The Hidden Queen, page 61
“Perhaps not,” a voice behind us says. I turn to see Asome, holding tight to his warded staff. He’s bound it to a wave of magic and let it pull him up the stairwell.
“Sibling.” I take a step back as Asome’s feet touch the platform.
Asome puts up his hands, bending without taking his eyes off me to lay down his staff. He follows suit, kneeling with his hands on the floor. “I am not here to fight. I will come no closer. I only ask you listen.”
My eyes flick to the demon queen. She has grown enormous, still hungrily trying to claw through the forbidding. I look back at Asome and cross my arms. “Be quick.”
“When Father spared my life all those years ago, he said it was because I still had a part to play. A path to redemption. All these years, I have sought it. First in my heart, then in my sticks, and then in the stars.”
“And that, brother, is why I can never trust you,” I say. “This is not about your redemption, it is about the survival of our people.”
“Can they not be one and the same?” Asome asks. “Every time I try to live for Sharak Ka, I bring ruin and strife. I see now, it is because I was meant to die for it.”
“Your sticks and stars told you that?” I ask.
“The dama’ting say it is a curse to predict your own death, but I had nothing to lose,” Asome says, and I can see the truth of it in his aura. “I pondered my own for many years, but of course I did not understand. I knew I would die here, in the endless night below, at a convergence point.”
Favah taught me of convergences in the Chamber of Shadows. The future is woven out of choices, each casting us down a different path. Some choices, like what to have for breakfast, cause little variation. Others can shape the world. Those points can cloud a seer’s ability to look beyond.
“I did not know if I would die on the journey,” Asome continues, “or in challenging you, or in Sharak Ka. But I knew, I know, I will not return. This is my death.”
He leans forward, pressing his forehead to the floor between his hands. “I beg you, sibling. Let it be the one death that can bring balance to the evil I have done.”
He means it, as much as I can tell. Against my better judgment, I again feel sympathy for my brother. “I have barely learned to control the crown with a week to practice. How can you hope to master it in time?”
There’s a change in Asome’s aura, something of the old haughtiness returning. “The replica of Father’s crown I made when I took the throne? The Damajah enhanced its powers, but I daresay I know them better than you.”
He’s right, though it is strange to think of. Why shouldn’t it burn him to see me wear it?
I walk over to where my brother kneels, laying a hand on his shoulder. I am willing to die, but I don’t want to. For Asome, it is all he wants. A final glory to weigh against his soul on Everam’s scales.
I don’t believe in a literal Heaven, but it doesn’t matter what I believe, it matters what he does.
I press the meat of my thumb into the spiked ward of the crown’s chin strap, undoing the blood lock with a click. Asome doesn’t look up, but he removes his turban and the helm beneath, holding it out. My vision goes black as I remove the crown, cutting me off not only from the csar and its power, but even from wardsight, itself.
I take Asome’s helm and slip it on. The fit is disconcertingly comfortable, and the world once again lights up with magic’s glow. I fall into my breath, setting the crown on Asome’s head and fastening the strap, letting him press his thumb into the blood lock and activate the crown’s power.
Asome gasps as magic suffuses him, but he does not falter, getting to his feet. “Father. I am ready.”
“Oh, my son.” Father’s voice resonates in the stone around us. “It is only now you see. But there is still time to embrace glory.”
Magic begins flowing into Asome at a frightening rate. Not the raw magic of the Core, but the pure golden fire of Sharik Hora, of the sacrifice of heroes.
Asome is suffused with power, filling the crown, his staff, his very body. Still it flows, the wards cut into his skin flaring so hot they burn through his robes. Darin and I both step back as the heat of it flushes our faces.
Then Asome crouches, whirling the golden fire around himself like a cyclone as he launches toward the demon queen.
* * *
—
The forbidding flickers as Father summons all the power at his command, funneling it into my brother through the crown. He smashes into the queen so hard her legs flail, dropping her precious charge, the weakened Alagai Ka.
