Dark Lord's Wedding (74 page)

She lifted him above the surface by his gold knife. “Perhaps your god is not as ravenous for them as you suppose.”

“Cut out Lord Tethiel’s.” The Talon threw the gold knife to Hiresha.

“When a man promises his heart to his wife,” Tethiel said, “he has to trust she won’t cut it out and offer it to a god of bloodlust.”

“Your heart will be safe with me.” Hiresha threw the knife to the Talon. It hovered above him, gleaming until he took hold of it. She said, “I choose to believe there’s a better way.”

Her two worlds scraped against each other like two flawless jewels smashing together. They would scratch and chip. Unless she succeeded now they might cleave themselves in the ruination of natural wonder and lifetime achievement. Nothing less was at stake.

She raised her plated gauntlets to the god. “You have my forgiveness. Take it all.”

No struggle through sky or sea had ever tried her harder. The strain of it brought tears. This she would yield. Her conflict of rage and vengeance with the god had left her weak. Then, he had drained her as well. This time, she felt different: a coldness sliced through her skull in an oblivion headache. It felt as if part of her brain had been excised and replaced with packed ice. Her tears she levitated amongst her jewels in a vortex of her own design.

The Winged Flame changed direction and fluttered the other way around. His plumage shifted from fire blue to igneous green. His loops widened. He revolved around them in a helix. Waves whipped into the beginning of a whirlpool. Hiresha had to rebalance her footing as water squirmed beneath her enchanted boots.

Now they were surrounded by a feathery inferno of blue. The change could’ve been coincidence or a sign of satisfaction.

Hiresha had stayed upright, though her hand was a vice on Tethiel’s. She shivered in her armor. Her head throbbed behind the eyes. The pain alone might stop her from forgiving anyone in the future.

“I worry,” she said to him, “I had to make myself a fraction of a Bright Palm.”

“How do you feel?”

Even as she touched her brow with a point of amethyst claw, the coldness within her changed. It roughened around the edges. Heat leaked in. Then she boiled. She hated how she had given part of herself to a dragon. No matter if it was the optimal action, the only solution, she would never forgive herself for it. For the dragon she felt only an aching numbness.

In another world, another Hiresha wept atop a rain cloud. She had lost her friends, and she would never be the same. Few enough remained whom she could trust, and these she would have to treasure all the more.

One stood beside her in this facet of rising suns. Tethiel peered at her. He was rapt for her. To him, she could speak.

“I feel … I think from now on you will have to be merciful and forgiving enough for us both.”

“Then I will.” Tethiel’s voice was still composed despite the feather storm. Illusion or not, he didn’t shout. “If you will be the restraint for my hunger.”

“We will each of us be complements. The dubious will guide the doubtful.” She smiled and was glad for it. Hiresha could still experience happiness. She could still be grateful to have married Tethiel, even with a dragon circling above.

His coils spanned upward in a tunnel of sky. The power of him beat against her mind and body in blusters. She withstood them. She remained herself, mostly. Hiresha called up to the god as the Talon had last night. He had named the god Abandon, yet the god was not one thing but many. No one title would suffice for this being. This god was a living tempest of opposites. She would choose the one she pleased.

“He is Devotion.”

The fennec fox led the way. Hiresha suspected he took some measure of satisfaction in the exaltations of the citizens. They threw themselves down before him. Others leaped and cried out. Tears and laughter were in equal abundance.

For once, Hiresha could presume she outshone the fox. He had his wealth in ears, yet she was a new bride. She marched arm in arm with Tethiel through the city.

“Blessed by the god.” People tossed flowers from their rooftops, from violets to saffron. “A divine marriage.”

All was brightness. All was color. All was relief, if one rounded up. Hiresha never sought euphoria, yet sometimes it couldn’t be avoided.

The Winged Flame lazed through the air above them. The heat of his influence had lessened, perhaps due to his satiety; or people had grown accustomed. He seemed content to bask overhead and shine down upon the procession.

Hiresha couldn’t regret his survival. One dragon had already been destroyed last night. The world shouldn’t lose all its marvels.

“Any fool can slay dragons,” Tethiel said. “The truly great befriend them.”

“Agreeing with you is ever so easy,” she said. “I only need overlook all the flaws of logic and personality.”

“Fewer now, no thanks to you.” He tapped his dawnstone amulet. He managed to saunter even wearing full armor. “You wished to be with me forever, and so with me you’ll be cursed.”

“The centuries may positively speed by, as long as you leave me alone for the majority to work.”

“Delicious! I’ve married the ideal woman.”

Along the rooftops, the jaguar knight stalked. Pleasure sparkled within Hiresha to see him recovered. The fennec yipped up at him. He called back with a booming blast of air.

Another guest approached, carried above the throngs in a chair. Alyla’s crystalline poise had returned at the cost of her humanity. Tear-salt had dried on her cheeks.

Hiresha gripped the Bright Palm’s hand. Alyla squeezed back. She had begun to regain command of her body. Her spinal cord was regenerating, nerves reaching out to embrace. As heartless as her magic was, yet Hiresha admired its wonders.

“I shall craft a sword in honor of Fos,” Hiresha said, “and it will endure.”

To this, Alyla had no response. She did manage to dip her chin down in a nod to Tethiel. Their pact was unbroken. Hiresha could count the wedding a success.

The Bright Palm’s chair had been borne on the shoulders of the assassins. They had left their gem-shard blades behind, perhaps out of politeness for Hiresha’s loss. They had tried to help her defeat the dragon.

