Chapter 32 Tobi
TOBI
THE brIDE HOUSE, CERULEUM
Tobi stands outside the door to his mother’s chamber and takes a breath.
Doroth Zain has told him much that he is struggling to order in his mind.
Including the fact his father is dead. Killed by a gang of ruffians after gold when he went out alone to visit a pillow house.
It seems, Tobi thinks, a fitting way for him to die.
The father he barely knew. But there was so much more.
A strange letter from Damon and Lukas, that Doroth Zain read to him.
Explaining that they were in Attar and he should join them, for he was in danger.
That danger, Doroth Zain explained, was partly from Chancellor Vindar, but more gravely, because Tobi and his brothers are part of some great prophecy. Diazuul is not done with him.
Since that long conversation, with Harok sitting beside him patiently, though he understood not a single word of it and Tobi struggled to explain what Doroth Zain was saying in Ambolk, Tobi has been to the Bride House stableyard to fetch Baby.
He needs her beside him for this. His fingers press into her fur as she stands at his side, Harok and Doroth Zain behind him, about to see his mother.
His mother, Doroth Zain has also told him, is gravely ill. Her madness grown so acute that the Brides of Zai struggle to get her to eat or stop her harming herself.
He dreads what he will find, but he steps through the door.
Mareena sits on a small hard chair beside a window that looks down on the narrow streets of Ceruleum.
In the distance Tobi can see the Ivory Palace, the glittering towers that according to Doroth Zain, will soon be the property of his nephew Umbert, presumed to be named Crown Prince of Azuria at Atticul’s ascension.
Atticul is Emperor. Selim was killed four days ago. By Lukas. Tobi finds himself considering, that once, his only reaction to this news would be to wonder if this ought to be something he adds to his performances.
Mareena looks up as Tobi walks in. She stares at him, her expression blank.
“Mother?” Tobi says.
Mareena’s pale hair is wild and tangled around her face; her dark skin sunken and grey. She simply continues to stare at Tobi. She does not know him.
Tobi can’t stop his tears. This is why he stopped coming to see her. He cannot bear this. He turns and finds Harok behind him. He presses his face to Harok’s chest. He is sobbing and Harok holds him, drawing him in tight to the warmth and strength of the body of his Irgorye.
But then, from behind him, “Ashaki?”
Tobi pulls out of Harok’s embrace and turns. Mareena is leaning down from her chair, holding out her arms to Baby. And Baby is padding forward.
“She knows your beast, Suskara,” Harok says in a low voice.
Tobi watches as Baby reaches Mareena and she buries her face in soft fur.
“Yes,” Tobi says, tearfully. He watches his mother fussing and petting Baby, then says, “Ashaki. Mother it’s me. Tobi. Tobi and Ashaki.”
Mareena looks up. She looks at Tobi and says, “Tobi?” but she sounds unsure.
Tobi looks at Harok. “She knows Baby, but she does not know me,” he says in Ambolk.
Harok just nods.
Tobi turns to Doroth Zain. When he looks to him, he realises something, he sees it in Doroth Zain’s face. There is more to this. It sickens him. He swallows and says, “You know don’t you? You know what caused her madness.”
Doroth Zain nods. “I do, yes.”
Doroth Zain does not explain further, so Tobi says, “Irgo Harok thinks it might have been something that happened to her in the Rose Palace. And, I had a vision of her, while I was in the forest. She told me that she touched the statues in Selim’s shrine and the evil sent her into madness.”
Doroth Zain nods. “How it happened, I do not know, but when some of the strange words she was saying were reported to me by the Brides who cared for your mother, we came to understand that somehow, a piece of Ur-Durik had lodged itself in her. It is what caused her madness. That shard of darkness inside her.”
Tobi looks at his mother with wide eyes.
So it is true. The same demon that was inside Harok, caused his mother’s madness.
A shard of the demon that almost destroyed his lover is what caused his mother to lose her mind.
He turns around to Harok and says in Ambolk.
“Diazuul piece inside mother. From statues in Attar.”
Harok looks at Tobi for a moment, his expression moving from blankness to confusion as if he is unsure what Tobi has said.
But then he nods. He walks across the room to Mareena and bends to look into her eyes.
Mareena does not react to him, as if he is not there at all. Softly Harok says, “Diazuul?”
Mareena’s eyes suddenly open wider. They look dark. Her expression changes. She is smiling at Harok. She lifts a hand and reaches for Harok’s cheek. Harok jumps back, out of reach. When he turns to look at Tobi, his face is pale.
“Diazuul,” he says again. A soft confirmation.
Tobi swallows hard. He looks at Doroth Zain. “Diazuul, Ur-Durik, was inside Harok until four days ago.”
“It is only a shard of Ur-Durik that lives inside your mother. Such a small piece that the demon probably does not even know what has happened.”
“So where is the demon now? Where is the creature that was inside Harok? When the demon left his body, I saw it connect with those statues in the shrine somehow and rush through a tear in the world. I don’t know exactly what happened.”
Doroth Zain nods, “The details of those events were not in the prophetic writings we have. We knew from them that Ur-Durik would rise before the end of the 200th year since Sarelik Darek took power in Azuria. But the shard inside your mother allowed us to discover what Ur-Durik has done. It was as you saw. Diazuul, Ur-Durik used you as a conduit to connect those statues and emerge in Selim’s private shrine in the Rose Palace.
I believe he meant to take possession of Selim, a devout believer he had been preparing to be his new host for years.