And he is weak. If he had any strength, the Father of Demons would never do something so mundane as to fall. But fall he does, skittering off the forbidding and riding its curve down to the ground with a streak of wardlight.
“There!” Darin points, already dissipating.
“Don’t go alone!” I shout, but I know it isn’t enough. Without the crown I can no longer fly or ride waves of magic like a bird on the wind. Darin can be there before I get down the steps.
I leap the railing instead, sliding down the great dome of Sharik Hora. When I get to the bottom I leap, taking off much of my momentum as I land on one of the lesser domes and slide from there to a terrace, where I pick a path down that has me swinging from masonry, statues, and banner poles until I can drop to the street.
I ignore the sting of impact, not knowing if Darin is with me or already gone. I take off at a mad run through the streets toward the section of wall where Alagai Ka fell.
Darin is waiting at the nearest small gate, little more than a thick door just large enough to admit warriors one at a time. The guards fall over themselves to open it and get out of our way.
I look up as we exit the csar, but the light from above is blinding. Next to the massive demon queen, my brother is little more than an insect, but he shines like the sun, and even the magic-hungry queen cannot withstand the glare. Her shrieks are echoed by the demonic multitudes clawing at the forbidding.
One group of demons ignores the barrier, circling inward. I don’t need to guess around what as I put on speed. My weapons and armor are still hot with magic, and I am prepared to smash through as many alagai as necessary to get to their king.
Darin paces me, raising his pipes. Sharp, discordant sounds drive the demons out of our path like a shepherd’s switch, revealing Alagai Ka, lying limp on the ground.
The Father of Demons is emaciated compared to when I last saw him, just knobbed charcoal flesh sunken over a tiny skeleton. His aura is dim, barely alive, and I can see lines of magic still tethering him to the queen. I grip my short spear, stalking in. Even Darin has his knife in hand.
I hear a whine in the air, rising in tension until there is a shattering sound and the eternal night of the cavern turns to day as my brother’s crown—and my brother—are consumed. Momentarily blinded, I hold my killing blow for a clearer strike.
My eyes flick upward. Already the light of Asome’s sacrifice has faded, but the queen herself is burning, her thorax blown open and hollowed as she drops to the ground.
I flick my eyes back, finding Alagai Ka right where he was before. I lunge.
I am tackled by a field demon, knocked from his path. I catch the impact on my shield and drive home a killing blow in seconds, but it’s all the time the demon king needs, now that his tether to the queen is broken.
The alagai have stopped responding to Darin’s pipes. They’re moving with direction now, encircling us, cutting us off from Alagai Ka.
Not this time. Darin turns to mist, passing through the other demons to materialize on the other side, knife leading.
I take a less subtle approach, locking my shoulder against my shield and bulling right through. It’s reckless, but we have only seconds before…
Just as our blades come in range, the demon king dissipates, and we strike only the stone where he lay.
The demon horde perks up then, as if in answer to some distant call. As one, they stampede for the tunnels leading to the hive.
No. No no no. Can’t end like this. Not again.
Olive looks at me in horror. I reach out, taking her arm in a tight grip. “We have to go after him. Now.”
“How?” Olive demands.
I take it as consent, Drawing power through her as effortlessly as I pull in a breath. I feel our auras connect, an invasion of privacy neither of us would normally allow, but there’s no time for blushing at secrets. Olive trusts me, letting down her defenses as I probe.
Olive’s magic ent the same as mine. My parents et demon meat, and it became a part of them. It’s why they could do magic tricks other folk couldn’t, and how it got passed on to me.
Olive’s parents din’t eat demon meat, but they were using a lot of magic when she was conceived. There’s rippin’ paintings in every Holy House in Hollow of Duchess Leesha casting her spells against the demons, belly round with child.
She can’t dissipate, but Olive’s got magic in her, just like me. She soaks it like a sponge, suffusing her aura and manifesting in physical ways. She heals quick as a demon. Bones like iron and muscles like steel cable.
