Black Hellebore (Wraith Kings)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

I n the month since their return to Saggara from Orshulgyn, Ildiko had been plagued by bad dreams and grim memories. Ineni cutting Tarawin’s heel, her own abduction, the Kai guard beheading the human driver in front of her, the hot splatter of his blood on her shift, the rattle of the urn lid and the feel of icy fingers on her calf from the touch of a dead sorcerer—all combined to rob her of sleep.

Sometimes the memories visited during her waking hours, when her mended bones remembered cracking against unyielding ground after she and her guard fell. She didn’t recall anything else beyond explosive agony until she opened her eyes to see Brishen’s beloved face hovering above her, golden eye shining like a beacon. She’d been dying then; she was certain of it. He’d saved her with the last of the Elder magic he’d hoarded since his time as a Wraith King—and forged a tether between her and another Wraith King.

“Witch, open the gate for me.”

She’d spoken those words in unison with Megiddo as Brishen strove to claw her out of Death’s hold. She uttered them now on a harsh gasp as she hurtled up from restless sleep and the recurring dream of the doomed monk.

Brishen bolted up beside her, knife in one hand, the other holding her arm in a firm grip, ready to fight his way out of their bed to protect her. After a moment of silence, he returned the knife to its place under his pillow. The hold he had on her arm became a caress. “Easy, wife,” he crooned softly in the darkness. “You were dreaming.”

Despite the perspiration sheening her skin, she shivered. Brishen coaxed her to lie down once more and tucked her into the cove of his body. She caught one of his hands, entwining her fingers with his. “I’m sorry, Brishen. I keep waking you with all my noise and twitching.”

His low chuckle vibrated against her back and caressed the top of her head. “That would be our daughter, not you.” He kissed the top of her head. “You spoke the words as before. You dreamed of Megiddo, didn’t you?”

She nodded. They both called it a dream, but it was more than that. A vibrant vision not wrought from her memory or created by her imagination, but a true moment of time and place in which she looked out at the world from Megiddo’s eyes and spoke with his mouth, calling a terrified young woman a witch and commanding her to open a gate.

They stood within a ruined enclosure, a temple or sanctuary that somehow seemed familiar and was surrounded by a winter-bare forest frosted in snow and bejeweled in ice. The woman sat on the ground, fighting with all her might to keep from being dragged toward the broken steps. A writhing miasma of shadows swirled about Megiddo, twisted faces with fanged maws opened wide in silent screams and howls. Madness trapped within an ethereal cloak worn by the doomed monk.

The first time she described the vision to Brishen, he’d paled to the color of cold ash. “Those are the galla, though I have no idea who the woman is.” One of his hands had flexed as if he wanted to shred the memory of the abominations who’d attacked Haradis and changed the fate of the Kai forever. “Were they torturing him?” Dread at her impending answer threaded through his voice, along with the awful guilt she’d seen bow his shoulders many times.

Ildiko had clasped his arm, though she didn’t know if she did so to sooth him or warn him. “No.” The gods had granted her the mercy of not yet witnessing Megiddo’s suffering as Brishen had, but what she’d seen made her shudder. “I don’t think he’s their victim anymore, Brishen. I think he’s their master.” He’d shuddered at her words.

What had she witnessed through the power of the Elder magic Brishen had sent rushing through her body? And what was the fate of the poor woman who’d defied Megiddo’s grim command?

She drifted to sleep once more, still troubled but comforted enough in her husband’s arms not to be plagued by more dreams. When she woke, the darkness within their enclosed bed was more gray than black, and she could make out the faint outline of Brishen’s sleeping sprawled next to her.

While she lived her life now during the nocturnal hours as the Kai did, she woke early, when the sun still blazed bright in late afternoon. Those were the hours when Saggara was at its most peaceful, when most of the Kai slept and those assigned day duty moved quietly through the manor and the grounds. She used that time to either sit in solitary bliss in the garden or read a book in the library, perched in a chair next to one of the tall windows where the sun spilled a lattice work of light across the floor and warmed her skin.