His intention was always to create an empire that worshiped him and then take control of it.
But before he could possess Selim’s body, Selim was killed, assassinated in his shrine by your brother Lukas.
Instead he entered the body of Atticul. Who will ascend as Emperor.
He is already acting as such. I have received communication to that effect.
Ur-Durik rules in Azuria, as was always his plan, although not through the host he intended.
Thanks to Lukas. But he has his empire, devoted to his worship. His power will be unmatched.”
“Because Diazuul is Zai,” Tobi says, feeling almost unwell to say such heresy in a Bride House. And to Doroth Zain.
But Doroth Zain simply nods.
“And you know all this because of my mother?”
“We have many sources of knowledge. The fae, Perlash-zeren-ai was charged to defend the world from Ur-Durik by his father. A prophet and philosopher. We have some of his writings which told us much. We have discovered more in the Rose Palace, that we are working to translate from Old Magaar. But the Shard is our greatest source of knowledge. Your mother has a connection to Ur-Durik. A true deep connection that is very valuable. Through her we can track what the demon does. The Shard also knows the location of all of the reborn fae princes, including you. We can keep track of you all, through her.”
And then Tobi realises what Doroth Zain is saying to him. He glances over at Harok, still standing beside his mother, his big body outlined in the light from the window. “You need her like this. This madness is valuable to you?”
Doroth Zain simply nods.
“When you discovered the cause of what was happening to her, you did not try to cure it, did you? You simply used it in your battle?”
“What we battle is unimaginable horror, leaving it in place isn’t a choice anyone made lightly.”
Tobi looks at Harok. In Ambolk he says, “Diazuul inside her give information to them. They want her madness.”
Harok nods. “To have the demon inside you. It will cause problems for the mind.”
Tobi looks back at his mother. His mother who does not know him, her fingers still buried in Baby’s fur. “You have to take it out,” Tobi says in Artemian.
Doroth Zain shakes his head. “Ur-Durik reigns in Attar. We need the Shard. If we take it from her it will be lost to us.”
Tobi swallows a sour taste in his mouth.
“But you could take it out. You know how.” He looks at Harok again.
Demonica glints on his back. Tobi remembers Harok’s chamber in Urynwud, holding that sword to his chest. Could he use that sword to free the shard of Diazuul from his mother?
“You left a shard of a demon inside her while it broke her mind.”
“Tobi, we did not have a choice. There is no reason to think that removing it would even help her now.”
“But you know how to take it out.” Tobi looks up at Doroth Zain. Doroth Zain is a head taller than Tobi. But Tobi puffs out his chest and pulls back his shoulders.
He can feel himself shaking as Harok comes over and touches his back, then slides his arms around Tobi’s body.
Harok’s strong arms don’t feel like a comfort in this moment, as they usually do, the turmoil and rage inside him are too strong.
He glances at his mother by the window, stroking Baby and staring quite peacefully at nothing at all. “Take it out of her.”
“It would doom the world. You would trade one woman’s mind for the lives of all men?”
“My mother’s mind,” Tobi says, but his voice is shaking now. Doroth Zain is right. There is no real choice here.
“Suskara?” Harok says.
Tobi turns to Harok, eyes blurring with tears. “They will not help her,” he says. “She tells them what Diazuul plans. If they took the shard out of her they would lose their connection to the demon.”
In a calm, low voice, Harok says, “Can they take it out of your mother and place it in another?”
Tobi stares back. Realising with a sick flip of horror that there is a choice after all. And a far worse one. “Irgorye no,” Tobi whispers. Harok only freed himself from the demon a matter of days ago.
Harok turns to Doroth Zain. In heavily-accented Artemian he says, “Take demon out mother. Put in me.”
“I don’t know if that is possible,” Doroth Zain says, sounding quite shocked to hear Harok speak to him in Artemian.
“He cant do it,” Tobi says to Harok in Ambolk.
“He can,” Harok says. “Tell him to do it.”
“I won’t.”
“I had whole beast inside me for a score of years. I can take piece.”
Tobi shakes his head. He cannot make this choice. He chokes around the words. “No. It will send you mad like mother.” He points at Mareena.
“No. I will not. It did not. There is no man in the world who can hold Diazuul inside better than I.” Harok takes hold of both Tobi’s hands in his own. “Suskara, for your mother.”
Tobi swallows hard; he cannot speak.
“Suskara,” Harok says in a low, dark tone, “must I command you as your Irgorye?”
Tobi shakes his head again. But then stops.
He looks up at his beautiful forest king.
He sees such love in Harok’s eyes. A tenderness that takes his breath, blurred through his tears.
All he can do then is stretch on tiptoe and kiss Harok.
He does not mean it to be a heated kiss, just a soft press of his lips to Harok’s, but he finds himself softening in Harok’s big arms, overwhelmed with so much emotion, but under it all, through it all, he has Harok.
Harok loves him. He has Harok as he never had anyone before.
And Harok would do this for him. Doom himself all over again.
As he pulls back from the kiss, ready to tell Doroth Zain what he is to do, the door to the chamber opens to reveal the dark-haired woman he now knows to be Princess Karo. His father’s first wife.
She looks a little shocked to have seen Tobi and Harok kissing, but gathers herself quickly to address Doroth Zain. “Word of Zai, Perlash-zeren-ai is here.”
“Perlash. He is here? In Ceruleum? Does he have The Magician?”
Karo shakes her head. “No. He has brought The Warrior. And his consort. And the consort of the Thief."