasters could be dangerous in their death throws, especially then. She had learned that all too well in her other facet. Hiresha had to handle this Feaster with care. Those daggers could rain chaos onto the guests.

  “I will put you to sleep,” Hiresha said.

  The blue paragon floated to bump into the back of the Feaster’s head. She tried to push it away. She would be
uncertain if she was being executed or only entrapped in her mind. Her eyes whipped from Hiresha to the Bleeding Maiden.

  An enchantment of somnolence flooded the Feaster’s mind. The viper’s nest of daggers writhed then quieted, slid away into shadows. Only a scrawny woman remained in the air, her eyes closed. Her one real dagger drifted from her slack fingers.

  “Then,” Hiresha said, “I will kill you.”

  Jewels covered the Feaster’s legs. Magic Attracted them to one wall and the blue paragon, still bound to her head, to the other. The gems pulled her apart.

  Hiresha willed the two halves to the central pillar and left them hanging beside the dead assassin. Hiresha gathered the suspended droplets of blood and arranged them on the black thorn points of her gown. Celaise had finished the thistle dress during the confrontation.

  The shocked silence of the hall seemed impenetrable. Tethiel broke it. “My heart, impromptu red is a fine addition to any outfit. Don’t you agree, my child?”

  This last he said to the Bleeding Maiden. He didn’t give her time to reply.

  “You must also agree that the greatest threat is splitting the family, not a few soulless fools.”

  “I worry how—”

  “You must because you’ll be punished for the next act of disobedience, no matter by whose hand. And I’ll not be so gentle as the Lady of Gems.”

  Tethiel had spoken over her. Slight though she was, the Bleeding Maiden’s voice could still be heard and it couldn’t be forgotten. “I worry how a family can stay together, when the father loves the soulless more than his own children.”

  He had set another ultimatum, one that might cause a rebellion among his Feasters. The Bleeding Maiden would probably force his hand. Before then, Hiresha and Tethiel would have to build a better foundation of influence. They needed to implicate the Bleeding Maiden or she would wrest away his Feasters and lead them from rampaging down the night streets.

  Awakening screaming, terrors in the dark, death lunging from the unknown, the Feasters were dangerous. Hiresha had to consider if they should all be wiped out. She might do it, in an alliance with the Bright Palms. It would mean pithing more men and women of their fears and desires, as had happened to Alyla.

  Hiresha levitated the Bright Palm onto her table. Her hand was limp in Hiresha’s. Alyla would take no comfort in being held. The blankness of her face was painful to see near the trembling tension of her brother’s.

  He choked in a deep breath then lowered to blow it into her mouth. Hiresha stopped him.

  “That won’t be necessary. Press this topaz against her chest, and it’ll help her breathe.”

  “Chin up,” Tethiel said. “She’ll be back to her soulless self in a few days.”

  Fos looked back with an expression twisted between rage and hope. “You think she’ll walk again?”

  “Walking is the most human thing we could hope for, and yes.” Tethiel swept a hand trailing a red lace handkerchief to Hiresha. “You cannot expect to have a wedding without someone losing their head.”

  “That sort of flippancy can’t offend Alyla, yet it will Fos.” Hiresha Attracted the blood from Alyla’s dress.

  “My apologies.” Tethiel bowed to Fos with unexpected grace. “I only hope you and all others present will remember the decapitation no more than the recapitation by Hiresha’s hand.”

  “You are a wonder, oh lady of blood.” The Talon flapped to them with his one-man-menagerie of feathers. He had cupped some of the Bright Palm’s blood. Its pearlescence faded in his hand. “This light of life would honor the Winged Flame. Yes, the god must have such hearts. You, great lady, will feed them to him.”

  Hiresha had conceded too much already to this man. “I went through the trouble of replacing Alyla’s head, and you want me to remove her heart?”

  “No, the head again. That’s where her life force will be.” The Talon made a swiping motion with one arm and a lifting one with the other. “The sun god will gleam in thanks.”

  “I will not,” she said.

  “Then the honor passes to me,” the Talon said. “My wings, come.” The flying warriors swooped up and flipped to reach the ceiling.

  Hiresha’s magic pulled the Talon away by his gold necklace. The Bright Palms kept the flying men at bay with spear and shield.

  “You are a monster.” The Talon clawed at his neck, even cut his skin, yet he couldn’t free himself of the necklace or the grip of her will. “Oh lady, you’re blood selfish and bone cold.”

  “A jewel is no less a wonder for being cold,” Tethiel said.

  That had been unneeded of him but thoughtful. Tethiel wore an onyx-dark coat tonight. Hiresha judged its lapel flower as a mistake, yet the suit presented as otherwise pristine, excepting one hair.