Today, however, was not a day for such indulgences, and her stomach roiled with dread at the task ahead of her. With Sinhue’s help, she dressed quietly and braided her hair into a simple style that she fastened at her nape with a pair of ornate pins. The maid pronounced her presentable with a hand signal and the two tiptoed toward the door.

“Are you certain about this, Ildiko?” Brishen’s voice called from behind the bed curtains.

Both mistress and maid froze in their tracks, and Ildiko flinched before turning around to face the bed. “I’m certain, Brishen.”

The answering silence was long and heavy. “So be it. If you need me, I’ll come.”

Such a simple statement, yet behind it, the most majestic promise. Ildiko smiled. “I know.”

She and Sinhue left with a quiet click of the door behind them, greeted the battalion of guards lining the hallway outside the royal bedchamber and nursery, and descended the stairs toward the ground floor. While the servants passing them offered salutations as they went about their duties, their expressions were no longer curious at seeing the hercegesé awake during the Kai small hours.

She entered the narrow corridor that acted as the only entrance and exit to Saggara’s prison. Sinhue kept pace beside her, carrying a lantern to light her mistress’s way. The warden himself had met them in the courtyard, offering the light and a respectful bow before leading the hercegesé’s entourage into his domain.

Built below ground when Saggara first rose on this flat plain as the summer palace for the Kai royal household, the prison was a modest affair with a dozen small cells used to house prisoners prior to transport to the capital for trial. Even now, with Saggara the new capital of Bast-Haradis, it maintained its humble size. Most of its occupants were moved to the prefectures from which they came where the local justiciars oversaw trials, handed down judgments, and meted out punishments and executions.

There were sometimes exceptions. A few were too important or too dangerous to release outside of Saggara’s walls and place in the hands of lower-ranking officials. They were kept in cells isolated from those waiting for transport. At the moment, only one such prisoner held that dubious honor. Those who had aided in her plan had been executed within a day of Brishen returning to Saggara, their bodies buried without proclamation or lamentations.

Ildiko wiped her damp palms on her skirts as she kept her eyes on the warden’s back and counted the synchronous steps they’d naturally fallen into as they traversed the long hallway toward a set of doors bound by iron straps and crossed by a heavy bar fitted into a pair stout brackets. Her stomach, queasy for hours from dread, erupted into a roil when the warden called out to the pair of guards standing sentinel on either side of the doors.

“Raise the bar and open the doors,” he instructed.

The two leaped to his command, and soon the entry into the prison yawned wide to welcome them.

“Are you well, Hercegesé?” Sinhue eyed her, concern for her mistress furrowing her brow. “You look paler than usual.”

Ildiko swallowed and gave the maid a thin smile. “I will be,” she said. “As soon as this is done.”

When she’d first told him what she wished to do, Brishen had offered to accompany her, his face grim, his eye bright with the slow-burning anger that had yet to cool since he’d rescued her and Tarawin a month earlier. “You don’t owe that traitorous bitch anything, Ildiko, except maybe your wrath. If you wish to bid her farewell, I’ll do it for you so you won’t have to see her again.” The audible snap of his teeth on those last words had made Ildiko wince.

She’d squeezed his hand. “I could use the same argument for you. Someone else can mete out her sentence. Why does it have to be you?”

A coldness settled over his features that almost made Ildiko recoil from him. “Because she stole my wife and daughter, injured both, tried to extort me into a rape, and nearly got you killed. I failed to protect my loved ones.” He bared his teeth, and this time Ildiko did step back. “I want to do this, wife.”

His cheek had been hot under her palm when she cupped his face. “Once this is done, you have to let your anger and the undeserved self-reproach go. If you don’t, then the question becomes who is truly being punished? Don’t surrender that power to her.”

She understood the rage. Had once simmered with it herself as Brishen healed from wounds inflicted on him by his torturers. She’d ordered their deaths and never lost sleep over it, buoyed by the fury that had made the blood sizzle in her veins. Still, she didn’t wish another burden upon him. Guilt and anger were relentless overseers. Even Ildiko’s insistence that the only person at fault in this entire debacle was Ineni—a desperate woman who’d paid a terrible price thanks to the blindness of despair and the misguided fervor of zealotry—did nothing to blunt the edges.

