Make Her, page 2
“I jumped through the sky hole with you!” he quietly exclaimed.
I swept him up off the ground at once and hugged him to me. “I’m so happy to see you. ”
“You are?” he asked, wriggling around so he could focus most of his eyes on me. “You seemed very mad at Rhaim, earlier. ”
“I had to act that way, to save him. But I was never mad at him—well, maybe now, a little,” I said and softly sighed. “But I was never, ever mad at you. ”
“Good. Because he told me to make sure I went with you. ” He brought up his pedipalps to gently tap the likely darkening circles below my eyes as I closed them and errant tears leaked out.
I heard the sound of the tent flap opening as someone came in unannounced—and found Jelena there. She took Finx and I in, her jaw dropping as she gave a great inhale. I waved a hand to stop her at the same time as she closed her mouth hard enough to clack her teeth before quietly hissing, “Are you okay?”
With Finx still in my arms, I prayed he had the wits not to talk to her. “Not really. ”
Her expression was still curdled, staring at Finx. “What is that?” she asked, pointing with a shaking hand.
I held Finx protectively. “He’s my pet, from the beast-mage. He made the dresses I gave you. ”
Finx waved one of his many arms hello. Jelena’s eyes widened, but then she managed to give him a low wave back, slowly. “Your brother told me to come in here,” she said, peeling her eyes away from Finx at last.
“I figured if I’m to have a maid, it might as well be a friend—if that’s what you are. ”
“I don’t know, am I?” She crossed her arms. “I didn’t even know your true name. ”
I winced. “I’m sorry. I had to lie. I couldn’t very well tell you this was my life,” I said, then despondently looked around the tent’s four close walls.
“Well it explains why you weren’t very good at laundry,” she said with a snort, before taking Finx and me in again. “But the rest—I don’t understand. I saw him bite you, Lisane,” she said, now using my real name for the first time.
“I know. ” If only that hadn’t happened, maybe Rhaim and I would’ve gotten a few additional sweet days—and my “honor” wouldn’t have been intact anymore, to be so readily bartered away again.
“But then I saw you on the unicorn. ”
I nodded, then could tell she was waiting. “So?” I prompted her.
“When you were bitten, I thought the worst of him, and feared the worst for you—but if I had known when we came for you, we’d find you there, with him, like that. . . I don’t know that I would have said a thing. ”
I gave her a tight lipped smile. “I would have assumed the worst and done the same as you, if our situations were reversed. ”
“Then was your anger at him true?” she asked, her brow furrowed with concern for me.
I liked Jelena, and I wanted her to be my friend, but I also knew the realms I had to move in now. “It was as true as it needed it to be at the time,” I said, circumspectly, as I set Finx down and stood to walk over to her. I was exhausted, and my heart was pained, but the most important thing was that Rhaim was still alive.
Her eyes narrowed at me perceptively. “Did you manage to do any of the things I taught you with him?”
I bit my lips not to laugh, remembering. “Some,” I said, giving her a bittersweet smile.
She harrumphed at that. “Then I will stay and be your maid, until you get a chance to do them all. ”
I reached and quickly took both of her hands in mine. “Thank you. ”
2
Rhaim
I didn’t know how many days I had spent as my beast when I next woke, lying in close-cropped grass, staring up at a moonlit sky.
I was in front of my castle; there was blood beneath my nails and fur stuck between my teeth. My beast had either exhausted himself, or decided it was time for me to deal with the consequences of my own actions, not him. I sat up slowly, feeling the weight of my sorrow fight against me.
I should have killed Jaegar and Helkin when I’d called a convocation and had the chance. But then that would have only lost me Lisane another way.
And if I had fought that day with the unicorns to keep her. . . while I had what felt like an infinite amount of rage inside me, I surely would have died, beast or no.
I breathed unsteadily, creeping up piecemeal to stand, feeling uneasy on what should’ve been familiar feet.
