“Remember,” Tethiel said, “restraint is for the weak. Moderation is for the uncommitted. The afterlife is a lie, and our time short. Now eat.”
Guests at the lower tables shrieked in happiness after biting into the insects, though Hiresha suspected the euphoria’s onset would not be so immediate. Red locust legs stuck to oily chins. People tossed the fried grasshoppers from one hand to the other. It would be yet too hot to eat. No one waited. The guests fanned their tongues and guzzled pricy drinks.
The jaguar knight presented a fried insect to the fennec. The food was balanced on an upturned paw larger than the fox. The fennec warbled, chirped, and rested his fuzzy feet on the jaguar’s finger pads to take the treat. The great cat and fox ate side by side. No matter the jaguar’s past misdeeds, he clearly had a discerning eye for friends.
When he prowled back up a column to the ceiling, Hiresha guided him to his proper seat. A jewelry box awaited him, full of a matching set of amethyst fangs. “Wear them on a necklace or in your mouth,” she said. “They could crack through granite and, more importantly, prevent the most common parasites and infections.”
She wasn’t so rude as to mention fleas.
Hiresha summoned her gold dagger. It descended from the hoard dome, through the crystal aperture, and flew to her hand. She set it before the Talon.
He had shown little appetite for food. At the sight of his gift, his pale faced flushed with hunger.
“This is the keenest blade in the Lands of Loam,” she said. “Yet should it strike any of my allies, the razor will crumple and break.”
No sooner had she given it to him did he test the edge against his tongue. He coughed blood and smiled. Hiresha didn’t care to listen to his following praise.
When the first king returned, she unveiled her greatest gifts. Four suits of plate armor stood on stands. Their amethyst visors reflected the swinging chandeliers.
“Try to lift one,” Hiresha said.
The king brute strained at the armor. “No man could wear this boulder.”
“Not without a key.” Hiresha pointed to a key-shaped depression in the breastplate.
The potato king laid his coral key into the armor. Then he braced his feet, set his shoulders, and heaved. The armor bobbed up above him. He juggled it back down then turned. “Again, lady, the weight is not what I expected. Lighter than a handful of treasure.”
“As long as you have your key, you will have this armor,” Hiresha said. “And you’ll possess your key as long as—”
A baby cried from the common tables. A woman wore the infant in a silk hip sling like a piece of living jewelry. She made no motion to quiet the wailing.
Hiresha raised her voice. “That is, I may have to recall the key from anyone who displeases me. It will fly back—”
The baby shrieked as if close to death. Her mother smiled in apparent pride of the volume.
“Those with my favor will walk into battle as a fortress. I designed every articulation of the armor, and wearing it, you—”
The infant bellowed with one fist balled as if the entire world had conspired to offend her. This tiny malcontent was ruining what Hiresha had planned as a grand moment. Only the most suspect of mothers would flaunt her newborn at this wedding. Warnings had been posted.
Hiresha tipped her chin two-tenths of an inch toward Tethiel. He winked back.
The mother’s screams joined her daughter’s, and it was easy to hear the family resemblance. The baby had transformed into a many-eyed creature with starfish arms. The little monster floundered at her mother’s side and chittered.
Celaise swooped down to the mother. “It’s the air in here. The child will be itself again after you leave.”
Miss Barrows helped the mother depart by the servers’ door. “There, there, and all that.”
Hiresha cleared her throat. “Armor of invulnerability is only the beginning. With the proper resources I will craft mounts for every guest to ride. You may use your imagination as to what each may be.”
She sequenced seventy-nine commands, and the amethyst dragon peered into the reception hall through the dome. Its wings enfolded the crystal oval entirely with black then slid away to return the moon’s glare.
The kings licked their lips. Their fingers left trails of grease on the armor as they tested the flexibility of the arms and legs. The men were hardly worthy of her masterpieces, by Hiresha’s estimation, yet the loyalty of kings would have its uses. The armor would crush any who defied her.
“My gifts will inspire humility in your subjects,” she said, “and terror in your enemies. None will doubt your right to rule.”