Saggara’s prison, while hidden deep in the earth below the redoubt, was clean and dry. Brishen had been unbudging in his insistence that it be so, and regularly inspected it himself to make sure his decree was followed to exacting measures.

“Filth, damp, and vermin promote disease,” he once told Ildiko. “Even if I had no mercy for the prisoners, I do for the guards, and I certainly don’t want my family and servants living above a plague pit in the making.”

A good king, she thought. With or without a crown. She was blessed beyond words to be the consort of such a man.

The thought stayed with her as their entourage turned a corner to enter another much shorter hallway where a newly built cell stood at the end. Were it not for the lamp Sinhue carried, the darkness would be thick enough to scoop with a shovel. One guard lit a cold torch bolted to the wall, the blaze of light making everyone, including Ildiko, flinch away for a moment.

“Will this be enough for your needs, Hercegesé?” The warden squinted at her from the shadows of his hood. Torchlight danced across the low ceiling and spilled into the cell where a single occupant crouched, their back to the visitors standing on the other side of the bars.

Ildiko nodded and motioned for Sinhue to pass the lantern to her. “Give us time alone,” she instructed the group. “I’ll summon you when I’m ready to leave.” None protested though Sinhue’s half frown warned she verged on an argument. Ildiko patted the maid’s hand. “I’ll be fine, Sinhue. “This is nothing more than a conversation between two people, and there’s a wall of bars between us. I’m perfectly safe.”

Sinhue’s frown didn’t fade but she did as her mistress bade and followed the others back to the main corridor, leaving Ildiko alone with the prisoner.

“We’re not to have an audience then?” Ineni’s voice was raspy as she slowly stood and pivoted to face Ildiko. She didn’t turn away from the torchlight, and her mismatched gaze settled heavily on Ildiko.

Ineni Emelyin, once a lovely Kai woman of grace, charm, and intelligence, had irrevocably changed. The spell she’d invoked to deceive Brishen had worked its awful power too well, though not well enough. Human magic wasn’t Elder magic, and sorcery was a mercurial thing, even when wielded by an experienced hand. Ineni’s attempt to control a spell not of Elder origin had failed in ways she’d likely never anticipated.

She no longer looked like either Ildiko or herself. Her long hair was a faded mess of white and dull orange, her visage reflecting an unnatural amalgamation of both Kai and human features. It was as if a clumsy god had cobbled together a chimera made from the broken poppets of two races. Her mismatched eyes, one a human gray with a black pupil, the other a glowing yellow, watched Ildiko from the other side of the bars with a bleak steadiness. Her skin, a mottled patchwork of gray and pale pink looked sallow in the torchlight, and her healing hands still bore the marks of Anhuset’s work as torturer. Despite Ineni’s bizarre appearance, Ildiko found it much easier to look upon her now than when she was her mirror’s reflection.

She mentally shook off the memory. “There’s no need for an audience, Ineni.”

“Then you’re here to gloat about my impending death?” She laughed, a bitter sound. “Strange. I never imagined that from you.”

Ildiko bristled. “And I never imagined your treason.”

Ineni’s laughter died abruptly. She sidled up to the bars, the straw covering the cell’s floor whispering under her feet. “Then why are you here, Hercegesé?” Her mismatched eyes narrowed. “If it’s to glean an apology from me, you’re wasting your time. My only regret is my plan failed.”

“The plan where you’d rape the regent for his seed, bear his child, and raise it to overthrow the queen regnant?” Ildiko squeezed the lantern handle with one hand and made a fist of the other behind her back.

She jumped when Ineni slammed her body against the bars, sharp Kai teeth gleaming in the light. “I would never betray the queen! She is Secmis’s granddaughter!”

Ildiko rolled her eyes and watched Ineni’s altered features twist in revulsion. “I think it’s a bit late to reclaim any misplaced morality.” She held up a hand to halt Ineni’s reply. “I didn’t come here to spar with you, or to gloat. I came to tell you that your father has requested he witness your execution. The herceges has denied that request. However, if you wish to see him a final time, an escort will bring him here. But be prepared for…unpleasantness.”

