Chapter 18
Eighteen
Asahi hissed, ending on a series of soft clicks.
Sagam rushed forward, but Asahi shoved him aside in one swift movement, spinning to face us. When he turned, he tore the mask off his face, the skin of his cheek rising and falling like a sea serpent that crested the water and then dove back beneath.
“You fool. Did you think you could best me?” His question was so vicious, so cruel, that I took a step forward, adjusting my grip on my blade. The long walk and the tension ratcheting my muscles with every step left me too slow, and he was far too fast.
He barreled into me, hitting me so hard that he sent Na? flying, her body dropping somewhere further down the tunnel.
I brought my sword up, but his thick armor blocked the blade. My wolf’s claw scraped across it, bouncing off. I rolled out from under him, and he sprinted forward, one foot touching the wall of the cave as he dove down on top of me.
But I wasn’t alone. Sagam had his blade ready, lurching forward to shove it into Asahi’s chest.
At the last moment, Asahi arched unnaturally, his spine cracking as he nearly bent in two. He fell, landing with one hand on the ground, the other still gripping his sword. He bounded to his feet, facing us.
A bolt of lightning hit him straight in the face, his skin nearly going translucent. Tallu was panting, blood dripping from his nose. He let loose another bolt, but Asahi was no longer there, and it went harmlessly into the wall. Asahi lunged, and Sagam hit him so hard that they both tumbled.
Struggling out from under his lover, Asahi reached for Tallu. He was hissing and spitting, a thousand voices echoing in my ears.
Desperately, trying for some relief, I reached out with ice, needing Asahi to slow for just a second.
For half a moment, he froze, his legs not answering him, and that was all Sagam needed.
Sagam dove on top of his lover, pinning those writhing shoulders with his knees.
I called on the ice again, trying to still Asahi’s thrashing body.
Sagam raised a dagger, his hand shaking before he clenched his jaw and sliced down the exposed portion of Asahi’s nape, his blade swift. He reached into Asahi’s neck, pulling something free from the long slice he had made along Asahi’s spine.
It writhed, a thousand legs scrabbling helplessly in the air.
It tilted back its head, sharp fangs about to bite Sagam’s hand, and Asahi pushed up onto all fours, unseating Sagam and distracting the insect.
Asahi stood, grabbing the insect in one motion and throwing it to the ground.
He smashed his foot on it over and over again, until all that was left of the creature was a thousand pieces of its crushed carapace.
Asahi stumbled back, landing hard on the ground, panting. Sagam knelt like a supplicant in front of him, cradling Asahi’s face in his hands.
“My love, have you come back to me?”
The question was so broken and so honest that I wanted to turn away, to give them a moment of privacy. But Na? approached, bending down to sniff at what was left of the creature.
Asahi was not crying, but his breath came unevenly. Sagam’s hands fell away as he pushed himself forward, prostrating himself on the ground in front of Tallu.
“Your Imperial Majesty, I should die for the offense of attacking you.” He trembled, blood still seeping from where Sagam had sliced along his spine. It wasn’t deep enough to do mortal injury, but I knew it needed to be treated soon.
“Did you attack me?” Tallu asked. “Because I think it is clear you did not. Rise and tell me what happened.”
The Kennelmaster groaned. I inched around Asahi where he knelt in front of Tallu. Sagam sat beside him, one hand trembling as he reached up to gently run his fingers along his lover’s neck. I found the Kennelmaster a few feet away, collapsed on the ground.
He had crawled to the wall of the tunnel, but the wound Asahi had given him was deep, and he hissed through his teeth when I pulled at his hand, trying to see it.
“When Prince Airón and I were attacked at the Mountainside Palace, one of the creatures bit me.” Asahi lifted his hand to his neck.
The wound had scarred over, the skin pink in the lamplight.
“I had a fever, and I could hear the doctors and Sagam, but it was from a very great distance. By the time Your Imperial Majesty announced he wanted to leave, I was feeling well enough to do so, even if my head still buzzed from what I assumed was infection. It was not.”
I turned my attention back to the Kennelmaster, loosening his armor and pulling up his shirt to reveal his chest. He panted, face waxy and sweaty in the lamplight.
Asahi must have nicked something vital, though I couldn’t be sure what, not with the poor lighting and adrenaline making my vision jittery.