  Hiresha removed a strand from his vest. The hair was painfully orange.

  “This is not yours.” Hiresha glanced to the jaguar knight, now in repose with the tips of his whiskers touching a table. “Tethiel, what manner of interludes have you been having behind my back?”

  “I hoped you could be forward thinking about this. You must see that our union would be strongest with the liberty to have dealings with whomever we please.”

  “Do not presume so much.” Hiresha flicked the orange hair into his face.

  The corner of Tethiel’s eye had twitched in a half wink. He might have been pretending, putting on a mask to mislead the guests. She may have been as well, yet the heat crashing through her was very much like rage. The contractions in her abdomen were too similar to the intestinal cramps of disgust.

  Tethiel was one to laugh at murder. He couldn’t have imagined a wedding without death. She couldn’t marry him.

  She whipped her long bristle sleeves about and faced the high guests. They gazed back at her with eyes as calculating as enchantresses at a jewel auction, which reminded her that she hadn’t finished weaving her magic into the malachite. She would need it before the Green Blood asked for their kiss.

  Ix tapped the favor diamond with a fingernail that resembled a black fang with a venom pore. The Green Blood had rested their head against the table. They pushed their glistening blue fingers against the boards in preparation to stand.

  43

  “A priest at his altar, a general in his war tent, a tyrant in his castle, none of them have more power than a bride at her wedding.”

  “Perhaps in whatever backwater kingdom you were raised. Not that I would ever judge you, my fiancé. I have the greatest of respect for other cultures, no matter how savage.”

  “Then brides command less clout in your homeland?”

  “In Morimound, all the wedding particulars are decided by the groom’s mother-in-law.”

  “We’ll have none of that. Let this be the first night you choose for others what they would choose for themselves, had they your advantages of knowledge, intellect, and beauty.”

  “I’m fairly certain beauty doesn’t enter into the decision-making process.”

  “Of course it does. Arguments of logic are ever won by beauty.”

  “There is no hope for humanity.”

  “You may be the last, my heart.”

  The Green Blood sagged back against the table with a groan that could have been of acute despondency. They hadn’t managed to rise yet. Hiresha calculated she would need five and three-quarters minutes by herself to finish the enchantment on the malachite. Any magic that would alter the mind required due diligence.

  The gem rotated out of sight beneath her palm. It whisked further into the arched flare of her thistle sleeve when the king brute approached. His pupils had dilated to an unequal diameter, likely from his skull being smashed one too many times in battle.

  “Lady, marry me. You’ll find no fiercer warriors than on the Sky Islands.” The king spat toward Tethiel. “Forget that featherless bag of bat bones.”

  Hiresha bowed to the king only as far as her neck. “You are most bold in mixing your metaphors. I will consider your proposal.”

 
“What’s there to think about? I’ll show what you need—ah!” Before the king could attempt any vileness, the jaguar knight dug claws into his shoulder and swung him back to his seat.

  At their table, the Talon rubbed his hands over a copper bottle carved in the likeness of a heart. It was stoppered and sealed. He prayed over it. “You will have your due, My Brilliance. My Divine Fire. A red joy will be yours.”

  Hiresha shouldn’t leave the Talon unwatched. Neither could she stay close. The Green Blood had levered themselves up on their arm, swaying upright. She would drift only as far as the room’s midpoint to enchant the malachite. Though she needed to be alone she couldn’t ignore the soft urgency in the voice of the potato king.

  “Lady of Gems.” The sun had shriveled his face to give him the appearance of a mummy in a gold breastplate. “I don’t wish to leave my queen wife. She has a man’s gift for reasoning and the patience of a goddess, but I would, for you.”

  “That you’d divorce your wife speaks much to your commitment.”

  “To my realm and its terrace gardens.” The king’s leathery lips quirked in distaste. “To the Dominion, and, if the gods hate and love me, to you.”

  “I will contemplate your suit and let you know soon if you should begin celebrating your loss.”

  The shin guard of his armor clanked as he knelt. “You’re a woman of rare talent.”

  She would never speak to him again.

  “Hiresha.” Fos beckoned to her.

  She squeezed the malachite in her fist. He should not summon her. He should be the one to come. Fos wasn’t even a king.

  No, her thinking was wrong. They had saved each other’s lives, and he could scarcely be overly familiar. Fos only wished to stay at the table beside the paralyzed Alyla. Hiresha glided there.

  “You’re speaking like him now.” Fos pointed with one hand and hid his finger with the other. He aimed at Tethiel.

  “Only in that I too can stay awake to finish a sentence,” Hiresha said.

  “So happy that you finally got enough sleep.”