Chapter 17
“If you think about it, the statue trying to kill me is a good sign,” I said, shifting things around on the crude shelf in front of me, digging among the cups and jewellery and knives—I valiantly resisted pocketing them even if my covetous heart lit up at the sight of the delicate blades and elaborate carvings.
When it came down to it, I was too honourable to steal from a dead lady. Zaugustus would be proud.
“You were nearly strangled to death,” Xiona said with flabbergasted dismay, kicking the last of the statue to the mausoleum floor. “How is that good?”
“It means there’s something here Gaia didn’t want anyone to find. You don’t go to these kinds of measures if there’s nothing to hide.”
“Maybe she just didn’t want a common thief wandering in to steal her shit,” Xiona muttered.
“Hey,” I complained, whipping around to glare at her. She was leaning against the wall, sweaty and tired, blowing honey-blonde hair from her face. “Expert thief. Master thief. Thief supreme. Nothing about me is common.”
She snorted. Couldn’t quite keep the smile from her face, until Baby finished sharpening his claws on a bit of rock and plopped himself at my feet. “Your jaevar should be fully healed by now.”
“My … what?” I frowned at Baby. “Is that what he is? Jaevar?”
She made a noise of agreement, looking subdued.
“I’m not at a hundred percent yet,” I admitted.
“That’s probably why he’s taking longer to repair.
” I ruffled his mane, then massaged my fingers into the spot under his chin that made him purr like machinery.
Was he still weak because Cleodora controlled me?
Or because of the stab wound that hadn’t really ever stopped throbbing in my stomach.
Natasya’s words flared through my head, but I snapped them aside. They festered though. Had the wound damaged anything inside me? Could I even have children, if I wanted them?
Xiona didn’t reply. It wasn’t like her to miss an opportunity to insult me, or tell me how stupid I was for getting myself caught and controlled, or how traitorous I was for leading them all to the town square in Azurann.
I buried my fingers in Baby’s fur and wasn’t sure why I said, “I saw my sister. On the steps. I’m guessing it was another defensive feature of the tomb, but… it was unpleasant.”
When I looked up, Xiona was frowning, a furrow between her sharp amber eyes. Her eyes were duller than usual. Flat, like I bet mine were. Emotional warfare would do that to a person. “I thought the sun rose and set on that bitch sister of yours. Why would it be unpleasant?”
I shrugged. “I’m a different person now than when I knew her. This really annoying, sexy goblin forced me to shift everything I believed, and now… she would have hated me.” I laughed, sharp and raw. “Which suits me fine, because I hate everything she stood for.”
“Hm.”
That’s all Xiona said. Hm.
I took a breath and returned to my search, wondering what the fuck Cleodora would care about so much down here.
Sure, there was magic everywhere, but that came from Gaia where she rested inside the tomb, not from any of the junk on the shelves.
Lovely junk, don’t get me wrong, but junk all the same.
“I saw my mother,” Xiona confessed after a minute of me rooting through various riches and weapons.
I froze in surprise but stayed quiet, not wanting to spook her.
For the same reason, I kept my focus on the shelf full of Gaia’s treasured belongings, drawn to a particularly lovely globe showing both goblin and human lands.
“Vile woman. Ex-army. Used to enjoy lining me and my brothers up against a fence for target practice with apples in our hands. If she hit the apple, she’d cheer.
If she missed and the knife sank into me, she’d laugh. ”
Ruthless gods. And I thought I’d had it bad with my asshole uncle. I rubbed my thumb over my bottom lip, keeping words trapped inside. Xiona didn’t strike me as the type to enjoy platitudes or pity.
“That’s what the staircase showed me. Mother lining up to take a shot at me, spewing her regular insults.”
I peeked over my shoulder. “Do you want me to kill her for you? My troupe is very good at tracking people. I bet we could find her within the week.”
Xiona’s grim mouth twitched. She wasn’t looking at me, her attention fixed instead on the flat slab that covered Gaia’s tomb. “No need. She drank herself to death.”
“Good.”
Xiona raised her eyebrows at my frank tone. I held her stare without flinching, without judgement. We all had demons inside us, fucking with our heads. Lucky me, I had figurative and literal demons.
Speaking of literal… It had been a while since I heard Cleodora. I wondered if this room blocked her connection like the Chamber of Truths. Gaia certainly watched over both.
“Help me search this shit,” I said after a moment of silence. “I’m having no luck finding anything worthwhile.”
