Chapter Thirty-Six. Gin
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
GIN
Darius is wearing Rollo’s clothes. He’s even wearing Rollo’s signet ring. “Darius,” I demand, “what’s going on?” Even though, deep in my soul, I know. I know. I know why he always felt safe and familiar. But how is it possible?
As if in answer, his skin begins to … change. It turns pallid, like he’s about to be ill. There’s movement beneath his skin.
I step back, appalled. “What—” I can’t get another word out.
It’s as if something is alive in him, moving around. My stomach turns.
His face begins to morph, twisting in awful, unnatural ways, and his arms and legs contract, shrinking and stretching like dough.
His fingers spread before curling back up and settling into something different than they were before.
I don’t want to look at the horror, yet I can’t turn away. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Darius’s body jerks, lengthens. He’s taller, thinner. His arms and legs snap into place. The figure starts becoming familiar. His hair turns lighter, his eyes, too. Finally, his face settles.
Darius has transformed into … Rollo.
My mind spins. Rollo is Darius. Darius is Rollo.
There is an Ophir above the waves who is bonded to the trickster god.… they do not heed the call of the Drowned City.
But Rollo is Laconian. How can he command the relic?
Rollo shakes his arms and legs around like his limbs fell asleep and he has to wake them up. “Ah,” he sighs. “Much better.” He smiles at my horrified expression.
I’m stunned. How stupid I’ve been, to trust not only Darius, but Rollo as well. Eban’s animosity toward him was deserved all along. Darius is a fraud.
He paces a few steps, back and forth, as if he’s contemplating a confounding problem.
“The relics cannot go anywhere other than to House Eternal. I cannot allow it. House Dominant hid this secret from the council for too long. And now they will pay.” He shakes his head, like an adult disappointed with an errant child.
“House Eternal will channel the power of the gods. My Ophir will bond with each relic as needed and serve my house for the good of all the people of Lacon and Ophir.”
“For the good of the people? Have you forgotten that your mother tried to kill me, Rollo?”
“Let’s clear something up. Lady Ariadne is not my mother.” He pulls up the sleeve of his shirt and displays his forearm. He bears the double diamond mark of Ophir royalty.
I stare at it, speechless.
“My ancestor was the last court wizard of Ophir,” Rollo explains.
“I have the blood of a magician. When I was an orphaned child, the Matriarch of Lacon—Lady Ariadne—found me on the streets.
She recognized the mark, understood its promise.
After five hundred years, Lacon finally understood the secret of the relics, that only an Ophir could wield them if they were ever found.
“And she did find one. A strange bottle with a glowing light sold in the market, that no one could touch directly. She wrapped it in cloth and took it home, and waited. You could almost say the relic found me, as it was in her possession when she came upon me in the street. So she brought me home and raised me as her own child when hers succumbed to the fever. It benefited both of us. I lived a better life than I otherwise would have, and she gained the possibility of access to Ophir magic. Something no other house had.” As he says this, the mark slowly disappears until there’s no indication it was ever there.
“Her gamble paid off. I was able to bond with the spirit and attain its power. In return for helping Lady Ariadne, I enjoy the privileges of House Eternal, the abundant coin and influence, and all I have to do in return is keep the Matriarch’s secret, that she took in an Ophir, one who wears her dead son’s face.
The status and access to wealth allows me to tend to the Lashing and help our people.
Don’t you understand that? I’m doing this all for the good of the people. It benefits us all.”
“Eban always suspected that the raids—why the Lashing is always found—they’re because of you. You tell them where it is,” I say. “Of course you do. You supply them with the servants they need. You’re disgusting. You’re not Ophir. You disgrace the mark you carry.”
“As far as I know, I’m the only one keeping our people alive,” he snarls. “Do you know how often I’ve had to argue not to tear down the Sleeve and eradicate everyone in it? Lacon is done with us; they wish they had finished the job five hundred years ago.”