The only thing I was sure of was that I would see her at least one more time.
I had to.
It was fated.
I arched my back, coming into my own body again, raking my hands through my hair, and when I was finished I caught a glimpse of something gleaming in the grass. I knelt down to inspect it—it was Jaegar’s ring, which Lisane had thrown at me, who knew how many days ago. It wasn’t spelled to shift with me, like my leathers and piercing, and my Beast had just left it behind.
I picked it up, wondering when she’d found it—I’d tried to hide it exactly as hard as she’d tried to hide her journal, which was to say not very.
But she’d brought it out of the castle with her, and had it on her that whole lovely morning that she’d spent with me.
If it had been weighing down her conscience then, she hadn’t let on when she had nuzzled up and kissed me. And I knew I hadn’t tasted a moment of remorse—or hesitation—on her lips.
Had I been naïve? Wrapped up around my little moth’s finger like the ring I held?
I weighed it in my hand. Lisane was a smart girl. And perhaps, at the moment when her father had arrived, she’d been smarter than me.
Maybe throwing his ring at me to catch was her way of telling me she’d already guessed some of what he’d told her.
And, perhaps, that she’d already forgiven me for my part in it.
I wouldn’t know until I managed to talk to her again, and with Jaegar having nearly every mage that wasn’t throne-sworn on the continent in his service. . . that did not seem likely.
But I thought I still had one friend. . .
I portaled to Filigro’s, once again landing on his pavilion before dawn.
This time, I ran up to the doors of his cave—and found him waiting for me, behind a half-closed door. “I don’t want to talk to you,” he announced.
That set me back. “Why not, old man? What have you heard?”
“That you lost your mind, and bit the girl in public. ”
I winced, wishing my beast had known better in the moment, and that somehow Lisane had been less tempting. “Only because it needed to be done,” I said, a weak defense without telling him the truth.
Filigro twisted his beard into a knot with one hand, making to shut his door with the other. “No. Don’t tell me any more. I don’t want to know, and it won’t change a thing besides. ”
“Filigro,” I pleaded, after catching the door on instinct.
“I already know what you want—for me to go and deliver some message for you. I can’t, and I won’t. ” He grunted with the effort he was using to try to close his door, but my strength was far beyond his.
I hadn’t even thought that far ahead yet. “I just wanted you to see if she was well. ”
He paused and stared at me with his white-blind eyes. “And you say you do not love her. ”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “I was wrong. ”
Filigro stopped trying to push the door closed and groaned, so I finally let it go. “I told you to stop, Rhaim. And I gave her books to scare her off—”
“It didn’t work. ” I licked my lips, considering, and then decided to come clean. “I had to bite her. I needed her to help me. ”
His hoary eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“It’s the price of her magic, Filigro. She can’t access it unless she’s been hurt—and using it hurts her further. But she was the one who stopped the Deathless that day. Not me. ”
He pushed his way outside with me, instead of letting me come in, and settled his back against the door.
“Do not say these things to me,” he begged.
“It’s true!” I declared. “I was there! I saw it myself, through my beast’s eyes. ”
“Rhaim, listen to me. ” He stepped forward aggressively and took my shoulders in his hands to shake them. “Never tell another mage you’ve done this. ”
“Why not? She—she could actually help her father’s cause, rather than her talents being wasted in a cave somewhere!” I protested, trying to read his face. “She didn’t catch on fire, Filigro!”
“Of course not, you fool!” he shouted, releasing me, and raking his hands through his beard again. “None of them did!”
I scowled at him, trying to understand. “What?”
He made a sound of deep frustration and banged a palm on the door behind him. “Women who learned magic didn’t spontaneously catch on fire—”
“Of course not. No one does, because its ridiculous,” I interrupted him with a growl.
“—they caught on fire because we burned them. ”
I took one step back, stunned, and then made fists on instinct. “What did you say?”