“Have you considered,” Xiona said, “and don’t let this hurt your feelings, that you might have hallucinated the whole vision?”
I shot her a glare as she came to stand beside me, sheathing her sword. “My hallucination led us to a mausoleum that no one’s accessed in years.”
“Beginner’s luck.”
I laughed. Loudly. “Wow.”
“You know, there are stories about this place,” she mused, her expression turning serious.
“It’s rumoured that the first true stone of power was laid to rest with Gaia herself.
” She shook her head. “That can’t actually be Gaia in the sarcophagus.
She’s a goddess. A goddess. We didn’t just happen upon her tomb. ”
“Pretty sure she gave me a vision so we could find it.”
“Nah, she’d give it to someone more impressive and powerful than you. That was straight-up delusion.”
I laughed again, partly affronted, partly charmed that she was talking to me the same way she spoke to Rook and Kier. Like I was part of the gang now.
“And if she wanted you to find it, why would her effigy attack you?”
Huh. She had a point. “Just keep looking. There has to be something here.”
There had to be, because I’d pinned too much hope on it. Because I didn’t know how else to get Cleodora permanently out of my head. Because I didn’t know what she’d command me to do next.
“Xiona,” I said, quieter, serious. “If I’m compelled to—” Blood filled my mouth. Great. “If it’s really bad, and I’m going to hurt someone. If I’m going to hurt Kier, and no one can get through to me…”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”
“I’m not killing Kier’s wife. He’ll never recover.”
“Apparently you do know what I’m going to ask,” I muttered, lifting a shield to search the pile of axes beneath it. Very nice, high quality, but not throbbing with magical power. Not something a tyrant queen might desire.
“Get someone else to kill you. I’m not making that promise.”
I shrugged. “Just thought it’d be easier for you, since you despise me.”
“Kier’s been through enough. You love him; he deserves that love. So no, I won’t kill you. But I will help you find a way to stop this. The mausoleum’s a dead end, though.”
“I know,” I sighed, looking at the dark staircase again, longing for Kier. Ruthless gods, what had I become? Sighing, gazing longingly, pining for my husband when we’d only been apart an hour.
Valour knocked her head against my thigh, shifting from lazy boredom to intent in a second.
“What?” I asked her, brushing a hand down her sleek spine. She didn’t arch into the touch like normal, her attention fixed on the doorway. “More statues to fight? Or is it a sea monster from the lake this time?”
“Wouldn’t they be lake monsters?” Xiona drawled.
I gave her the middle finger, and startled when Valour pressed an image into my mind.
The doorway, the darkness beyond it, and hanging above the entrance: a gleaming silver sword with an egg-sized sapphire in the crossguard and flowing script etched down the fuller.
Far older than any language I’d seen since marrying Kier.
I didn’t recognise a single slanting character in the alphabet used to etch it.
The grip was wrapped in silk the colour of lapis, and the pommel studded with tiny sapphires that, I just bet, would glow if magic was passed through them.
I grinned, picturing that sword in my hand, imagining how it would feel to wield something so beautiful and deadly. So historical.
Maybe I wasn’t above stealing from a dead woman after all.
When the image faded, I fixed my stare above the door. And saw nothing but old black stones. “There’s nothing there,” I told Valour with a frown.
She shoved the picture into my head again. There is.
“What are you looking at?” Xiona muttered, stalking to my side, her hand on her own sword like she expected threats, too.
“Valour says there’s a sword above the entrance. Right there.” I pointed.
Xiona looked from the empty stretch of dark stone to me, a sceptical eyebrow raised. “She’s as delusional as you.”
Valour snapped her teeth at Xiona. Xiona snapped hers back.
“There could be a glamour over it,” I mused. “One that Valour can see through. Baby?”
“Still think it’s ridiculous you named a jaevar Baby.”
Baby’s hackles raised. He pressed closer to me, shooting Xiona a feline look that managed to translate to a scowl. He really lived up to his name, cosying up to his mother when a strange woman said something mean. I rested my hand on his blue mane.
“Can you see the sword, too?” I asked him.
He yawned and rubbed his face on my knee, his eyelids heavy. Still weak, still recovering. A pang went through my chest, but he distracted me with the same image Valour showed, though from a much lower angle.
“He sees it, too,” I confirmed, and Xiona, to her credit, nodded and reassessed the doorway. “Are you afraid of heights?”
“Why?” Xiona narrowed her eyes, her back as stiff as a rod. “Why?”
I just grinned, a plan coming together.