I Know her now, and reach for the center of her aura, tugging experimentally with my will.
Then I blow us apart.
Dragging, I called it, when Mam used to do it to me. Name’s apt. I pull Olive along, feeling her screams more than I hear them as her mind is subjected to the madness of skating, riding through an endless network of magic streams flowing from the Core.
I’d never have found the right one on my own, but I can follow Alagai Ka’s tainted spoor through streams of magic as easily as I track a scent.
Olive said mating with the mimic queen nearly killed Alagai Ka. That a queen takes everything for her young, leaving her mate close to death, if he survives at all.
It’s all we got goin’ for us as we materialize in the center of the hive ward where a well larger than Safehold’s lies dormant. Demon ent expectin’ us, and isn’t quick enough as Olive punches her spear through his abdomen, pinnin’ him to the ground.
He claws at her, but he’s slow. I hack off the arm with Mam’s knife. Before he can recover, Olive stabs him in the chest with her hanzhar, over and over.
Should have hit him in the head. Demon don’t need his limbs to trigger dissipation. He melts away from our weapons and makes another break for it. Doesn’t run away this time. Not with all that power beneath our feet. He reaches out a tendril like a straw, drinking in the magic. Growin’ strong again.
No way to stop him like this, but facin’ the demon’s will alone in the mists scares the core out of me.
Lucky I ent alone. I grab Olive again, linking auras as I dissolve us into mist and reach for the well. Alagai Ka senses us and attacks, will against will, but he is still weak and disoriented, no match for the sum of our determination. He forms a connection, but he does not control it.
I use the connection to pull close, trying grab him like when I turn sticky, like I did with Mam. I ent the angry sort. Never seemed to serve much purpose or make things better. Hate feeling that way.
But I got a hurt deep inside me, and I don’t mind sharing it with the monster that caused it.
Ent gettin’ away this time, I growl in the demon’s mind. Ent a dozen people will miss me when I’m gone, but the whole world’s better off without you.
What? Olive’s voice sounds in the darkness.
You were right, I tell her. Mam was right. Da, too. This is bigger’n us.
I try to peel her off me like Mam did as I reach for the well. Just one more sacrifice, and it’s over. Won’t need to live with the pain of losing Mam. Won’t have to live with anythin’. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll all find each other in the Core.
I touch the dormant power, lying in wait of a will to command it. Limitless potential, enough to grant me one wish. One infinite act, and then oblivion.
Olive is still clutching at my aura. She understands what I mean to do. Wants me to do it. But she ent lettin’ go. Friends to the end.
Together, she whispers in my mind.
Alagai Ka doesn’t understand. Not at all. Sacrificing oneself for others? That is the design of lesser creatures, drones and prey and livestock. But he doesn’t have to understand the act to know it will prove his undoing.
Demon sends us visions, reminders of what we got to lose. The shady spot by the swimming hole in Soggy Marsh. Grandda Jeph’s farm. Rojvah’s kisses. Selen’s embrace.
And Olive. Funeral processions at her loss, her mother weeping, clad ever more in black. The wailing across Hollow, the breaking of Prince Rhinebeck’s heart. That bouncy girl she kissed at Solstice, cryin’ her eyes out.
I hesitate for only a moment, but the demon senses it and flexes the last of his will, breaking our hold. He casts his senses deep into the pathways of magic flowing from the hive, until he finds the one he’s looking for. One he has never dared explore.
There’s a queen there. He senses her, even from so far away. The thought fills him with fear, but not as much as the oblivion he faces here, as Olive and I put the collective spark of our anger into the well of power.
Before the magic ignites, Alagai Ka binds himself to the deep pathway and lets it carry him away.
It is a desperate leap. If he survives at all, he will materialize weak, crippled, and vulnerable in foreign lands. If this new hive has any strength to it, they will destroy him on sight.