“You’re nothing but the worst kind of coward. A collaborator. A traitor.”
“Didn’t I save your life?” he asks, looking pained. “Have I not proved my devotion? As you said, I set you free at great personal risk. And when you were in the Lashing, I tried to protect you. I even sent a Blackcoat to fetch you during the attack.”
He sighs. “I’ve done nothing but try to keep you safe.
And now I’m offering you a place at my side.
” He kneels before me. “Imagine it. Do you remember the wonderful nights we spent at House Eternal? The comforts? The riches? I know you enjoyed it. I know you didn’t want to leave.
I know you dream of a soft, easy life. You’re tired of running, you’re tired of killing.
Oh yes, I know exactly who you are, Gineth Strong.
And now you can return to our great golden palace and have everything you lost, and more.
Much more. Think of it. With the power of the relics, we can usurp Lady Ariadne and take the entire city for ourselves.
You’ll have more wealth than you could ever dream of.
More than I ever dreamed of, in fact. Think of the charity we could offer the people of the Lashing. ”
“Charity,” I say flatly.
“Yes!” he exclaims. He thinks I’m pleased by his little speech. “Isn’t that what you want? To help our people?”
I scoff and shake my head, eyes closed. “Yeah, Rollo. I do want to help our people. But you’re wrong.
I don’t want to do it the way that you do.
For your own satisfaction. Or amusement, rather.
Whatever you want to call it. The way you puff yourself up and show off.
You’re actually nothing but a hypocrite.
You only pretend to help people, from your comfortable estate.
You hand out scraps to make yourself look good, but you don’t actually want anything to change, because you benefit from it.
From the wealth and from the appearance of charity. ”
He winces. “It hurts that you would believe such a thing,” he says. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever brought home, Gin. The only one I’ve ever loved.” He holds his hand out to me. “I’ve been waiting for this moment. I know you feel the same way. Join me.”
I back away from him. “No. Never.”
Rollo’s face falls. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” he says sadly.
In a way, I don’t blame him. Rollo only knows the old Gin.
It makes sense that he’d think I’d go along with this scheme.
The old Gin would have taken that offer in a heartbeat, without question.
Yes, I have to admit to myself, even after he lied and pretended to be someone else, the old Gin would still have gone with him rather than go back to the streets.
I was so desperate back then, none of that would’ve mattered.
Rollo offers me everything I lacked growing up. Everything I once desired. Security. Wealth, comfort, power.
He waits for my answer, like he expects—or hopes—I’ll still change my mind.
But I’m not the same girl Lady Ariadne found in his bed just a week ago.
That girl didn’t know anything about Ophir, nothing about our history.
That girl believed she was nothing but a gutter rat, content to live on scraps.
But after what I’ve seen today, I can never be that girl again.
I could never live in his shallow palace of gold.
That kind of comfort is never satisfying.
There’s always an emptiness to it. An undercurrent of guilt.
One that the nobles try to erase by piling on more and more of the same.
More food. More wine. More opulence. Like this very palace, full of bizarre toys, far more than necessary to be interesting, past extravagant, bordering on terrifying.
All those automatons that could finance food and shelter for the thousands of poverty-stricken Ophir children begging in the streets. Really, actually feed them, not just throw them a candy, like Rollo does whenever he needs to tell himself he’s a good person.
It was wrong of me to accept his handouts then, and it’s even more wrong now, after what I’ve seen and learned.
Rollo doesn’t understand that, which means he doesn’t understand me.
I’m still just a pet to him. A project. No—a toy, like the automatons in House Dominant.
Like those toys, I’d be relegated to the discard pile of a dusty storage room once I cease to amuse him anymore, or work exactly the way he wants me to.
It only confirms my feelings that much more.
Rollo isn’t the man I thought he was. He never was.
“I wish you would change your mind, Gin,” he says. “I thought I knew you.”
I clench my jaw and my eyes narrow. “No, Rollo, you don’t know me at all.”