“At first,” Asahi continued, “I was hearing voices, just sounds, whispers. I thought the fever must be coming back. But we were on our journey, and I knew that I wasn’t getting the rest I needed to sweat out a fever.”
I glanced over my shoulder. We never should have brought him. We should have left him at the Mountainside Palace, where Dr. Jafopo could have treated him.
“Then one day, I woke up and the fever was gone, and my neck was healed. I thought it was over. But the voices continued, and worse, they began to sound like me. It was as though I was thinking those terrible things. The thoughts echoed in my own mind, horrible, vicious things.” Asahi shook his head, as though to knock even their echoes free of his brain.
“At night, it was worse. And I could feel the thing, crawling around in my head, making a nest of my skull. I could see things through it, too. Pieces of the Imperium and Krustau.”
“What do you mean?” Tallu asked. His expression was still blank, the model of an emperor, but I could hear the underlying tension in his words. This was magic beyond anything we had seen before.
“This creature is old.” Asahi looked to the side where he had crushed it under his boot. “I believe it is one of the…” He hesitated, closing his eyes before he continued. “I believe it is one of the animalia.”
The silence in the tunnel was so great that the loudest sound was the Kennelmaster’s uneven breaths.
“The animalia.” I heard consideration rather than judgment in Tallu’s voice.
Na?, finished sniffing at the scattered fragments of the insect, tilted her head, using a single paw to nudge pieces of it apart. “I agree with him. This is no mortal creature. The magic on it tastes old. Older than my kind. Old enough to have created the world.”
I started to repeat what she had said, but Tallu raised a hand. “I heard her.”
“This is not good,” she said finally.
“What is it?” I asked.
“If it is one of the animalia, you cannot beat it.” She looked down the tunnel in the direction we were walking. “Perhaps this is how I will die, killed by a creature even the One Dragon didn’t have the strength to end.”
Asahi and Sagam both looked struck, but neither said anything.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” the Kennelmaster said, “I can go no further. I must return to the Lakeshore Palace.”
Tallu turned his head, his face moving out of the lamplight. I couldn’t read his expression. “The injury is that bad?”
“Yes.”
I glanced at Na?. Could she heal him? When she looked back at me, I could see the judgment on her face. She would, if I asked. She would heal him, but it would be a risk to herself and it would mean that if she needed her magic to heal Tallu later, she might not have it.
The memory of the painful risk I had taken with magic, overextending myself, echoed in my chest, gripping my heart tightly. I wouldn’t risk her or Tallu.
The blood monks, having faded into the background of the tunnel during the fight, stepped forward.
Lerolian looked down at the Kennelmaster.
“He is not so far gone that he will die for certain, but we can feel the edges of his death lingering on him. If he does not go back, you’re sentencing him to his death. ”
“Go back,” Tallu said. He looked at Asahi and Sagam. “Return with him.”
“Your Imperial Majesty—” Asahi’s voice was broken. “I understand that I have no right to demand your trust, but I believe I am free of the accursed creature now.”
“I have no reason to doubt your words or your loyalty,” Tallu said. “But I also have no reason to demand two men who are grievously injured attend me on my fool’s errand.”
“I have sworn my life to you,” Sagam said. “They may be injured, but I am not, and I will not leave you when you need me.”
“As one who has very recently come to understand what it means to lose your heart to another, I cannot ask you to let one half of your heart return to the palace while the other half continues with me.” Tallu’s face was still in shadow, his words implacable.
“Go with your lover. Return to me once he has been treated.”
There were more protests, but Tallu was emperor, and his words held the inevitability of fate.
When their shuffling footsteps faded down the tunnel, I turned to Tallu.
“Are you sure that was wise?” I whispered.
I wasn’t really questioning him, more staring down the darkness of the tunnel ahead, realizing that now it was simply the two of us against the entire nation of Krustau. Tallu turned to me.
In the lamplight, his expression was drawn and pained. “What? You do not think we can take on a few dwarves?”
“I can take on as many dwarves as you want. It’s your stepmother that I fear.
That woman’s fangs are sharper than a sea serpent’s and her venom even more poisonous.
” I picked up the remaining lamp, glad it was electric and hadn’t extinguished during the fight.
Raising the light, I checked the path we needed to travel but saw nothing but dirt.
Because I had the light, I started down the tunnel with Tallu trailing behind me, dancing shadows and a pair of blood monks ahead of us.