Olive and I are of one mind as we follow, escaping the hive even as the tremors begin. Alagai Ka will find no solace here ever again.
Already the path is growing cold, but I give over to instinct, diving deeper than Mam ever dragged me. Deeper than anyone in their right mind would dare.
We’re so close to the Core. I hear it callin’, but it’s the sound of a cliff callin’ you to leap off. A fire callin’ you to stick in your hand. Always thought it would be more than I can resist, but it’s easier than I expect to say no, finding the powerful upward current Alagai Ka used and shooting for the surface like a geyser.
We’re spat out like water in a fountain, landing face-first in the sand.
Are we back in the desert? Did I make a mistake? Lead us to the wrong place?
Then water splashes us, thick and salty, and both of us cough and choke on it, staggering to our feet.
There’s stone overhead, and for a moment I think we’re still underground. Then I see moonlight reflecting off the water, and I see we’re in some sort of grotto. Behind us, the caves run deep, but we stumble, coughing and choking, for the open air.
“Look out!” I call as I hear the swell. Olive sees the rising wave and grabs on to me, setting her feet as it crashes over us. With a grip on the back of my coat, she hauls us both to shore.
Olive spits salt water onto the beach. “Where are we?”
I shrug. “Across the sea.”
“That isn’t terribly helpful,” Olive says, looking around. “I don’t see the demon.”
“Me either,” I admit. “But he’s been here. He’s weak, wounded, and can’t travel much farther until he gets his strength back. Came here because he sensed a queen. We find her, we find him.”
“You make it sound simple,” Olive says.
“Is,” I say. “Demon thought he’s been huntin’ us all this time.
“Now we’re huntin’ him.”
Ajin’pal/ajin’pan: Blood brother/blood sister. Name for the bond that forms between a mentor and a young warrior fighting their first alagai’sharak. An ajin’pal or pan is considered a blood relative thereafter.
Ajin’pel: Blooded to many. A warrior of such renown that they have blooded many an ajin’pal over the years. Ajin’pel are very influential among the Sharum.
Ala: (1) The perfect world created by Everam, corrupted by Nie. (2) Dirt, soil, clay, et cetera.
Alagai: Corelings (demons). Direct translation is “plague of Ala.”
Alagai hora: Demonbones used to create magic items, such as the warded dice dama’ting use to tell the future. Alagai hora burst into flame if exposed to direct sunlight.
Alagai Ka: The mind demon, Consort to Alagai’ting Ka, the Mother of Demons. Also known as Father of Demons, the Father of Lies, and the demon king. Alagai Ka and his sons were said to be the most powerful of the demon lords—generals and captains of Nie’s forces.
Alagai-scale: Special Majah armor technique guarded by the powerful Tazhan family.
Alagai’sharak: Holy war against demonkind.
Alagai tail: A whip consisting of three strips of leather braided with sharp barbs to cut into a victim’s flesh. Used by dama as an instrument of punishment.
Alagai’ting Ka: The Mother of Demons of Krasian myth, also known as the Mother of Evil and the demon queen.
Alomom: Powder that Watchers use to hide the scent of their sweat.
Arms of Everam: Guards of the Holy City in Desert Spear. They wear white sleeves with their Sharum blacks, symbolizing their arms in service to the dama.
Asu: “Son” or “son of,” often used as a suffix or prefix in a boy’s name.
Baba: Grandfather (informal term of affection).
Bido: Loincloth worn by both men and women under their robes. A youth who has not yet earned vocational robes is referred to as “still in their bido.”
Bloodfather: Godparent, used most often for ajin’pal of a deceased father.
Chin: Outsider/infidel. Anyone who is not at least half-blood Krasian. Chin is derogatory, synonymous with coward.
Chi’Sharum: Greenbloods who go through Hannu Pash and are raised to warrior status with all of its rights and privileges. Their caste remains below that of the Krasian-blood dal’Sharum.