Hatred was more like it, accompanied by crushing grief. The lie of their only child’s death had nearly broken Cephren and his wife. The truth of her survival would have surely killed them. Brishen’s solution for not only sparing Ineni’s parents the truth of her actions, but also any shame for the entire Emelyin clan, had seemed almost god-sent.

They had stood together in the garden, away from prying eyes and listening ears. A small army of guards were outside the garden walls, out of earshot but close enough to defend against any attack. Safety had replaced the days of freer movement for now.

“We can tell them, and the families of her guards, they were ambushed by those who’d abducted you and Tarawin. Ineni admitted she’d told her parents they were going on a hunting trip.” Brishen had paced in front of her. “What do you think?”

“And their bodies?”

He sighed. “That’s the hard part. Even if we say they were burned to ash, there would still be bones. We can say we never found their bodies, only their horses, which their killers stole. Neither one will offer much comfort to Cephren.”

She’d caught his hand, halting his pacing. “Spinning the most elaborate tale will never accomplish the thing Cephren wants most—his daughter back whole and hearty.” She squeezed his fingers. “Keep it simple. I think the ambush idea will work, and our inability to find the bodies more realistic.” It was her turn to sigh. “Who knows? Lack of proof of her death may not offer closure, but it might offer a tiny spark of hope to hold onto, that maybe she isn’t dead but simply lost.”

He’d pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eye. “Hope built on a string of lies.”

“But hope, nonetheless. Kai and human, we have that in common—the need to believe in something better. It gives us fortitude.”

His hands had been warm on her back when he drew her close and bent to press his forehead to hers. “You ease my soul, wife.”

She leaned in to give him a soft kiss. “And you make me brave, husband.”

While she’d declined his offer to come with her for a finalconversation with Ineni, she still wished he were here now. His steady presence always strengthened her spine, especially in the hardest moments.

Ineni lost her defiance at the news of Cephren’s request. Her voice softened to a thin wobble. “He’s here? In Saggara?”

Ildiko nodded, a trickle of pity cooling her temper. Pity for Ineni, but especially for Cephren. “He arrived yesterday, seeking an audience with the herceges. He wishes to face his daughter’s murderer and witness the execution.”

The other woman closed her eyes for a moment. “Why didn’t the herceges grant his request?”

Even if the spell to mimic Ildiko hadn’t worn off, Brishen would have discovered the deception in short order. Despite her previous careful observations, Ineni knew next to nothing about him. Ildiko waited until she opened her eyes once more before answering. “Because he doesn’t believe cruelty should be part of punishment. Yours will be brief. Your father’s punishment will last a lifetime.”

A bitter smile curved Ineni’s mouth. “You’re right. You didn’t come to gloat but to bury the knife.”

Her words struck hard. Ildiko’s entire face heated with the hot blood of shame. She’d counseled Brishen not to succumb to his fury, yet she’d done that very thing, pouring venom into sanctimony disguised as righteousness. “Not originally,” she said softly. “I shouldn’t have said that, though I would be lying if I said I didn’t hope it hurt.”

Ineni regarded her silently, a slight tilt to her head as if puzzling out a conundrum. “I still believe the herceges should set you aside and take a Kai consort. I’m not alone in that belief, but I understand why he’s so devoted to you.” She tucked a tangled lock of hair behind one ear with a swollen finger. “I know he didn’t do it for me, but please tell him I’m grateful for the compassion he’s shown to me, my parents, and my clan.”

She said no more, retreating to a far corner of the cell, her back to the bars. Ildiko watched her for a moment, weary with sadness. Secmis’s thirst for more power had forever changed the kingdom and the people she once ruled. From the destruction of its capital to the destruction of fair Ineni—whom Ildiko once considered not only a friend but her possible replacement when the throne of Bast-Haradis was in jeopardy—the Spider Queen’s malice had infected every part of Kai existence.

Thank the gods, and Brishen, that Secmis is dead, she thought.

Sinhue clucked her disapproval when Ildiko returned to the main corridor where the others waited. “You’re white as milk, Hercegesé.” She glared in the direction of Ineni’s cell. “Did that foul creature hurt you?”