They had failed. They’d attacked her previously, and hatred for them flooded over her skin in burning agony. This wasn’t right. She wanted to dismember this couple piece by piece. She could think of reasons why she shouldn’t, yet none of them mattered. Only one thing might stop the magma surging within her before it reformed her insides into obsidian. She must torture the assassins to death.

“I told you I would spare you.” She lifted a gauntlet and a system of sharp jewels, ready to shred Sagai. “I changed my mind.”

“No, my heart.” Tethiel pressed down on her arm. “We mustn’t punish people for aiding us.”

“They may attempt another assassination,” she said.

“Then exile them. That would be merciful.”

“And practical.” Yes, Hiresha should have realized it. She would have, if she could still forgive. Tethiel had covered her new deficiency. Merely gazing at him eased the abscess of anger within her. She regripped his arm to keep a handle on her wrath and turned back to the couple. “You would be wise to stay a continent distant. I will know if you approach. These jewels will tell me.”

She touched their brows. A ring of amethysts embedded in their skin in the pattern of eclipsed moons.

“Do not attempt to tamper with them,” she said.

Both assassins held in their tears from the piercings. Sagai even smiled. The couple exchanged a look. Relief flickered between them, as well as fondness, and other things Hiresha expected only they could read in each other.

Sagai turned to bow to Hiresha. “This time, we will take your advice.”

“As far away from you as we can,” Naroh said. She pressed the flat of her hand against Sagai’s. It didn’t even amount to holding hands, but perhaps that was her way. She touched the reddening skin on his forehead and then glared back at Hiresha. “You barnacle-hearted kraken!”

“She’s well salted,” Tethiel said to Hiresha, “isn’t she?”

“Too free with her compliments, surely,” Hiresha said. “Now the both of you had best go, before I force you to sacrifice your devotion to the god.”

The couple must have had a trove of life force. The Winged Flame whirled above them, trilled and warbled like a menagerie freed from cages. Rolling belly up, he arched around in a perfect circle. The two heads met, and their tongues flicked together.

When the procession encountered Elbe, Hiresha had to admit the Purest had been right about the necessity of forgiveness.

The Purest’s aplomb gave no hint she had been recently stranded atop a dome. She must have climbed down by herself, or with the help of some of the many women clamoring around. Elbe leaned on one, favoring the ankle she had sprained.

She stepped forward alone. The Purest risked collapse to rest her hands on Hiresha and Tethiel. “You’ve done all I hoped. This will be a golden age of sweetness and harmony.”

“Of cooperation,” Hiresha said.

“Your marriage has united us all,” Elbe said.

Tethiel said, “A stable marriage may be impossible unless it’s scorned. Would you at least have the decency to feign disapproval?”

Elbe made no such promise.

On the way back to the river, they met the Talon. The blood speckled around him appeared to be all his own. He danced with a swaying grace, gazing up to his god.

“If you stare overlong you may go blind,” Hiresha said.

“I should have more than two eyes to give.” His lips split upward into a smile, and he rubbed his blade over his hand. “Eyes! Oh Lady of Glorious Sacrifices, you are an inspiration.”

“Some blood may still be required, yet fewer deaths, I should hope,” Hiresha said. “Like all things, homage must evolve.”

“Yes, feed him more than hearts. I see that now. More than eyes. Yes, yes. The god of gods must have life force from all, not just the dying.”

After they had left him to his happy babbling, Hiresha spoke to Tethiel. “Should I still cause him to die in torment?”

“His god would approve of us taking revenge.”

“You’re not only saying that because he burned your coat?”

“Mercy has its limits,” Tethiel said.

“Curious. In this moment, I desire nothing more than to take his life. I worry that I’ll not be able to forgive myself for doing so.”

“I will forgive you, my heart.”

“Then that must suffice,” she said.

They met the last of the living guests on a pier. The Green Bloods Ix and Saul crouched dripping over her blue paragon. Her happiness surged in direct proportion to its gleam.

“You found it in the river.” Hiresha lifted the diamond and spun it between her gauntlets. Mud was Repulsed from its facets.

“I did,” Ix said.

“Dishonesty erodes the soul.” Saul sniffed at Ix. “They only spotted it. I swam the jewel here.”

“I would have,” Ix said, “but they tried to drown me.”

“No. I was saving you. The current was too strong for the weakness you’ve invited into yourself.”

Ix dug blue fingers into Saul’s red arm. “Killing you might be worth the pain of dying.”

“My spirit is ready for death, as it is for life. Yours is neither.”

“As much as I hate to interrupt your joy,” Tethiel said, “did the jewel’s poisons enrich the river?”

“Venoms, my dear. Venoms.”

“Quite right, my heart.”

Ix snorted. “I have more control of my bane. It wouldn’t leak away. Can’t speak for Saul.”

Hiresha moved on only after it became clear nothing dreadful would have seeped into the Gargantuan. She judged the two Green Bloods were enjoying their argument. They wouldn’t do each other true harm.

“Those two could spend many a happy day bickering,” Tethiel said.

“They’ve formed some manner of bond. How tempting to sacrifice it to the Winged Flame to study what he makes of it.”

“The best thing to do with temptation is give in at once.”

“For that reason we’ll delay here no longer.” Hiresha stood at the end of the river. She didn’t bother with the dramatics of lifting her hands or any such nonsense. She sent her will into the waters and Lightened the sunken corsair.