Hiresha gave Elbe a gift of a more practical nature. The sapphires in the necklace flared blue at Hiresha’s touch.
“It will cleanse you of curse,” Hiresha said. “Your monthly blood will cease and never return.”
The corners of Elbe eyes brightened with tears. “Will I be able to give birth as the Pure once did?”
“Yes, to daughters identical to yourself. I need only maintain the enchantment.”
Elbe embraced Hiresha with gentle strength.
If Hiresha was any judge, the Bleeding Maiden would be less pleased with her gift. The jaguar knight had taken her seat; Hiresha led the Feaster to sit next to the Bright Palm. Four servers presented her with a casket.
“I understand coffins are popular in your lands,” Hiresha said. “This one is of the finest quality.”
The Bleeding Maiden pouted.
“Do you recognize the variety of wood?”
Her pupils constricted to two points of surprise. “Rosewood?”
“I hope it will be suitable.” Hiresha did not bother to hide her smirk. Let the murderous louse ponder whether or not Tethiel had revealed her distinctive rose scent.
He was dangling a fried cricket in front of the Talon. After the priest had consented to try it, Tethiel said, “Better eating than my heart would’ve been, admit it.”
The Talon chewed then licked his lips. His tongue left a blood trail. “Only to my mortal tastes.”
Under the chatter of guests and the hiss of the frying caldron came the slapping of damp feet, indicating the approach of the Green Blood. Hiresha predicted they carried the favor diamond. Hiresha owed the guest a kiss. The venoms they had concocted in preparation likely never had been observed before in nature. How exciting to speculate their potency. A drop might kill more than a hundred men.
Hiresha resisted the impulse to swerve to face her assailant. It was the Green Blood who hesitated. Their gaze probably had been snagged on her gown’s bone-shard embroidery of the Skiarri Mountains, or perhaps her soul silk.
The Green Blood plodded on. “Eh! Let’s get this over with.”
“Indeed, we should.” Hiresha slipped the enchanted malachite into her mouth. She hid it beneath her tongue then turned toward the Green Blood with a grin.
Their eyes had no whites, only a marbled verdure that resembled a jungle crossed with dark rivers. A chasm slit divided each orb. The branching patterns on either side of the iris arrested Hiresha with their symmetry. When Ix blinked, a cloudy membrane whisked forward and back.
What a remarkable specimen. They must have been a man once, or a woman, yet the way they hunched forward now made them resemble nothing more than a deadly frog. The vibrancy of their blue skin screamed in warning.
Ix dragged their hand up, the diamond pinched between two claws. Hiresha gestured, and the jewel floated into her palm. She Attracted its film of toxin to its pavilion point and contained it.
Hiresha leaned in for the contest of wills. Ix’s black lips parted along rows of needle teeth. The Green Blood gripped her arm. Their touch was damp and prickly. Next their lips would meet hers. Hiresha flipped the enchanted malachite to the top of her tongue.
Their speckled nose crinkled, and Ix gripped their throat in what appeared very much like disgust. They turned and instead of meeting the kiss mouth to mouth only pecked her cheek with a dot of coldness. She
had revolted them, this toxin abomination. The insight reflected poorly on Ix. Even if her skin lacked as much color, they certainly had poor taste in gowns and gems.
They pinched her arm. The claws punctured her skin like a viper bite. The venom pierced into her tissues in a hot tearing. She allowed it, in order to determine what Ix wished for her. They leaned away.
The venom ate at her muscle, melting and leaving a nerveless deadness. Yes, she judged it potent, yet not fast. Hours would pass before she flopped down in a puddle of helplessness, struggling to haul in each breath until that became too great a strain and her lungs filled with noxious desperation and she drowned in a poisonous gas of her own making.
She shifted the malachite into her cheek. “A prolonged assassination seems unlikely. Your intent must be coercion.”
Ix sighed with a deep-throated rattle. “You have to marry my king.”
“Once I agreed, you’d make an antivenom? Might it also include an even longer-acting toxin to ensure my faithfulness?”
“Something like that.”
