Dark Lord's Wedding (53 page)

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 they 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.

One scorpion infant tumbled off. Saul tossed it into their mouth and swallowed. “I am not the keeper of Ix’s happiness. They are. We have full control of but one thing in life, our spirit.”

“You are a voice of reason living at the edge of the wilds,” Hiresha said. “Did you argue with Ix?”

“After the hex, after my blood ran green, I had an awakening.”

“Died a man, reborn in venom,” Tethiel said.

“In poison, my dear. Poison,” Hiresha said. “Did you not see the deadly oiliness of their skin?”

“Quite right, my heart.”

Saul stared down at the centipede devouring the scorpion and its young. “We could not be together because Ix couldn’t imagine us apart.”

“I like this one,” Tethiel said.

She did as well. This Green Blood would serve them better than Ix. “Have you considered being a king?”

“We always planned to, Ix and I. To become Green Bloods and rule together with venom and poison.”

Saul hefted the giant centipede. It coiled around their chest. Despite its name, the centipede only had forty legs, which drummed helplessly. The Green Blood inhaled, nostrils flaring inches away from the clicking pinchers. Toxins spurted from the tips. Saul smiled to the ears then bit off the insect’s head.

“Then I changed,” they said, “and I saw that nobleness of the spirit came not from achieving your desire but giving it up.”

“No, only cowards shy from their hungers,” Tethiel said.

Hiresha shushed him.

“What makes a king grand? Only his spirit. The same is true of a slave.” Saul pulled out the purple string of the centipede’s intestines and slurped them down. “King and slave are both my kin, and I will not poison them.”

“Technically, you’re no longer related,” Hiresha said.

Tethiel hushed her.

“I’ll not poison for you,” Saul said, “even if it means my death.”

Discovering this Green Blood charmed Hiresha more than finding a lost emerald in a cloak pocket. The Lands of Loam needed more deep thinkers, ones not quick to kill for power.

Hiresha glanced to Tethiel. His left pupil winked at her. Yes, they could make good use of Saul.

“You are a thoughtful being, and you deserve the truth,” Hiresha said. “We came wishing for you to influence Ix.”

“We can’t intimidate the rudely fearless,” Tethiel said, “but we can do worse than threaten. We can help you.”

Tethiel might be of the same mind as her. At the least, Hiresha expected him to support her in this scheme. “You told us both king and slave are your brothers, and yet you isolate yourself from them.”

“Only to protect them.” Saul tossed the remains of the centipede off the branch. It tumbled into the depths of the forest floor.

“You can do better,” Hiresha said. “Your power to kill must be matched by your power to save lives with antivenom. You could go from village to village, scent the local deadly fauna and flora, and concoct a cure for each.”