Dark Lord's Wedding (52 page)

“Then,” Hiresha said, “if the Feaster threat were removed, you could be free to reach an accord with the Talon.”

“Yes,” Alyla said.

Hiresha did her best to keep the gloat from her grin. She had arranged all she needed to for now, and Tethiel was waiting on her. The guests had gathered to witness the rare orchids. A hum had built in the crystal palace. Miss Barrows would wish to be warned of what was coming.

A zircon zipped down to tap Miss Barrows on her nose. She swatted then looked up, her lips pursed in a worried oval. Hiresha nodded down at her. Miss Barrows stopped whatever she had been doing, which looked suspiciously like spreading green honey over the fingers of a young man, and scurried away with her daughter to the cover of the changing room.

“Behold!” Tethiel said.

The servers lifted the silver lids. The orange petals within were saturated in color to the point they appeared black. The guests had time to glimpse the flowers: orchids with the approximate shape of female genitalia.

Then the locust swarm devoured them.

The insects billowed through the crystal doorways. With a screeching, throbbing,
scritch-scritching
, the locusts clouded the room with their black wings. They covered the platters with their red bodies. The orchids were buried under spiky legs and crimson exoskeletons.

No locust could touch Hiresha through her will. The other guests were no so protected. Their cries were drowned out by the swarm. The king brute swung about him with his axe. He would have struck off few insect wings and rather more limbs from Elbe, had not Hiresha pulled the Purest out of the maniac’s reach.

Elbe withstood the insectile barrage with more aplomb. She raised her hands in a pose of exaltation. The locus covered them at once, resting their wings and hopping down her arms. The fennec too was delighted by the outburst, leaping through the whizzing red bugs and catching one in his mouth.

The swarm descended from the ceiling. Its bulk clattered against the crystal doors, which were now closed. The locusts had left the platters bare. Not a petal of the rare orchids remained.

“All gone to the bugs?” Fos reached below his collar and flicked out a locust.

“All stolen,” Tethiel said. A server gave him a pack of butterfly nets, and Tethiel in turn handed them to the guests. “A delicacy worthy of kings has been plundered. We will take it back, sweetened with vengeance.”

Hiresha took no net for herself but said, “The nightbliss flower is even more potent when partially digested by locust.”

“To me, hungry warriors.” Tethiel raised his net toward the swarm. “We’ll take them all prisoner. The Chef is heating the frying oil in anticipation of our victory.”

While they planned the attack, Hiresha instructed the servers to roll in the gifts. The four largest presents came shrouded in black velvet. She arranged the hulks beside the vaulted tables.

Soon she could unveil the great gifts. She knew they would make men into kings and kings into indisputable sovereigns. The boons would not be much needed for a bug hunt.

The jaguar knight growled and leaped through the cloud of black wings. The locusts teemed away and into the waiting nets. The fennec jumped too, with even greater herding results when accounting for his relative mass. How bold of the little dear, considering the likelihood of insects bouncing into his ears, each small nets unto themselves, if far more becoming.

“A good hunt,” the king brute said after the locust had been caught and fried. He knuckled Tethiel’s shoulder. “And a well-planned attack.”

“The first of many for us,” Tethiel said. “Now taste the spoils.”

“Netted the sluggish ones,” Fos said and crunched into a locust. “They’re the ones that munched on flowers.”

“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.