“You make it sound such a bother. Allow me.” Hiresha Attracted the venom in her muscle, and it beaded back out of the pinpricks in her skin. She isolated the toxin and secluded it to the tip of the diamond, which she flung out of reach and stuck to the central pillar, between the halves of the dead Feaster.
Hiresha stood tall and cured.
“Will you kill me,” Ix said in a voice so flat it didn’t even sound like a question. They began to droop to their knobby blue knees, not as fast as a faint but as if they couldn’t be bothered to hold themselves up any longer.
“Not yet.”
Hiresha seized Ix. She bowed them over and smashed her lips against theirs. Their mouth had opened in surprise, and that was all the opportunity she needed. She spat the malachite between their fangs.
The symphony of gasps arose from the guests. One king roared a laugh. A squeal must’ve come from the Bleeding Maiden. Ix gagged and spluttered.
The gem bounced off the back of their throat. Hiresha Attracted it to the roof of their mouth. There it would stay until Hiresha had no choice but to collapse the Green Blood’s skull. Until then its enchantment would seep into their brain as a poison of a different kind.
It would spark more connections within their mind. Hiresha had designed it to attack lethargy, disable disappointment, and dissolve hopelessness. The enchantment might energize Ix to end their own life, yet there were always risks. The mind couldn’t be fixed, only tampered with. The malachite might not work, alone.
Their eye slits tilted inward. Ix probed the gemstone with a greasy tongue.
Still cradling them, her nose a half inch from theirs, Hiresha said, “I have the gift of armor for your king, yet you pay little mind to the affairs of men.”
“It’s all shit.”
“Once you cared.” Hiresha lifted them.
Tethiel flickered into sight beside them and pressed his cheek against Ix’s. “You still care for one thing,” he whispered, “my blueberry.”
“We know what you want and can never have,” Hiresha said.
The rain fell hard enough to shake leeches from the trees. They pattered down in black drops or writhed through the air. They bounced off the ground, rolled, and wriggled.
“Remarkable that the velocity of the fall is insufficient to kill them,” Hiresha said.
“Never underestimate the toughness of the loathsome,” Tethiel said. “They’re almost as indomitable as the beautiful.”
The soil was a diseased yellow, and Hiresha thought it apt this ground would be leached of all nutrients by the relentless deluge. Even with life thrumming overhead, the jungle floor was a dark desert. Nothing grew down here but fungal gills. No streams flowed in sight. All water drained down to the karst caverns.
Tethiel rode between vines and shadows. His mount, of all horses, didn’t trot so much as prowl. Hiresha looped between the trunks and up to the treetop gardens. She willed away a leech which would’ve landed on her.
Their pace was slow due to their Feaster guide. Hundreds of people were dying and being born across the lands for every ponderous stride taken by the Mimic. In this unlit day he had adopted the shape of a Green Blood, one toxic yellow with dark markings.
She should pick him up, as little as she wished to touch him, illusion or no, yet increasing their speed might not be wise. No point of rushing to a destination in a state of uncertainty.
As Hiresha understood it, abominations such as Green Bloods and winged warriors came in pairs. One person cursed the other, with a hexer to facilitate the magical transmogrification. The Dominion had developed hexes that changed humans into something more dangerous.
“Capturing Ix’s hexmate may not help us,” Hiresha said.
“Threatening their life might not rouse Ix,” Tethiel said. “The Green Blood rarely fears anything, even dying, and such a person is very close to death.”
“You are certain this Green Blood is Ix’s hexmate? There are only two in the Dominion?”
“Just the two.” The Mimic swept his bright and black fingers through the air. “And my masterful solo performance.”
“The night whispers,” Tethiel said, “that the two once were lovers, that they survived the metamorphosis because of this bond where all others died. Ix and Saul shared a kiss then a curse.”
“That has the consistency of a poet’s dandruff,” Hiresha said, “and I give it as much weight. This is far too remote for one Green Blood to visit the other.”
“They must have had a falling out,” Tethiel said.