Ildiko’s maid had seen Ineni’s chimeric appearance when Anhuset and Dendarah brought her to Saggara, but didn’t know her identity beyond that of the architect behind the abductions. No one did, outside of the three people who’d rescued them and Ildiko herself. Brishen had made certain it stayed that way, swearing his cousin and the royal guard to silence. They’d done so without hesitation, Anhuset going to so far as to say “Give her to me. I’ll put her to the sword when I’m halfway to High Salure, and bury her where no one will ever find her.”

Brishen had been tempted. Ildiko had seen it in his expression, the desire to wash his hands of the entire ordeal, including the memory of Ineni’s plan for him. Instead, he’d shaken his head. “You’re the margravina of High Salure now. I shouldn’t have involved you in this in the first place. I’ll deal with her.”

Anhuset’s scowl didn’t lessen when he hugged her farewell and bid she convey tidings of good health and fast horses to her husband. “I don’t know which of you is more stubborn, but I could cheerfully bash your heads together sometimes.”

Her sour comment lightened the mood, and Ildiko seized the chance to ask her a question that had pricked her curiosity from the moment Brishen had recounted the transformed Ineni’s appearance in their camp. “Why were you so suspicious of her initially? Brishen said there were small things that seemed odd but nothing one couldn’t lay at the feet of fear and circumstance.”

The Kai woman’s citrine gaze moved over Ildiko in a slow pass. “She walked out of the woods holding a stick to defend herself. She held it completely wrong.” She sniffed with a haughtiness that made Brishen’s eyebrows rise and Ildiko smile. “I taught you better than that.”

“Hercegesé?”

Sinhue’s question brought Ildiko back to the present, and she smiled at the memory of Anhuset’s defense of her training prowess. “I’m quite well, Sinhue. Nothing a goblet of wine and a bit of sunshine can’t fix.” Her smile widened at the maid’s pinched face, alongside the palpable dismay of the guards at the idea of seeking and finding solace under the summer sun.

“As you say, Hercegesé,” Sinhue said in a most skeptical voice.

Brishen was waiting for her in the great room and instantly pulled her into one of the smaller chambers reserved for meetings. He kicked the door closed with one foot before advancing on her. She backed up, matching his determined stride until halted by the table behind her. He braced a hand on either side of her and leaned in. “I knew I should have gone with you. Or you shouldn’t have gone at all. You’re almost as pale now as when I found you at Orshulgyn.”

His comment echoed Sinhue’s earlier observation. Ildiko thumped his chest with two fingers. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

He snorted. “Surely you jest.” He pulled her close when she slid her arms over his shoulders to embrace him. “I was on my way to the prison to meet you.”

He was solid in her arms in every way, a column of strength upon which she could lean. “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just a sad ending for a once exceptional woman. What she did was wrong in every sense, no matter the motivation behind it. I know this. I still have dreams of waking up in pain with the vultures circling over me. Of seeing her slash Tarawin’s heel and squeeze the blood from the wound. Still…”

Brishen nuzzled her temple with his nose. “I can’t let her live, Ildiko,” he whispered. “This isn’t personal vengeance, though I’ll admit to the desire for it. She abducted you with the intent to murder. And even though we’ve hidden the fact from most, she abducted the queen regnant. Both are crimes against the crown. If I offer clemency, we’ll be fighting not just for the throne but for our lives.”

She kissed the corner of his mouth. “I know. You don’t have to explain. I think she’d refuse clemency anyway. Fate has meted out its own justice.”

They spoke no more of Ineni that day or the day that followed when the sun arced toward the west and Brishen rose quietly from their bed to dress. Ildiko listened to his precise movements, counting in her mind the number of eyelets he laced in his tunic. She pictured his garb behind closed eyelids—a justiciar’s gray outfit, lacking all adornment except for an embroidered crest near the right shoulder identifying the one wearing the outfit as a custodian of Kai law. Or, in this case, an executioner. She suspected he knew she was awake, but he remained quiet, closing the bedroom door behind him with a soft snick.

Her throat closed tight, and a tear slid from the corner of her eye, down her cheek to tickle her ear. She cried for Cephren who grieved a daughter he thought already dead, for Brishen who tasked himself with the grim duty of meting out final justice to that daughter, and for Ineni who exemplified generations of Kai reeling from the loss of their magic.