“That I have been alive for a very long time, Rhaim,” he snapped. “And not all of those years were kind to me—or I to others. ”
My beast rose up to ride beneath my skin. “Speak more plainly—now. ”
“Bah!” Filigro said, pushing past me to storm down the path to his garden, with its many cliffside graves. “I tried to tell you to step away! I tried to help you protect her! If you’d even managed to sleep with her, you would’ve made her life inestimably easier, but no, you had to go and show her unicorns!”
“None of that is fire,” I snarled, stalking after him. “Explain yourself!”
Filigro walked right up to the edge of a curved bluff of stone and then appeared to look over, even though I knew he couldn’t see. “One of the mages of my generation had the power to see the future. Or, futures, I should say,” he said, correcting himself. I stayed a few steps away from him, lest I be tempted to do some violence, as he continued. “His gift was complicated, like many of ours are, and not all of his futures came true. But one thing he felt for certain was that there would be a day the world could end because of a woman using magic. ”
“Merely could?” I practically shouted at him.
“I know how it sounds,” he complained bitterly. “You may mock us now, Rhaim, but you weren’t there. We. . . we believed him. ”
“How long ago was this?” I demanded.
“Millennia. Back when I was very, very young, barely Ascended myself. But I still clearly remember the chaos his visions caused. Up until then, there were numerous women among our ranks. But then. . . after. . . ” His voice drifted, with memories or guilt; it didn’t matter to me.
“How many?” I needed to know.
“Before the flames? They made up roughly half our ranks. ”
“You murdered hundreds of women? On the word of just one man?”
Filigro turned his head to roll white-blind eyes at me. “Many of his futures did come true, Rhaim. Give us credit for testing him, at least. ”
“I will do no such thing!” I closed the distance between us, coming close enough that I knew he could feel my presence and the heat of my breath.
Filigro held his ground, despite the cliff he had to know was nearby. “I was doing my job. I was protecting the world. ”
“If protecting the world requires the slaughter of innocents on a maybe, the world can go fuck itself,” I snarled. Every piece of my body was ready to change.
“Oh, really?” He twisted to plant a finger on my chest. “One life? A handful of lives? Even hundreds? Against an entire population? I don’t feel comfortable balancing those scales, Rhaim—do you?”
“I will do whatever it takes, to keep Lisane alive,” I swore.
“So somehow her innocent life is more valuable than others?” Filigro mocked me. “I see. ”
I seethed with impotent rage, and my beast was totally willing to fling him over the cliff’s edge, if that was what Lisane’s safety required. I asked the only question that was important to me. “And what will you do, now that you know of her powers?”
Filigro stroked a hand through his beard and gave a mighty sigh. “She has nothing to fear from me. I’ve lived long enough now that I think maybe the world deserves to end. Or at the very least, I understand that it’s no longer my job to try and save it. ”
I stayed close, weighing his intent, wondering if he knew this was how he died, and if so, if he would betray his knowledge to me in these, his final moments.
“I stopped caring centuries ago, Rhaim,” he said simply. “Your Lisane isn’t the first girl I’ve known to learn magic, and for all I know, she may not be the last. If I have learned anything in the intervening years, it is that the future is far murkier than it seemed when Vizaveth was extoling the virtues of feminine flammability. ”
That didn’t absolve him. “I am disgusted by you. ”
“As well you should be,” he said, and shrugged. “I am not proud of my past, but it happened nonetheless. Better that you know it now than not. ”
If I had ever thought less of Lisane for her father—how should I feel now, knowing this, about the man who’d practically been mine? “Why did you never tell me?”
He seemed to stare across the vast crevasse in front of him for a time. “Guilt?” he finally answered. “Shame? Finally having a black-and-white understanding of the world shaded in by life? And because up until you kept the girl, I never had a reason to—and by then it was too late. ” He sighed and set his shoulders with a thoughtful nod. “So—I will go see her, for you, on your behalf. ”
“The fuck you will. ” I swept up the front of his robe in one hand without thinking, instantly ready to send him over the edge, plummeting to his death.