“More like a plunge.” Hiresha leapt over her blue paragon then glided in front of the Mimic and back to Tethiel. “You brought this Feaster to replicate the true Green Blood and deceive Ix?”
“That would be an act of desperation,” Tethiel said, “and thus the first thing you should plan for.”
“Many have sworn with their dying breath that I was a Green Blood,” the Mimic said. “None of them were Green Bloods themselves. I couldn’t touch Ix. We couldn’t eat the same poisons. They wouldn’t believe, and my death would ruin me for the role.”
“We must learn from this reclusive Green Blood a better way to motivate Ix,” Hiresha said.
The Mimic expounded about the difficulty of acting a part when he didn’t know all the shared history between the Green Bloods. Hiresha leaped up into the canopy. A flick of green coiled through the rain. This wasn’t a leech but a snake, gliding between trees. How intriguing.
Hiresha flew after the snake. It didn’t have wings. Rather, its flanks spread out like a cobra’s mantle to slow its rate of fall. It swerved in a new direction. The reptile plopped onto a lower branch and slithered between fern fronds.
“An impressive adaptation.” Hiresha told Tethiel about her finding.
“Delectable! Man has feared snakes for all time, but far too few fangs drop from the sky. What need have we now of dragons?”
“Dramatic entrances?” Hiresha thought of her amethyst construct and allowed herself a half smile.
“Too true, my heart.”
A pity that jungle birds reacted with such ruckus to a flying dragon. If Hiresha had flown in, the Green Blood would’ve had warning and may have hidden. As it was, the Mimic raised his arm. His nostril flared. He had caught scent of the Green Blood.
She gripped Tethiel’s hand and lofted him up out of the saddle. Her blue paragon whisked them forward. In the canopy squatted a glistening figure. She slowed as to avoid alarming them. Their torso had the indecency of being brighter red than a fire opal. Their limbs contrasted with a glaring green, as if the abomination wore sleeves and pants.
The Green Blood was dressed only in moisture. They poked at something in the bowl of a tree branch. Looking up, they regarded Hiresha and Tethiel floating nearer with remarkable equanimity.
The abomination may have lost their mind along with their humanity. They lived in isolation and had done so perhaps for years. Hiresha had to speculate the
y may have forgotten how to speak. The mouth they opened was too broad for a human and too fanged. Nothing more intelligible than a croak might come out.
“My first proposition has to be you are people of power,” the Green Blood said in a clear and steady voice, “seeking more of the same.”
“Greetings, Green Blood Saul.” Tethiel bowed his head.
Saul seemed little interested in introductions. They continued speaking. “First premise in support of proposition, you flew here. Second, ‘here’ is nowhere you’d otherwise have reason to be.”
The Green Blood squatted on a tree limb two hundred feet above the ground. A centipede pattered its way nearby and waved its antennae at a niche in the bark. The peristalsis movement of its legs carried the insect into the cranny.
“Until this is proven false,” Saul the Green Blood said, “I must conclude you covet my venomcraft. As I will not give it, one or more of us may have to die.” They nodded with a grimace. From their crouched position, they might pounce.
“You are a most logical of abominations,” Hiresha said. She touched down on an adjacent branch with Tethiel. A waterfall of ferns spread beneath them. “My theory is that you’ve kept sane in isolation by debating with yourself.”
“I am sane because I’m alone,” they said.
“A man can only be assured of good company if he’s willing to talk to himself,” Tethiel said. “My venomous treat, you don’t fear to die.”
Membranes blinked over green orb eyes. “A new proposition, you are Feasters.”
“You do fear one thing, that your death will undo the curse,” Tethiel said, “the one you share with Ix. Changing back into a human would kill them.”
“Do you speculate,” Hiresha asked, “Ix stays alive out of the same respect for you? They take no joy from life.”
“Without you,” Tethiel said, “Ix is dying by days.”
The Green Blood stared back without a twinge in their face of guilt or remorse. A scorpion skittered out from between their feet. The black insect carried thirty-seven white infants on its back. The giant centipede chased the scorpion from the tree burrow.
Dark Lord's Wedding Page 35