She didn’t see him again until well after supper. She sat in the solar, sewing at her embroidery frame. Candles in wall sconces illuminated the room, revealing the pair of nurses who watched Tarawin as she played with a set of toys at her mother’s feet. A quick knock that didn’t wait for a reply, and the door swung open to reveal Brishen swaying drunkenly between a servant and a soldier.

The lopsided smile he offered her matched his loose-limbed stance as he canted to one side before the servant caught him. “Hello, Hercegesé,” he said in a slow drawl. “I’ve been looking for you.”

He shook off his escort and crashed to one knee as Tarawin dropped her toy and ran to him with a happy squeal. Ildiko’s heart jumped for a moment when he caught her in his arms, afraid he’d keel over, taking the little girl with him. But Brishen remained steady as he hugged the queen before tickling her into shrieking laughter.

They played together for a few moments until he guided her toward one of the nurses hovering nearby and rose unsteadily to his feet. “I think I need to lie down,” he said between hiccups.

The walk back to their bedchamber was a stumbling jostle as Ildiko took over the role of support pillar from the servant, while the soldier on the other side of Brishen helped her guide her swaying husband down the corridor. Once inside, they lay him on the bed, and the servant helped her undress Brishen before tossing a light cover over him.

Ildiko swiped a hand across her perspiring brow. “You Kai are a heavy lot,” she said and thanked the servant for his help before dismissing him from the room.

Sinhue passed him on the way out, glanced at the herceges sprawled across the bed and brought the empty water basin to Ildiko. “Keep this nearby,” she instructed. “By the reek of spirits in here, he’ll need it sooner or later.” A frown stitched lines into her forehead. “I’ve never known the herceges to overindulge.”

Neither had Ildiko, but she suspected this had been weeks in the making. She stroked his hair back from his face, then slid her hand across his chest to feel the steady thump of his heartbeat. “We’ve dealt with unusual circumstances lately.”

She sent the maid away after assuring her she didn’t need the help with Brishen. Except for his closed eyelid, which twitched, he lay still under the covers. His lips also moved in silent conversation with whomever he dreamed of in the fog of inebriation.

“It must have been a difficult day for you to dive so deep into your cups, my love.” She murmured the words, but he still heard them, for he grasped the hand that stroked his cheek and held it still.

“I drank with Cephren,” he said, “so he might have company while he mourned his daughter, and I might comfort a friend whom I lied to in the name of compassion.” His eye opened, deep yellow and bloodshot. Ildiko, who could never read a Kai’s emotions in their eyes, had no trouble reading the grief in Brishen’s face. “Before she died, Ineni told me she was grateful there was no one with the ability to reap her mortem light. For her father’s sake.”

Ildiko sighed. “I agree with her. It’s a small mercy, but a mercy nonetheless.”

Brishen gave a slow blink and tightened his grip on her hand. “Had there been no other choice, I would have played stud for her, Ildiko. Whatever it took to save you. Would you have forgiven me?”

Her heart raced. This, she thought. This was what had lain silent and poisonous between them since they’d returned to Saggara. She had sensed something troubled Brishen greatly, something he wrestled with and couldn’t speak of until now in a vulnerable moment.

“Forgiveness is warranted when one party has committed a wrongdoing,” she said. “You wouldn’t have need forgiveness.” His hair was silky as she combed it with her fingers. “I’d give you my sympathy instead. My gratitude, my faith, and most of all my sorrow for being subjected to such a thing.” Her heart ached for him. How heavy was this invisible crown.

She kissed him then, tasting the sharp flavor of strong drink. He pulled her down atop him before rolling her beneath him. They lay tangled in the covers until Brishen yanked them aside so that his naked body pressed down on her clothed one. He groaned into her mouth when she deepened the kiss, pulling back briefly to stare at her.

“Claim me,” he commanded in a voice deeper and more guttural than she’d ever heard before.

And she did, over and over until her body shivered from exhaustion and his lay heavy and hot against hers in dreamless sleep.

“Mine,” she whispered, idly stroking his muscular back. “From the moment we met in a rose garden until I take my last breath.” It was her promise to him.