He swatted at my arm in annoyance. “Let go of me, Rhaim. This is not how I die. ”
“It is if you plan Lisane harm,” I let my beast growl, through me.
“On the contrary,” he protested. “Somebody needs to go and tell her to never use her powers again—because doing so would be as good as setting herself on fire. ”
Losing her to Jaegar was one thing, but at the thought of my little moth being murdered—I could only barely rein my beast back. “Who would dare?” I demanded, shaking him, as my jaw began to sprout fresh teeth.
“I can’t say, Rhaim! Teachings get handed down, generation after generation, and not even I know the heart of every mage!” he shouted fearlessly. “But there is no safe place for her now, as she is—as you have been fool enough to make her. Do you understand me?”
I kept him hovering near the precipitous edge a moment more, then hauled him back safely to stone. “Yes,” I said bitterly, letting him go.
He straightened out both his robe and his beard with his hands. “Good. ”
I hulked in front of him, pulling my beast back in. “I don’t trust you anymore, old man. And if even so much as a strand of hair on her head is snapped—”
“You don’t need to trust me. You only need to acknowledge that you have no other choice. ”
My chest heaved with my impotence. Jaegar’s mages would know instantly if I portaled myself anywhere near his camp, and there would be no excuse for my presence there—they would attack me to protect Lisane, on sight.
And I had already told her to trust Filigro. . . even if I no longer did.
“I know you are ready to die, but if you hurt her,” I warned him, “there will be no stopping me. I will take out an entire generation of mages in retribution, and their blood will be on your hands. ”
“My hands are used to blood, Rhaim,” he said, scoffing lightly. “Luckily for you, however, I find the thought of more exhausting. ”
I forced myself to step back then, giving him room to portal, but he didn’t do so, he just walked past me back to his mountain home. “What are you waiting for?” I demanded as I followed.
“A ride. I’ve never seen Jaegar’s war camp—it didn’t exist before I went blind. ”
I folded in on myself, groaning. “I can take you near there then. ”
“And have all my further interactions there be suspect if someone senses you? No. I’ll just wait. Mages—ones who don’t threaten my life—come by fairly frequently. I’ll portal in with one of them. ”
“Filigro,” I growled. Now that my mind was made up to risk this, and I knew the danger she was in—
He waved his hands in my direction, batting down my concerns as he opened up his door. “Things will be all right, Rhaim. Or as okay as they can be. ” Then he paused, before going inside. “When I see her though—what do you want me to tell her, from you?”
I paused. In my rush to act, I hadn’t taken a moment to consider what to say before coming here. And at the thought that it might be my last contact with her prior to whatever interaction we had before I died, I wanted to tell her everything.
That I loved her, and I would be proud of her, even unto death.
“Tell her,” I began, ready to say as much—but I then realized it likely wasn’t fair to burden her with what she meant to me. She had the whole of her life ahead of her, and I. . . I did not. “Tell her I said, ‘I am sorry,’” I told him, hanging my head.
Filigro waited, then asked, “That’s it?”
“It is. ” I took a step back. “Filigro,” I started, either to beg him to speed or to threaten him again to help Lisane, I didn’t know. I was full of the need to do something and inaction was exquisite torture.
“It is all right, little beast,” he said, and I knew he was absolving me—even though it was he who had acted criminally in the past. “I may have hidden things from you, but you have always smelled the same to me. I always knew who you were, as both a man and a friend. ”
“We are not friends anymore, old man. ”
“Eh, you’re not in a position for it to matter much. ” He stepped forward and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “I wish I could’ve saved you from this. The world will be a darker place without you in it, and I am saying that as a blind man. Go home, little beast. Live what time you have left sweetly, and know I will pass your words on to the girl, and tell her enough to keep her safe. ”
